So Herman was looked on as a harmless imbecile by one and all till Eloise Plummer come over to help in the kitchen while the haying crew was here last summer. And Eloise looked on him as something else. She looked on Herman as one of them that make it unsafe for girls to leave home. She had good reason to. Eloise is in the prime of young womanhood; but this is just exactly as fur as any fair-minded judge would go to say of her as a spectacle. Her warmest adherents couldn't hardly get any warmer than that if put under oath. She has a heart of gold undoubtedly, but a large and powerful face that would belong rightly to the head director of a steel corporation that's worked his way up from the bottom. It is not a face that has ever got Eloise pestered with odious attentions from the men. Instead of making 'em smirk and act rough, but playful, it made 'em think that life, after all, is more serious than most of us suspect in our idle moments. It certainly is a face to make men think. And inspiring this black mood in men had kind of reacted on Eloise till they couldn't quite see what they was ever intended for. It was natural. I don't say the girl could of cooked all winter in a lumber camp and not been insulted a time or two; but it wasn't fur from that with her. So you can imagine how bitter she was when this Herman nut tried to make up to her. Herman was a whirlwind wooer; I'll say that for him. He told her right off that she was beautiful as the morning star and tried to kiss her hand. None of these foolish preliminaries for Herman, like "Lovely weather we're having!" or "What's your favourite flower?" Eloise was quick-natured, too. She put him out of the kitchen with a coal shovel, after which Herman told her through a crack of the door that she was a Lorelei. Eloise, at first, misunderstood this term entirely, and wasn't much less insulted when she found it meant one of these German hussies that hang round creeks for no good purpose. Not that her attitude discouraged Herman any; he played under her window that night, and also sang a rich custard sort of tenor in his native tongue, till I had to threaten him with the bastile to get any sleep myself. Next day he fetched her regal gifts, consisting of two polished abalone shells, a picture of the Crown Prince in a brass frame, and a polished-wood paper knife with Greetings from Reno! on it. Eloise was now like an enraged goddess or something; and if Herman hadn't been a quick bender and light on his feet she wouldn't of missed him with his gifts. As it was, he ducked in time and went out to the spring house to write a poem on her beauty, which he later read to her in German through a kitchen window that was raised. The window was screened; so he read it all. Later he gets Sandy Sawtelle to tell her this poem is all about how coy she is. Every once in a while you could get an idea partway over on Herman. He was almost certain Eloise was coy.