Lauscha, 21 September 1892
Dear Steven,
I am counting the days until we see one another again the way a child counts the days to Christmas!
Your Ruth
22
It was Sunday evening in the fifth week of the six they had to complete the baubles. Marie had sensed for the first time that the glances thrown their way at church that morning had been a little less hostile. Perhaps Lauscha was gradually getting used to the idea that a woman could blow glass. As she raised her voice with all the others in a hymn, she felt that she could finally sing with an open heart once more. When they left church, Thomas was waiting as usual and tried to take Ruth aside. All she did was look him up and down and then leave him standing there. With Peter next to her and all the parishioners around, Thomas did not dare drag Ruth away by the arm or make a scene. The painful moment passed.
Once they got home, they no longer had a spare minute. As so often recently, the mood was tense: the long hours of work side by side had begun to eat away at their patience and good cheer. Hardly a day passed without some quarrel. Wanda had just begun teething, and her constant crying only heightened the tension. The situation had grown especially bad that Sunday. While Wanda shrieked and wept, Ruth gave her sage tea and smiled blissfully. She seemed to have not a care in the world.
Marie glanced up from the lamp several times, looking askance at the other two. She could feel a tension in her cheekbones. Quiet! All she wanted was a little quiet.
When Wanda could not be soothed either by tea or kind words, Ruth said, “She probably doesn’t like the smell of the Epsom salts.” She looked reproachfully at Marie as she spoke, as though her sister had invented the technique expressly to upset Wanda. Some of the Christmas baubles were dipped into a mixture of British gum and Epsom salts and then put out in a cool place to dry. The effect was marvelous; the salts formed crystals as the solution dried and looked like a fine layer of ice covering the glass. Mr. Woolworth had been especially taken by these globes.
“Then pick it up and put it somewhere else! Nobody’s forcing you to sit down with Wanda right by the dipping pail,” Marie grumbled in reply.
When Ruth took the baby upstairs for her lunchtime nap, Marie and Johanna breathed a sigh of relief.
“I couldn’t have put up with that for much longer. How is anyone supposed to concentrate on work with all that crying?” Marie said, reaching for a rod of glass and warming it in the flame.
“That’s what it’s like with a baby in the house. Don’t believe you cried any less. And Father still managed to get his work done.”
“Father! I’m not Father!” As the glass began to glow orange-red, Marie took the rod from the flame, carefully set the cool end to her lips, and blew life into the glass. Although by now she had blown thousands of globes, it was always a special moment for her when the rod began to swell and take on a new shape. For a moment she forgot all about Wanda’s crying and concentrated on her breath and on turning the globe around on its stem. Once it was exactly the same size as all the others, she took the rod from her lips. She used the tongs to expertly bring the globe’s tail back in on itself to form a little loop for hanging on the tree. Then she gave the whole thing one last critical look and put it aside. She smiled.
“Watch the merry man dance, my dear, see him grin from ear to ear . . .” Ruth’s voice reached them, bright and clear from upstairs.
Marie rolled her eyes.
“No sooner does the little one stop crying than Ruth starts making a racket. She’s so cheerful it’s quite disgusting. There must be something amazing in those letters she carries about and reads at every possible moment. How else can you explain the fact that she goes around smiling all the time?”
“You’re being oversensitive,” Johanna said, shaking her head in disapproval. “Just be glad she’s feeling happy. After all she’s been through.”
“I’m fed up with it,” Marie burst out. “I can’t take any more of being told to spare someone this or consider her feelings about that. Everybody in this house gets special treatment but me. Neither of you care that I’m doing most of the work for this order. I’ve had no more than four hours’ sleep a night for weeks on end. But nobody considers my feelings! After all, I haven’t had anything horrible happen to me.” Marie knew that she was being unfair but there was nothing she could do to stop the words tumbling out.
Ruth had come quietly into the room.
“What are you bleating away about down here? You sound like an old goat.” She walked over to Marie and made to put her hand on her arm, but her sister brushed it away sharply.