Part 5

"Once more I call you, Abie, and then I dish up supper and eat alone—no consideration that boy has got for his mother! He should know what it is not to have a mother who fixes him Pfannkuechen in this heat! Don't complain to me if everything is not fit to eat! In the heat I stand and cook, and that boy closes so late—Abie! Once more I call you and then I dish up. Ab-ie!" Mrs. Ginsburg's voice rose to an acidulated high C.

"Mamma! Mamma, don't get so excited—it ain't late. The days get shorter, that's all. Look! I brought company for supper. We don't stand on no ceremony. Come right in the kitchen, Ruby."

Mr. Ginsburg pushed Miss Cohn into the room before him, and Mrs. Ginsburg raised her face from over the steaming stove-top—the pink of heat and exertion high in her cheek. Reflexly her hand clutched at the collar of her black wrapper, where it fell away to reveal the line where the double scallop of her chin met the high swell of her bosom.

"Miss Cohn! Miss Cohn!"

"How do you do, Mrs. Ginsburg? I—"

"Sit right down, Miss Cohn—or you and Abie go in the front room till I dish up. You must excuse me the way I holler, but so mad that boy makes me. Just like his poor papa, he makes a long face if his supper is cold, but not once does he come up on time."

"All men are alike, Mrs. Ginsburg—that's what they say about 'em anyway."

"Such a supper we got you'll have to excuse, Miss Cohn. Abie, take them German papers off the chair. Miss Cohn can sit out here a minute if she don't mind such heat. If Abie had taken the trouble to tell me you was coming I'd have fixed—"

"I am glad you don't fix no extras for me, Mrs. Ginsburg. I like to take just pot-luck."

"Abie likes Pfannkuechen and pot-roast better than the finest I can fix him, and this morning at Fulton Market I seen such grand green beans; and I said to Yetta, 'I fix 'em sweet-sour for supper; he likes them so.'"

"I love sweet-sour beans, too, Mrs. Ginsburg. My landlady fixes all them German dishes swell."

"Well, you don't mind that I don't make no extras for you? You had a nice vacation? I tell Abie he should take one himself—not? He worked hisself sick last week. I was scared enough about him. Abie, why don't you find a chair for yourself? Why you stand there like—like—"

Even as she spoke the red suddenly ran out of Mrs. Ginsburg's face, leaving it the color of oysters packed in ice.

"Abie!"

For answer Mr. Ginsburg crossed the room and took his mother in a wide-armed embrace, so that his mouth was close to her ear. His lips were pale and tinged with a faintly green aura, like a child's who holds his breath from rage or a lyceum reader's who feels the icy clutch of stage-panic on him.

"Mamma, we—we—me and Ruby got a surprise-party for you. Guess, mamma—such a grand surprise for you!"

Mrs. Ginsburg placed her two fists against her son's blue shirt-front, threw back her head, and looked into his eyes; her heavy waist-line swayed backward against his firm embrace; immediate tears sprang into her eyes.

"Abie! Abie!"

"Mamma, look how happy you should be! Ain't you always wanted a daughter, mamma? For joy she cries, Ruby."

"Abie, my boy! Ach, Miss Cohn, you must excuse me."

"Aw, now, mamma, don't cry so. Look! You make my shoulder all wet—shame on you! You should laugh like never in your life! Ruby, you and mamma kiss right away—you should get to know each other now."

"Ach, Miss Cohn, you must excuse me. I always told him I mustn't stand in his way; but what that boy is to me, Miss Cohn—what—what—"

"Ruby—mamma, call her Ruby. Ain't she your little Ruby as much as mine—now, ain't she?"

"Yes; come here, Ruby, and let me kiss you. Since poor papa's gone you can never know what that boy has been to me, Ruby—such a son; not out of the house would he go without me! It's like I was giving away my heart to give him up—like I was tearing it right out from inside of me! Ach, but how glad I am for him!"

"Aw, mamma—like you was giving me up!"

Mr. Ginsburg swallowed with such difficulty that the tears sprang into his eyes.

"I ain't taking him away from you, Mrs. Ginsburg—he's your son as much as ever—and more."

"Call her mamma, Ruby—just like I do."

"Mamma! Just don't you worry, mamma; it's going to be grand for you and me and all of us."

"Hear her, mamma, how she talks! Ain't she a girl for you?"

"You—you children mustn't mind me—I'm an old woman. You go in the front room, and I'll be all right in a minute—so happy I am for my boy. You bad boy, you—not to tell your mamma the other night!"

"Mamma, so help me, I didn't know it myself till I seen her come back to-day so pretty, and all—I just felt it inside of me all of a sudden."

