Source: Das Nordlicht, 8 Januar 1925 · 📰

Letter to Editor: Raleigh, Grant County, ND December 1924

Continuation —-

“You must try to get over your loss, dear woman. Don’t make life so hard on yourself and your fellowman. Every business person sooner or later has to tally up losses, such is life!”

“Losses, what kind of losses? I am not letting you get away with a third of a penny less than my asking price,” Mrs. Buntspecht shouted, as she became suspicious and thought the doctor wanted to barter down her price.

“You know what the price of a tub of butter is, and that’s it! Now where is my money?”

“Dear lady, not so fast. First tell me the tale about your tub of butter.”

“What’s there to tell? By the good Lord in heaven, a rich man like you should be able to afford my price without haggling! I have to leave now so please pay up. You owe me 26 talers and 20 silver pennies.”

“Calm now, dear lady. Don’t get excited. I only have your best interest in mind,” said the doctor as he gently took Mrs. Buntspecht’s wrist to feel her pulse.

“I don’t need your best interest, dear doctor. All I want is my money for the butter and that’s it!”

“Later, later,” smiled the doctor.

“I don’t have the time to waste with nonsense. Such behavior is quite unseemly for a man of your status and age. Just let me have the money.”

“The lady is insane,” muttered the doctor. Then he said aloud, “Be patient now. Let me talk with your nephew one more time.”

“Nephew? The doctor must be crazy,” muttered the butter woman.

“Farewell, dear lady.”

“Farewell? What farewell? What about my money for the butter?” yelled Mrs. Buntspecht and turned red with rage.

“Next time,” smiled the doctor, “next time.”

“Next time, not today?” yelled Mrs. Buntspecht. “You Christmas candle, you good for nothing hood. What kind of a doctor is he anyway? Sits in a big house with a manservant and his daughter about to marry the Baron von Brennessel, but he refuses to pay for the butter he has bought? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, you stingy old coot? I want my money this instance!” she screamed while the doctor ducked behind an armchair, scared by the verbal onslaught and the threatening posture of the woman.

“Just go, please! Call in your nephew from the waiting room.”

“My nephew? What kind of nonsense is that? Why should he be here? My nephew, the redhead Laefler, he is my only one. He works in the factory of Noah Stoeckel. His second job is heating man for the widow of the late Mr. Hering so no more excuses. Give me my money!”

“Dear St. Nikolaus, I wish I were a mouse and could hide!” breathed the doctor, deeply scared now of the hefty crazy woman. He very much regretted not having the nephew present now.

“Dear lady,” he began, speaking as mildly as if addressing an angel. “Please don’t get excited. Let us ask the man who brought you here for his advice.”

“And what for, pray tell!” hollered Mrs. Buntspecht. “Your servant tasted the butter and bought a tub of it. I brought it here on his say so. So you pay me my 26 talers and 20 silver pennies. I don’t care what you do with the butter, and I don’t give a durn about your daughter’s wedding to Baron von Brennessel or Baron Distelholz. I just want my cash and my tub, after you empty the butter out of it, and that’s all!”

The doctor finally became a little suspicious. The woman did not seem so crazy after all. There had to be some kind of foul play going on.

“Dear lady, please answer me one question. Was the servant who let you into this room a relative of yours?”

“It was your servant who met me at the market to purchase a tub of butter for the wedding of your daughter. He led me here to fetch my money, 26 talers and 20 silver pennies, as I already mentioned 10 times!” Mrs. Buntspecht got excited again.

“And where is the butter?” inquired the doctor.

“I left it outside in the anteroom as the servant told me to do!”

“I am certain that it won’t be there anymore, dear woman,” said the doctor cold-bloodedly. “I am afraid we are both victims of some nasty scheme! You see I don’t have a servant. I was never married and, therefore, I don’t have a daughter about to be married to a Baron von Brennessel. Therefore, I had never thought of buying any butter from you. The alleged servant told me that you were his crazy old aunt and asked whether I would be so kind as to examine you.”

Mrs. Buntspecht stood stock still while she assimilated that information. Then she jumped up with a blood curdling war whoop that would have made a wild Indian proud. She ran for the door and immediately discovered her misfortune. There was no trace of the servant or her butter. Like a tigress whose young were taken from her, the butter woman raced down the stairs in hopes to see the culprit out on the street. There was no sign of him anywhere. So the poor woman went to the police and made a report.

When Mrs. Buntspecht returned to her market stall, seething with anger, her neighbor, the meat vendor Ganzauge, greeted her with a big smile. “This is our lucky day!” he exclaimed. “First you sell a whole tub of butter, then you send the servant back for a big basket with ten dozen eggs!”

“Ganzauge, are you crazy? Who fetched those eggs?”

“No other than the servant whose master bought the butter for the big wedding to the Baron von Brennessel. You must have earned a pretty penny with all this. That’s what I meant by luck!”

“Luck, indeed, you numbskull!” raged the woman. “You are the dumbest jackass I ever set eyes on!”

“Now wait just a minute,” retorted the meat vendor, excited over the insult.

“Yes, crazy indeed, you just gave yourself away,” she raged. “You crook! You dare to tell me you are not in cahoots with the miserable worm, the thief, the butter and egg robber! I will get you incarcerated, you miserable excuse for mankind!” She jumped at the butcher with the agility of a wildcat and grabbed the man by the hair. The fight was brief and ended in a draw as she stumbled backward and landed in the basketful of the remaining eggs she had in her stall.

The rest we don’t have to describe. We may leave it to the imagination of the reader. Only with the combined strength of the neighbors could both butcher and butter woman be extracted from the egg basket. Both butcher and butter woman ended up as enemies. The great fear of her former stall neighbor is evident in that he now has his stand far away from hers. Whenever he sees the old harridan, he goes a hundred steps out of his way to avoid her.

Mrs. Amalia Gross