Part 4

"Abie, if you don't feel good, in two minutes I can get up and heat the broth if—"

"I'm grand, mamma. Here, I move this chair so the light from Magintys' don't shine in your eyes."

"What she does in her kitchen so late I don't know. Good night, Abie. In the dark you look like poor papa. How he used to fuss round the room at night fixing me just like you—poor papa, Abie—not? Poor papa?"

"Good night, mamma."

Mr. Ginsburg leaned over and kissed his mother lightly on the forehead.

"Double cream did you say I should write the milkman?"

"Yes—and, Abie, don't forget to cover the bird."

"Yes. Here, I leave the door half-way open, mamma. Good night."

"Abie! Abie!"

"Yes?"

"Oh, it ain't nothing at all, Abie—never mind."

"I'm right here, mamma. Anything you want me to do?"

"Nothing. Good night, Abie."

"Good night, mamma."

At eight-fifteen Monday morning Miss Ruby Cohn blew into the Ginsburg & Son's shoe store like a breath of thirty-nine-cents-an-ounce perfume shot from a strong-spray atomizer. The street hung with the strong breath of Mayflower a full second after her small, tall-heeled feet had crossed its soft asphalt.

At the first whiff Mr. Ginsburg drew the upper half of his body out from a case of misses' ten-button welt soles he was unpacking and smiled as if Aurora and spring, and all the heyday misses that Guido Reni and Botticelli loved to paint, had suddenly danced into his shop.

"Well, well, Miss Ruby, are you back?"

Miss Cohn titillated toward the rear of the store, the tail of a cockatoo titillated at a sharp angle from her hat, a patent-leather handbag titillated from a long cord at her wrist, and a smile iridescent as sunlight on spray played about her lips. She placed her hand blinker-fashion against her mouth as if she would curb the smile.

"Don't tell anybody, Mr. Ginsburg, and I'll whisper you something. Listen! I ain't back; I'm shooting porcelain ducks off the shelf in a china shop."

"Ah, you're back again with your fun, ain't you? Miss Ruby—believe me—I missed you enough. I bet you had a grand time at the farm!"

Mr. Ginsburg shook hands with her shyly, with a sudden red in his face, and as if her fingers were holy with the dust of a butterfly's wings and he feared to brush it off.

"Say, Mr. Ginsburg, you should have seen me! What I think of a shoe-tree after laying all yesterday afternoon under a oak-tree next to a brook that made a noise like playing a tune on wine-glasses, I'd hate to tell you. Say, you're unpacking them ten-button welts, ain't you? Good! It ain't too soon for the school stock."

Miss Cohn withdrew two super-long, sapphire-headed hat-pins from her super-small hat, slid out of a tan summer-silk jacket, dallied with the froth of white frills at her throat, ran her fingers through the flame of her hair and turned to Mr. Ginsburg. Her skin was like thick cream and smattered with large, light-brown freckles, which enhanced its creaminess as a crescent of black plaster laid against a lady's cheek makes fairness fairer.

"Well, how's business? I've come back feeling like I could sell storm rubbers to a mermaid."

"You look grand for certain, Miss Ruby. They just can't look any grander'n you. Believe me, I missed you enough! To-day it's cool; but the day before yesterday you can know I was done up when I closed before six."

"Can you beat it? And I was laying flat on the grass, with ants running up my sleeves and down my neck and wishing for my sealskin—it was so cool. I see Herschey's got cloth-tops in his windows. What's the matter with us springing them patent-tip kids? Say, I got a swell idea for a window comin' home on the train—lookin' at the wheat-fields made me think of it."

"Whatta you know about that? Wheat-fields made her think of a shoe window—like a whip she is—so sharp!"

"It's a yellow season, Mr. Ginsburg; and we can use them old-oak stands and have a tan school window that'll make every plate-glass front between here and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street look like a Sixth Avenue slightly worn display."

"Good! You can have just what kind of a window you like, Miss Ruby—just anything you—you like. After such a summer we can afford such a fall window as we want. I see the Busy Bee's got red-paper poppies in theirs—something like that, maybe, with—"

"Nix on paper flowers for us! I got a china-silk idea from a little drummer I met up in the country—one nice little fellow! I wonder if you know him? Simon Leavitt; he says he sold you goods. Simon Leavitt. Know him?"

"No."

"One nice little fellow!"

Silence.

"I missed you lots, Miss Ruby. When Saturday came I said to mamma: 'How I miss that girl! Only one month she's been with us, but how I miss that girl!' Oh—eh, Miss Ruby!"