"Aw, Abe—ain't he the silly talker, Mrs. Ginsburg?—mamma! You mustn't cry, mamma; we'll make it grand for you."

"Ain't I the silly one myself to cry when I'm so happy for you? I'll be all right in a minute—so happy I am!"

"Ruby, you tell mamma how grand it'll be."

Miss Cohn placed her arms about Mrs. Ginsburg's neck, stood on tiptoe, and kissed her on the tear-wet lips.

"You always got a home with us, mamma. Me and Abie wouldn't be engaged this minute if it wasn't that you would always have a home with us."

With one swoop Mr. Ginsburg gathered the two women in a mutual embrace that strained his arms from their sockets; his voice was taut, like one who talks through a throat that aches.

"My little mamma and my little Ruby—ain't it?"

Mrs. Ginsburg dried her eyes on a corner of her apron and smiled at them with fresh tears forming instantly.

"He's been a good boy, Ruby. I only want that he should make just so good a husband. I always said the girl that gets him does well enough for herself. I don't want to brag on my own child, but—if—"

"Aw, mamma!"

"But, if I do say it myself, he's been a good boy to his mother."

"Now, mamma, don't begin—"

"I always said to him, Ruby, looks in a girl don't count the most—such girls as you see nowadays, with their big ideas, ain't worth house-room. I always say to him, Ruby, a girl that ain't ashamed to work and knows the value of a dollar, and can help a young man save and get a start without such big ideas like apartments and dummy waiters—"

"Honest, wouldn't you think this was a funeral! Mamma, to-night we have a party—not? I go down and get up that bottle of wine!"

"Himmel! My Pfannkuechen! Yes, Abie, run down in the cellar; on the top shelf it is, under the grape-jelly row—left yet from poor papa's last birthday. Ach, Ruby, you should have known poor papa—that such a man could have been taken before his time! Sit down, Ruby, while I dish up."

The tears dried on Mrs. Ginsburg's cheeks, leaving the ravages of dry paths down them; Mr. Ginsburg's footsteps clacked down the bare flight of stairs.

"Abie! Oh, Abie!"

"Yes, mamma!"

His voice came up remotely from two flights down, like a banshee voice drifting through a yellow sheol of dim-lit hallway.

"Abe, bring up some dill pickles from the jar—there's a dish in the closet."

"Yes, I bring them."

Between the two women fell silence—a silence that in its brief moment spawned the eggs of a thousand unborn thoughts.

From her corner the girl regarded the older woman with a nervous diffidence, her small, black-satin feet curled well inward and round the rungs of the chair.

"I—I hope you ain't mad at me, Mrs. Ginsburg—you ain't more surprised than me."

A note as thin as sheet tin crept into Mrs. Ginsburg's voice.

"He's my boy, Ruby, and what he wants I want. I know you ain't the kind of a girl, Ruby, that won't help my boy along—not? Extravagant ways and high living never got a young couple nowheres. Abie should take out a thousand more life insurance now; and, with economical ways, you got a grand future. For myself I don't care—I ain't so young any more, and—"

"You always got a home with us, Mrs. Ginsburg. You won't know yourself, you'll have it so good! If we move you with us out of this dark little flat we—you won't know yourself, you'll have it so good!"

"I hope you ain't starting out with no big ideas, Ruby—this flat ain't so dark but it could be worse. For young people with good eyes it should do all right. If it was good enough for Abie's papa and me it—"

Mr. Ginsburg burst into the kitchen, a wine-bottle tucked under one arm and a white china dish held at arm's-length.

"Such pickles as mamma makes, Ruby, you never tasted! You should learn how. You two can get out here in the kitchen, with your sleeves rolled up to your elbows, and such housekeeping times you can have! I'll get dill down by Anchute's like last year—not, mamma?... Come; we sit down now. We can all eat in the kitchen, mamma. Don't make company out of Ruby—she knows we got a front room to eat in if we want it. Come and sit down, Ruby, across from mamma, so we get used to it right away—sit here, you little Ruby-la, you!"

Mr. Ginsburg exuded radiance like August bricks exude the heat of day. He kissed Miss Cohn playfully under the pink lobe of each ear and repeated the performance beneath Mrs. Ginsburg's not so pink lobes; carved the gravy-oozing slices of pot-roast with a hand that was no less skilful because it trembled under pressure of a sublime agitation.

"Ruby, I learn you right away—we always got to save mamma the heel of the bread, 'cause she likes it."

Miss Cohn smiled and regarded Mr. Ginsburg from the left corner of each eye.

"I wasn't so slow learning the shoe business, was I, Abe?"

"You look at me so cute-like, and I'll come over to you right this minute! Look at her, mamma, how she flirts with me—just like it wasn't all settled."