Miss Cohn adjusted a pair of tissue-paper sleevelets and smoothed her smooth tan hips as if she would erase them entirely; then she looked up at him delicately, and for the instant the pink aura of her hair and the rise and fall of her too high bosom gave her some of the fleshly beauty of a Flora.

"Like you had time to think of me! I bet the Washeim girl was in every other day for a pair of—"

"Now, Miss Ruby, you—"

"'Sh! There's some one out front. It's that cashier from Truman's grocery. You finish unpacking that case, Mr. Ginsburg. I'll wait on her. I bet she wants tango slippers."

Miss Cohn flitted to the front of the store as rapidly as the span of her narrow skirt would permit, and Mr. Ginsburg dived deep into the depths of his wooden case. But in his nostrils, in the creases of his coat, and in the recesses of his heart was the strong breath of the Mayflower; and in the phantasmagoria of bonfire-colored hair and cream-colored skin, and the fragrance of his own emotions, he bent so dreamily over the packing-case that the blood rushed as if by capillary attraction to his temples; and when he staggered to an upright posture large black blotches were doing an elf dance before his eyes.

"Mr. Ginsburg! Oh, Mr. Ginsburg!"

"Yes, Miss Ruby."

From the highest rung of a ladder, parallel with the top row of a wall of shoe-boxes, Miss Cohn poised like a humming-bird.

"Say, have we got any more of them 4567 French heel, chiffon rosette?"

"Yes, Miss Ruby—right there under the 5678's."

"Sure enough. Never mind coming out; I can find 'em—yes, here they are."

From her height she smiled down at him, pushed her ladder leftward along its track, clapped a shoe-box under her arm, and hurried down, her shoe-buttoner jangling from a pink ribbon at her waist-line. Mr. Ginsburg delved deeper.

"Mr. Ginsburg!"

"Yes, Miss Ruby."

"Just a moment, please—there's a lady out here wants low-cuts, and I'm busy with a customer. Front, please—just this way, madam. I'll have some one to wait on you in a moment."

Mr. Ginsburg clapped his hands dry of dust, wriggled into his unlined alpaca coat, brushed his plush-like hair with his palms, and advanced to the front of the store. His voice was lubricated with the sweet-oil of willing servitude.

"What can I do for you, madam? Low-cuts for yourself?"

He straddled a stool and took the foot in the cup of his hand. Beside him on a similar stool that brought their heads parallel Miss Ruby smoothed her hand across her customer's instep.

"Ain't that effect great, Mr. Ginsburg, with that swell little rosette? I was just telling this young lady if I had her instep I'd never wear anything but our dancing-shoes."

"It certainly is swell," agreed Mr. Ginsburg, peering into the lining of the shoe he removed to read its size.

The day's tide quickened; the yellow benches, with ceiling fans purring over them, were filled with rows of trade who tamped the floor with shiny, untried soles, bent themselves double to feel of toe and instep, and walked the narrow strip of green felt as if on clay feet they feared would break.

Came noon and afternoon. Miss Cohn ascended and descended the ladder with the agility of a street vender's mechanical toy, shoes tucked under each arm, and a pencil at a violent angle in the nest of her hair.

"Have we got any more of them 543 flat heels, Mr. Ginsburg?"

"Yes, Miss Ruby—right there in back of you."

"Say, you'd think I was using my eyes for something besides seeing, wouldn't you? Wait on that lady next, Mr. Ginsburg. She wants white kids."

"Certainly."

"Yes'm; we sell lots of them russet browns. It's a little shoe that gives satisfaction every time. Mr. Ginsburg is always ordering more. I wore a pair of them for two years myself. There ain't no wear-out to them. We carry that in stock, too, and it keeps them like new—just rub with a flannel cloth—fifteen cents a bottle. Just a moment, madam; I'll be over to you as soon as I'm finished here. Mr. Ginsburg, take off that lady's shoe and show her a pair of them dollar-ninety-eight elastic sides while I finish with this lady. Sure, you can have 'em by five, madam. Name? Hornschein, 3456 Eighth Avenue? Dollar-eighty out of two. Thank you! Call again. Now, madam, what can I do for you? Yes, we have them in moccasins in year-old size—sixty cents, and grand and soft for their little feet. Wait; I'll see. Mr. Ginsburg, have we got those 672 infants' in pink?"

"Sure thing. Wait, Miss Ruby—I'll climb for you. I have to go up anyway."

"Aw, you're busy with your own customers. Don't trouble."

"Nothing's trouble when it's for you, Miss Ruby. Show her those tassel tops, too."

"Oh, Mr. Ginsburg, ain't you the kidder, though! Yes'm; the tassel tops are eighty. Ain't they the cutest little things?"

At six o'clock a medley of whistles shrieked out the eventide—clarions that ripped upward like sky-rockets in flight; hard-throated soprano whistles that juggled with the topmost note like a colorature diva. The oak benches emptied, Mr. Ginsburg raised the front awning and kicked the carpet-covered brick away from the door, so that it swung quietly closed; daubed at his wrists and collar-top with a damp handkerchief.

"First breathing space we've had to-day, ain't it, Miss Ruby?"

Miss Cohn flopped down on a bench and breathed heavily; her hair lay damp on her temples; the ruffles at her neck were limp as the ruff of a Pierette the morning after the costume ball.

"You should worry, Mr. Ginsburg! With such a business next year at this time you'll have two clerks and more breathing space than you got breath."

Mr. Ginsburg seated himself carefully beside her at a wide range, so that a customer for a seven-E last could have fitted in between them.

"I've built up a good business here, Miss Ruby. The trouble with poor papa was he was afraid to spend, and he was afraid of novelties. I couldn't learn him that a windowful of satin pumps helps swell the storm-rubber sale. Those little dollar-ninety-eights look swell on your feet, Miss Ruby; you're a good advertisement for the stock—not?"

"Funny what a hit them pumps make! Mr. Leavitt was crazy about them, too; but, say, what your mother thinks of these satin slippers I'd hate to tell you. When she was down the day before I left she looked at 'em till I got so nervous I tripped over the cracks between the boards. Say, but wasn't she sore about the new glass fixtures! I kinda felt like it was my fault, too; but I was strong for 'em because—"

"Mamma's the old-fashioned kind, Miss Ruby—her and poor papa like the old way of doing things. She's getting old, Miss Ruby, but she means well. She's a good mother—a good mother."

"She's sure a grand woman—carrying soup across to old Levinsky every day, and all."

"She's more'n you know she is, too, Miss Ruby—little things that woman does I could tell you about—when she didn't have it so good as now neither."

Miss Ruby dropped her lids until her eyes were as soft as plush behind the portieres of her lashes; her voice dropped into a throat that might have been lined with that same soft plush.

"I had a mother for two days—like I said to Mr. Leavitt the other day up in the country—we was talking about different things. I says to him, I says, she quit when she looked at me—just laid down and died when I was two days old. I must have been enough to scare the daylights out of any one. Next to a pink worm on a fish-hook gimme a red-headed baby for the horrors! Say, you ought to seen Mr. Leavitt fish! Six bass he caught in one day—I sat next him and watched; we had 'em fried for supper. He's some little—"

"What a pleasure you'd 'a' been to your mother, Miss Ruby! Such a girl like you I could wish my own mother."

"That's just what Mr. Leavitt used to tell me; but, gee! he was a kidder! I—I oughtta had a mother! Sometimes I—sometimes in the night when I can't sleep—daytimes you don't care so much—but sometimes at night I—I just don't care about nothing. With a girl like me, that ain't even known a mother or father, it ain't always so easy to keep her head above water."

"Poor little girl!"

"Since the day I left the Institootion I been dodging the city and jumping its mud-holes like a lady trying to cross Sixth Avenue when it's torn up. I—oh, ain't I the silly one?—treating you to my troubles! Say, I got a swell riddle! I can't give it like Leavitt—like Simon did; but—"

"Always Mr. Leavitt, and now it's Simon yet—such a hit as that man made with you—not?"

"Hit! Can't a girl have a gentleman friend? Can't you have a lady friend—a friend like Miss Washeim, who comes in for shoes three times—"

"Ruby, can I help it when she comes in here?"

"Can I help it when I go to the country and meet Mr. Leavitt?"

"Ruby!"

Mr. Ginsburg slid himself along the bench until a customer for a AA misses' last would have fitted with difficulty between, and looked at her as ancient Phidias must have looked at his Athene.

"Ruby—I can't keep it back no longer—since you went away on your vacation I've had it inside of me, but I never knew what it was till you walked back this morning. First, I thought I was sick with the heat; but now I know it was you—"

"What—what you—"

"I—I invite you to get married, Ruby. I got a feeling for you like I never had for any girl! I want it that mamma should have a good girl like you to make it easy for her. I can't say what I want to say, Ruby; I don't say it so good, but—a girl could do worse than me—not, Ruby?"

Miss Cohn's fingers closed over the shoe-hook at her belt until the knuckles sprang out whiter than her white skin.