"Abie, pass Ruby the beans. Honest, for a beau, you don't know nothing—your papa was a better beau as you. Pass her the beans. Don't you see she ain't got none? You two with your love-making! You remind me of me and poor papa; he—he—"

"Now, mamma, don't you go getting sad again like a funeral."

"I ain't, Abie. I'm—so happy—for you."

"To-night we just play, and to-morrow mamma decides when we get married—not, Ruby? We do like she wants it—to-night we just play. Ruby, pass your glass and mamma's, and we drink to our three selves with claret."

Mr. Ginsburg poured with agitated hand, and the red in his face mounted even as the wine in the glass.

"To the two grandest women in the world! May we all be happy and prosperous from to-night!" Mr. Ginsburg swung his right arm far from him and brought his glass round to his lips in a grand semi-circle. "To the two grandest women in the world!"

Mrs. Ginsburg tipped the glass against her lips.

"To my two children! God bless them and poor papa!"

"The first time I ever seen mamma drink wine, Ruby. She hates it—that shows how much she likes you already. Eat your dessert, mamma; it'll take the taste away. You like noodle dumplings? Such dumplings as these you should learn to make, Ruby-la."

"Children, you have had enough supper?"

"It was a grand supper, mamma."

They scraped their chairs backward from the table and smiled satiated, soul-deep smiles. From the sitting-room a clock chimed the half-hour.

"So late, children! Ach, how time flies when there's excitement! You and Ruby go in the parlor—I do the dishes so quick you won't know it."

"Ruby can help you with the dishes, mamma."

"Sure I can; we can do 'em in a hurry, and then go maybe to a picture show or some place."

"Picture show—nine o'clock!"

"There's always two shows, Mrs. Ginsburg—the second don't begin till then. I always go to the second show—it's always the liveliest."

"Come on, mamma; you and Ruby do the dishes, and we go. It's a grand night, and for once late hours won't hurt you."

"Ach, you ain't got no time for a old lady like me—in the night air I get rheumatism. Abie can tell you how on cool nights like this I get rheumatism. You two children go. I'm sleepy already. These few dishes I can do quicker as with you, Ruby."

"Without you we don't go—me and Ruby won't go then."

"We won't go, then, like Abe says—we won't go then."

"Abie, if it pleases me that you go to the picture show for an hour—you can do that much for mamma the first night you're engaged; some other night maybe I go too. Let me stay at home, Abie, and get my sleep like always."

"Ah, mamma, you're afraid. I know you even get scared when the bed-post creaks. We stay home, too."

"Ruby, for me will you make him go?"

"Abie, if your mamma wants you to go for an hour—you go. If she comes, too, we're glad; but many a night I've stayed in the boarding-house alone. If you was afraid you'd say so—wouldn't you, Mrs. Ginsburg—mamma?"

"Afraid of what? Nobody won't steal me!"

"Sure, mamma?"

"Get Ruby's hat and coat, Abie. Good-by, you children, you! Have a good time. Abie, stop with your nonsense—on the nose he has to kiss me!"

"Ruby, just as easy we can stay at home with mamma—not?"

"Sure! Aw, Abe, don't you know how to hold a girl's coat? So clumsy he is!"

"Good night, Ruby. I congratulate you on being my daughter. Good night, Ruby—you come to-morrow."

"Good night, mamma—to-morrow I see you."

"Good night, mamma. In less than an hour I be back—before the clock strikes ten. You shouldn't make me go—I don't like to leave you here."

"Ach, you silly children! I'm glad for peace by myself. Look! I close the door right on you."

"Good night, mamma. I be back by ten."

"Good-by, Abie."

"What?"

"Good night, children!"

When the clock in the parlor struck eleven Mrs. Ginsburg wiped dry her last dish, flapped out her damp dish-towel, and hung it over a cord stretched diagonally across a corner of the kitchen. Then she closed the cupboard door on the rows of still warm dishes, slammed down the window and locked it, reached up, turned out the gas, and groped into her adjoining bedroom.

Reflected light from the Maginty kitchen lay in an oblong on the floor and climbed half-way on the bed. By aid of the yellow oblong Mrs. Ginsburg undressed slowly and like a withered Suzanne, who dared not blush through her wrinkles.

The black wrapper, with empty arms dangling, she spread across a chair, and atop of it a black cotton petticoat, sans all the gentle mysteries of lace and frill. Lastly, beside the bed, in the very attitude of the service of love, she placed her shoes—expressive shoes, swollen from swollen joints, and full of the capacity for labor.

Then Mrs. Ginsburg climbed into bed, knees first, threw backward over the foot-board the blue-and-white coverlet, and drew the sheet up about her. A fresh-as-water breeze blew inward the lace curtain, admitting a streak of light across her eyes and a merry draught about her head. The parlor clock tonged the half-hour.

Silence for a while, then the black rush of a train, an intermittent little plaint like the chirrup of a bird in its cage, the squeak of a bed-post, and a succession of the unimportant noises that belong solely to the mystery of night.

Finally, from under the sheet, the tremolo of a moan—the sob of a heart that aches and, aching, dares not break.

THE OTHER CHEEK

Romance has more lives than a cat. Crushed to earth beneath the double-tube, non-skiddable tires of a sixty-horse-power limousine, she allows her prancing steed to die in the dust of yesterday and elopes with the chauffeur.

Love has transferred his activities from the garden to the electric-heated taxi-cab and suffers fewer colds in the head. No, romance is not dead—only reincarnated; she rode away in divided skirt and side-saddle, and motored back in goggles. The tree-bark messages of the lovers of Arden are the fifty-word night letters of to-day.

The first editions of the Iliad were writ in the tenderest flesh parts of men's hearts, and truly enough did Moses blast his sublime messages out of the marble of all time; but why bury romance with the typewriter as a headstone?

Why, indeed—when up in the ninth-floor offices of A. L. Gregory, stenographers and expert typewriters—Miss Goldie Flint, with hair the color of heat-lightning, and wrists that jangled to the rolled-gold music of three bracelets, could tick-tack a hundred-word-a-minute love scene that was destined, after her neat carbon copies were distributed, to wring tears, laughter, and two dollars each from a tired-business-man audience.

Why, indeed, when the same slow fires that burned in Giaconda's upslanted eyes and made the world her lover lay deep in Goldie's own and invariably won her a seat in the six-o'clock Subway rush, and a bold, bad, flirtatious stare if she ventured to look above the third button of a man's coat.

Goldie Flint, beneath whose too-openwork shirt-waist fluttered a heart the tempo of which was love of life—and love of life on eight dollars a week and ninety per cent. impure food, and a hall-room, more specifically a standing room, is like a pink rose-bush that grows in a slack heap and begs its warmth from ashes.

Goldie, however, up in her ninth-floor offices, and bent to an angle of forty-five degrees over the denouement of white-slave drama that promised a standing-room-only run and the free advertising of censorship, had little time or concern for her various atrophies.

It was nearly six o'clock, and she wanted half a yard of pink tulle before the shops closed. Besides, hers were the problems of the six-million-dollar incorporateds, who hire girls for six dollars a week; for the small-eyed, large-diamoned birds of prey who haunt the glove-counters and lace departments of the six-million-dollar incorporateds with invitations to dinner; and for the night courts, which are struggling to stanch the open gap of the social wound with medicated gauze instead of a tight tourniquet.

A yard of pink tulle cut to advantage would make a fresh yoke that would brighten even a three-year-old, gasolene-cleaned blouse. Harry Trimp liked pink tulle. Most Harry Trimps do.

At twenty minutes before six the lead-colored dusk of January crowded into the Gregory typewriting office so thick that the two figures before the two typewriters faded into the veil of gloom like a Corot landscape faints into its own mist.

Miss Flint ripped the final sheet of her second act from the roll of her machine, reached out a dim arm that was noisy with bracelets, and clicked on the lights. The two figures at the typewriters, the stationary wash-stand in the corner, a roll-top desk, and the heat-lightning tints in Miss Flint's hair sprang out in the jaundiced low candle-power.

"I'm done the second act, Miss Gregory. May I go now?"

Miss Flint's eyes were shining with the love-of-life lamps, the mica powder of romance, and a brilliant anticipation of Harry Trimp. Miss Gregory's were twenty years older and dulled like glass when you breathed on it.

"Yes; if you got to go I guess you can."

"Ain't it a swell play, Miss Gregory? Ain't it grand where he pushes her to the edge of the bridge and she throws herself down and hugs his knees?"

"Did you red ink your stage directions in, with the margin wide, like he wants? He was fussy about the first act."

"Yes'm; and say, ain't it a swell name for a show—'The Last of the Dee-Moolans'? Give me a show to do every time, and you can have all your contracts and statements and multigraph letters. Those love stories that long, narrow fellow brings in are swell to do, too, if he wa'n't such an old grouch about punctuation. Give me stuff that has some reading in it every time!"

Miss Gregory sniffed—the realistic, acidulated sniff of unloved forty and a thin nose.

"The sooner you quit curlin' your side-hair and begin to learn that life's made up of statements and multigraphs, instead of love scenes on papier-mache bridges and flashy fellows in checked suits and get-rich-quick schemes, the better off you're going to be."