"Oh, Mr. Ginsburg! What would your mamma say? A young man like you, with a grand business and all—you could do for yourself what you wanted. If you was only a drummer like Simon; but—"

A wisp of Miss Cohn's hair, warm as sunset, brushed close to Mr. Ginsburg's lips; he groped for her hand, because the mist of his emotions was over his eyes.

"Ruby, I invite you to get married; that's—all I want is that mamma should have it good with me always like she has it now. She's getting old, Ruby, and I always say what's the difference if I humor her? When she don't want to move in an apartment with a marble hall and built-in wash-tubs, I say: All right; we stay over the store. When she don't like it that I put a telephone in, I tell her I got a friend in the business put it in for nothing. You could give it to her as good as a daughter—not, Ruby?"

"She's a grand woman, Abie; she—"

"Ruby!"

"Oh! Oh!"

In the eventide quiescence of the shop, with the heliotrope of early dusk about them, and passers-by flashing by the plate-glass window in a stream that paused neither for love nor life, Mr. Ginsburg leaned over and gathered Miss Cohn in his arms, pushed back the hair from her forehead and kissed her thrice—once on each lowered eyelid, and once on her lips, which were puckered to resemble a rosebud.

"Abie, you—you mustn't! We're in the store!"

"I should worry!"

"What will—what will they say?"

"For what they say I care that much!" cried Mr. Ginsburg, with insouciance. "Ain't I got a ruby finer than what they got in the finest jewelry store?"

Miss Cohn raised her smooth cheek from the rough weft of Mr. Ginsburg's sleeve.

"What your mamma will say I don't know! You that could have Beulah Washeim or Birdie Harburger, or any of those grand girls that are grand catches—I ain't bringing you nothing, Abie."

"We're going to make it grand for mamma, Ruby—that's all I want you to bring me. She'll have it so good as never in her life. You are going to be a good daughter to her—not, Ruby?"

"Yes, Abe. If we take a bigger apartment she can have an outside room, and I can take all the housekeeping off her hands. Such nut-salad as I can make you never tasted—like they serve it in the finest restaurant! I got the recipe from my landlady. If we take a bigger apartment—"

"What mamma wants we do—how's that? She's so used to having her own way I always say, What's the difference? When poor papa lived she—"

"Abe, there's your mamma calling you down the back stairs now—you should go up to your supper. I must go, too; my landlady gets mad when I'm late—it's half past six already. Oh, I feel scared! What'll she say when she hears?"

"Scared for what, my little girl?... Yes, mamma; I'm coming!... There ain't a week passes that mamma don't say if I find the right girl I should get married. Even the other night, before I knew it myself, she said it to me. 'Abie,' she always says, 'don't let me stand in your way!'... Yes, mamma; I'll be right up!... You and her can get along grand when you two know each other—grand!"

"Your mamma's calling like she was mad, Abie."

"To-night, Ruby, you come up to us for supper—we bring her a surprise-party."

"Oh, you ain't going to tell her to-night—right away—are you?"

"For what I have secrets from my own mother? She should know the good news. Get your hat, Ruby. Come on, Ruby-la! Come on!"

"Oh, Abie, you ain't going to forget to lock the front store door, are you?"

"Ach!—that should happen to me yet. The things a man don't do when he's engaged! If mamma should know I forget to lock the store she'd think I've gone crazy with being in love—you little Ruby-la!"

Mr. Ginsburg hastened to the front of the store on feet that bounded off the floor like rubber balls, and switched on the electric show-window display.

"Abe, you got the double switch on! What you think this is—convention or Christmas week?"

"To-night we celebrate with double window lights. What's the difference if it costs a little more or a little less? The night he gets engaged a fellow should afford what he wants."

"Abe!"

"There now—with two locks on the door we should worry about burglars! I'm the burglar that's stealing the ruby, ain't I?... One, two, three—up we go, to mamma and supper. Watch out for the step there! I want her to see my Ruby—finer than you can buy in the finest jewelry store!" cried Mr. Ginsburg, clinging proudly to his metaphor.

Any of three emotions were crowded into his voice—excitement, trepidation, the love that is beyond understanding—or the trilogy of them all.

"Come along, Ruby-la!"

Through the rear of the store and up a winding back stairway they marched like glorified children; and at the first landing he must pause and kiss away the words of fear and nervousness from her lips and look into her diffident eyes with the same rapture that was Jupiter's when he gazed on Antiope.

"Such a little scarey she is—like mamma was going to bite!"

At the top of the flight the door of the apartment stood open; a blob of gas lighted a yellowish way to the kitchen, and through the yellow Mrs. Ginsburg's voice drifted out to them: