Part 9

"I wish my Marcus would diet a little. I always say to him he's just a little bit too stout—he takes after his poor father," said Mrs. Gump.

"You can believe me or not, Mrs. Gump; but, so sure as my name is Mince, I got down from a hundred and ninety-two to a hundred and seventy-four in two months! Reducing ain't so bad when you get used to it."

"Honest now, Mrs. Mince, how I wish my Marcus had such a determination! But that boy loves to eat—Didn't you see me discard, Mrs. Weissenheimer?"

"Say, it wasn't so easy! How I worked you can ask my husband. I bend for thirty minutes when I get up in the morning; and if you think it's easy, try it—a cup of hot water and a piece of dry toast for breakfast; lettuce salad, no oil, for lunch; and a chop with dry toast for supper. What I suffered nobody knows!"

"Batta, don't you see I lead from weakness?"

"I wish you could see my husband's partner's daughter!" quoth Mrs. Kronfeldt. "I met her on Fifty-third Street last week, and she was so thin I didn't know her—massage and diet did it. She ain't feeling so well; but she looks grand—not a sign of hips!"

From an adjoining table Mrs. Silverman waved a plump and deprecatory hand.

"Ladies, don't talk to me about dieting! I know, because I've tried it. Now I eat what I please. It's standing up twenty minutes after meals that does the reducing. Last summer at Arverne every lady in the hotel did it, and never did I see anything like it! Take my word for it that when my husband came down for Saturday and Sunday he didn't know me!"

"Ach, Mrs. Silverman, that was almost a grand slam! You should watch my discard!"

"When I came home I had to have two inches taken out of every skirt-band."

"You don't mean it!"

"Feel, Birdie, my arm. Last summer your thumbs wouldn't have met."

"I said to mamma when we saw you at the matinee last week, Mrs. Silverman, you're grand and thin!"

"You try a little lemon in your hot water, Birdie. But you're not too stout—I should say not! You're grand and tall and can stand it."

"Grand and tall!" echoed Mrs. Gump.

"It's a wonder she isn't as thin as a match, Mrs. Gump, the way that girl does society! Last night it was two o'clock when she got home from Jeanette Lefkowitz's party."

"I wish you'd heard the grand things Marcus said about you this morning at breakfast, Miss Birdie! I bet your ears were ringing. It's not often that he talks, either, when he's been out."

"What's this grand news I hear, Mrs. Gump, about your son being taken in the firm and made manager of the new Loeb factory? It's wonderful for a boy to work himself up with a firm like that."

"There's nothing sure about it yet, Mrs. Silverman. How such things get out I don't know. Marcus is a good boy; and, believe me or not, we think he's got a future with the firm. But you know how it is—there's nothing settled yet, and I don't believe in counting your chickens before they are hatched."

"I wish it to you, Mrs. Gump," purred Mrs. Katzenstein. "I wish the good luck to you."

"You don't make it diamonds, Mrs. Kronfeldt, unless you got to."

"Who made that dress for you, Birdie? It fits fine."

"That's the dressmaker on Lenox Avenue I was telling you about, Mrs. Adler," replied Mrs. Katzenstein, answering for her daughter. "Me and Birdie go to her for everything. Look at that fit and all!"

"Grand!"

"I'll give you her address if you don't tell everybody. You know how it is when you begin to recommend a dressmaker—up in their prices they go, and that's all the thanks you get."

"You are safe with me, Mrs. Katzenstein."

"Come here, Birdie! Turn round for Mrs. Adler—only twelve dollars to make with findings!"

"I'll take her my blue cloth," said Mrs. Adler.

"You won't regret it. Just tell her I sent you. If you want you can have the address, too, Mrs. Gump."

"I got a compliment for you about the dress you wore last night, Miss Birdie. Wonderful! No trump! This morning at breakfast Marcus said lots about your pretty dress and pretty ways; and for him to say that is a lot; not ten words can I get out of him, as a rule."

"I wish you could hear Birdie, too, Mrs. Gump! Believe me, she thinks he's a fine boy—and how hard that girl is to suit you wouldn't believe it!"

"Aw, mamma!"

"Change partners, ladies!"

Birdie hurried out into the dining-room; a flush branded her cheeks—Daphne fleeing from Apollo could not have been more deliciously agitated.

"Tillie," she directed, "you can make the coffee now and put the finger-rolls on."

A snowy round table was spread beneath a large, opaline dome of lights, which showered over the feast like a spray of stars; and in the center a mammoth cut-glass bowl of fruit, overflowing its sides with trailing bunches of hothouse grapes, and piled to a fitting climax of oranges, peeled in fanciful flower designs; fat bananas, with half the skin curled backward; and apples so firm and red that they might have been lacquered. The guests filed in.

"We haven't got much, ladies—Tillie, bring in some of the chairs from the parlor—but Birdie says it isn't style to have such big lunches any more. Sit right down here, Mrs. Gump, between me and Birdie. Now, ladies, help yourselfs and don't be bashful. Start the sardines round, Batta."

"What a pretty centerpiece, Mrs. Katzenstein!"

"Do you like it, Mrs. Kronfeldt? Birdie made it when the whip-stitch first came out. We got the doilies, too."

"I think it's good for a girl to be so practical," said Mrs. Gump, squeezing an arc of a lemon over her sardine. "If I had a daughter she should know how to do things round the house, even if she didn't have to use it."

"I'm not the kind to brag on my children; but, if I do say so myself, my girls can turn their hands to anything. If the day ever comes—God forbid!—when they should need it they'll know how."

"Exactly."

"When my Ray got engaged she made every monogram for her trousseau. I can prove it by Batta what a trousseau that girl had—and she made every monogram for every piece. She never comes home with the children to visit that she don't say: 'Mamma, thank Heaven, Abe is doing so grand and I don't need to—but there ain't a woman in Kansas City can beat me on housekeeping.'"

"This is delicious grape-jelly, Mrs. Katzenstein."

"That's some more of Birdie's doings. Honest, you may believe me or not, Mrs. Gump, but I have to fight to keep that girl away from the kitchen and housework! Yesterday it was all I could do to get her to go to Rosie Freund's linen shower; she wanted to stay home and help me with to-day's Kuechen. This morning, after last night, she was up before eight! Such a child!"

"I suppose you heard of poor Flora Freund's trouble, didn't you, Salcha?"

"Yes, Batta; you could have knocked me down with a feather! But Mr. Katzenstein always said the new store was too big. And such a failure, too!"

"I guess Flora won't have so many airs now! Down to her feet she got a sealskin coat this winter."

"I always say to Mr. Katzenstein we ain't such high-fliers, but we are steady. Try some of that pickled herring, Mrs. Gump. I put it up myself."

"I guess you heard of Stella Loeb's engagement, Birdie, didn't you?" inquired Mrs. Mince, spreading the grape-jelly atop a finger-roll. "To a Mr. Steinfeld from Cleveland."

"Yes, I hear she's doing grand; but so is he. To get in with the Loeb Brothers' crowd ain't so bad."

"Yes, they're all grand matches!" exclaimed Mrs. Ginsburg. "It's just like Meena says; they're all gold pocket-book and automobile matches when they're with out-of-town men; but Cleveland—I don't wish it to her to live in Cleveland—not that I've ever been there, but I don't envy girls that marry out of New York."

"My Ray's got it grand in Kansas City! I wish you could see her closet room and her pantry—as big as my whole kitchen! A girl could do worse than Kansas City or Cleveland."

"I always say," remarked Birdie, "when I get engaged it makes no difference where he goes."

"That's the right way to feel, Miss Birdie. Some day, if Marcus should ever marry—and I'm the last one to stand in his way—if he gets his promotion to the Newark factories and the girl he picks out don't like Newark, then she's not the right girl," said Mrs. Gump.

"Newark," said Mrs. Katzenstein, "is a grand little town. Whenever we pass through on our way to Kansas City Birdie always says what a sweet little town it is. Mrs. Silverman, have another cup of coffee."

The short winter day sloughed off suddenly, and it was dark when they rose from the table. "So late!" exclaimed Mrs. Mince. "I got a girl that can't so much as put on the potatoes. Honest, the servant problem gets woise and woise."

"Sh-h-h!" cautioned Mrs. Katzenstein, placing her forefinger across her lips and glancing warningly toward the kitchen. "Tillie," she whispered, "ain't such a jewel neither; but she's honest, and I'm glad enough to have anybody these days. Birdie, she's always fussing with me because I do too much in the kitchen; but why should my husband have his coffee so it don't suit him? Children don't understand—they're too much for style."

"In my little flat, with Etta married and gone," chimed in Mrs. Adler, "I'm better off without a girl. I got a woman to come in and clean three times a week, and me and Ike go out for our supper. I got it better without the worry of a girl."

"I give you right. If I'd listen to Marcus I'd keep a servant, too—a servant when I got my troubles without one!"

"Ain't that jus' like papa, Birdie? He always says: 'Salcha, you take it easy now; when one girl isn't enough keep two'—as if I didn't have enough troubles already!"

"Good-by, Mrs. Katzenstein!" Mrs. Kronfeldt inserted a tissue-paper-wrapped package carefully within her muff. "You got good taste in prizes—salts and peppers always come in handy."

"That's the way me and Birdie felt when we picked them out—you can't have too many of them."

"And, Birdie, you come over with your mamma some afternoon when Ruby's home. That girl with her society and engagements—I never see her myself! This afternoon she saw vaudeville with Sol Littleberger. He's in off the road."

"Birdie had an engagement this afternoon, too, with a traveling-man; but I always like to have her home when I entertain."

"I had a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Katzenstein. You and Miss Birdie must come and see me—One Hundred and Forty-first Street ain't so far away that you can't get to us."

"Me and Birdie can come almost any afternoon, Mrs. Gump, except Saturday we go to the matinee—we're great ones for Saturday matinee."

"That's what I call too bad! On Saturday Marcus comes home early, and he could see you home."

"Well," said Mrs. Katzenstein, plucking a thread off Mrs. Gump's coat-sleeve, "it's not like there weren't plenty more Saturdays in the year. I got enough vaudeville shows this year anyway."

"After the third number I always say, 'Mamma, let's go!'—don't I, mamma?" said Birdie.

"We can come next Saturday, all right, Mrs. Gump; but mind, don't you go to any trouble for us—Birdie's on a diet, and all I want is a cup of coffee. It makes my husband so mad when I come home and got no appetite."

"Good-by, Mrs. Ginsburg. Ach, that's right—I forgot; Birdie, write down Maggie's address for Mrs. Ginsburg. You try her once. She brings home the clothes so white it's a pleasure to put them away. Tell her I recommended her. I wish you could see Birdie's shirt-waists come home from the wash—just like new!"

"I'll try her next week," said Mrs. Ginsburg, buckling her fur neckpiece.

"Give Adolph my love, Batta. Birdie, help Aunt Batta with her coat. Come over some evening soon. Good-by, ladies! Come again. Good-by! Be careful of that step there, Mrs. Gump. Good-by!"

Mrs. Katzenstein clicked the door softly shut and turned to her daughter. There were high red spots on her cheeks.

"Well," she sighed, "I'm glad that's over."

"Me, too; and I'm sorry enough that Mrs. Gump didn't win those salt-cellars."

"Such a grand woman as she is—plain and unassuming! He left her real comfortable, too—not much, but enough for herself. But, to look at her in that plain black dress, you wouldn't think that she had a son that might be made manager of the Loeb factory, would you?"

"It is so," agreed Birdie, nibbling from a half-emptied candy-dish on one of the tables; "and that's just the way with Marcus last night—it was only accident that he let out that him and Louis Epstein might have an automobile."

"Plain and unassuming people!" Mrs. Katzenstein exclaimed.

"I says to him when we were in the taxi, I says: 'Automobile-riding sure is grand!' Then he says: 'If something I'm hoping for happens in a couple of days, me and Louis Epstein are going to buy one of those five-hundred-dollar roadsters together. Then we can have a swell time together, Birdie!' Just like that he said it."

"You're a good girl, Birdie, and you deserve the best. To-night you wear your blue. Tillie, come in and set the chairs straight—nice—Miss Birdie's going to have company. How that Mrs. Ginsburg got on my nerves, I can't tell you, with her Meena and her brag!"

"I should say so!"

At eight o'clock Birdie again posed before her mirror. Her robin's-egg-blue dress where it fell away from her rather splendid and carefully powdered chest was spangled with small sequins, which glinted like stars. There was a corresponding galaxy of spangles arranged bandeau-fashion in her hair. The Blessed Damozel, when she leaned out from the golden bar of Heaven, wore seven significant stars in her hair. Birdie also wore stars in her hair, in her eyes, and in her heart and on her bosom.

"I think this dress makes me look grand and thin, mamma."

"It cost enough."

"Do you like those silver spangles in my hair? That's the way Bella Block wore hers at the theater the other night."

"I don't believe in such fussiness for girls! Your mother before you didn't have it. If you want you can wear my diamond bow-knot. Have Tillie come in and pin it on you with the safety-catch. I'm so nervous like a cat!"

"What are you so nervous about, mamma?"

"Say, Birdie, you know I'm the last one to talk about such things—but the Gumps don't start things without intentions. Flora told me herself that Ben Gump got engaged to her sister the second time he called."

"Aw, mamma!"

"Believe me, if it should come to us we got no cause to complain. Grand prospects! Grand boy! And what more do you want? Papa and me, with such a son-in-law, can enjoy our old age."

"Such talk!"

"You think I let on to anybody! All I say is to you; but a girl needs advice from her parents. Look at your sister Ray—she was a smart and sensible girl."

"Abe, with his stuttering and all!"

"Just the same he is a good husband to her and makes her a good living. You think she would have got him if she hadn't fixed things for herself—kind of! Believe me, it was hard enough for us, then, before papa went into petticoats."

"She can have him!"

"I always say Ray was a smart girl. She wasn't no beauty, and the chances didn't come so thick; and now to walk in her house you wouldn't think she did the courting! A more devoted boy than Abe I don't know."

"Do you like that bow at the belt, mamma?"

"Yes.... Tillie," called Mrs. Katzenstein, raising her voice, "turn on the lights in the parlor, and then tell Mr. Katzenstein I said to put on his coat."

"I don't want the lights on, mamma—it looks better that way."

"You want it to look like we was stingy with light yet! How does that look—just the gas-logs going! You tell Mr. Katzenstein, Tillie, that I insist that he should put on his coat to meet Birdie's company—his newspaper will keep. There's the bell! Tillie, go to the door."

After a well-timed interval Birdie entered the soft-lighted parlor; the gas-logs gave out a mellow but uncertain light. It was as if the spirit of fire were doing an elf dance about the room—glinting on the polished surface of the floor, glancing on and off the gilt frame of a wall-picture, and gleaming at its own reflection in the mahogany table-legs and glass doors of the curio cabinet.

Mr. Gump was seated in a remote corner, elbows on knees and face in hands, like a Marius mourning among the ruins of his Carthage.

"Howdy-do, Marcus? Such a dark corner you pick out! It's just as cheap to sit in the light," said Birdie.

He rose and came toward her, squaring his shoulders and tossing his head backward after the manner of a man throwing off a mood, or of the strong man before he stoops to raise the thousand-pound bar of iron.

"What's the matter, Marcus? You aren't sick, are you?"

"Sure I'm not," he said. "I'm just catching up on sleep."

They shook hands and smiled, both of them full of the sweet mystery of their new shyness. His hand trembled, and he released her fingers abruptly.

"Well, how did you get over last night, Marcus? Honest, you look real tired! Didn't we have the grandest time? Henrietta called me up this morning and said she nearly split her sides laughing when you imitated how Mr. Latz sells cigars."

"To-night," he said, running a hand over the woolly surface of his hair and exhaling loudly, "I feel as funny as a funeral."

"Marcus," she said, "honest, you don't look right; you're pale!"

He seated himself on the divan, with her as his immediate vis-a-vis. The light played over them.

"You can believe me, Birdie; somehow when I'm with you I got so many kinds of feelings I don't know how to tell you."

Nature had been in a slightly playful mood when she chiseled Mr. Gump. He was a well-set-up young man—solidly knit and close packed—but five inches short of the stuff that matinee idols and policemen are made of. Napoleon and Don Quixote lacked those same five inches.

This facetious mood, however, was further emphasized in the large, well-formed ears, which flared away from his head as if alarmed, and in a wide, heavy-set mouth, which seemed straining to meet those respective ears; yet when Mr. Gump smiled he showed a double deck of large white teeth, dazzling as snow, and his eyes illuminated, and small-rayed wrinkles spread out from the corners and gave them geniality.

"Your mamma was here at the whist this afternoon, Marcus. We think she's a grand woman!"

His face lighted.

"I was afraid she wouldn't come on account of the weather. I meant to telephone from the factory to take a cab, but I had a hard day of it. What's the difference, I always say in a case like that, whether it costs a little more or a little less? Recreation is good for her."

"It's a terrible night, isn't it? Papa says even the horses can't walk—it's so slippery."

"I care a lot how slippery it is when I come to see you, Birdie." He sighed and regarded her nervously.

"Aw, Marcus! Jollier!" She colored the red of the deepest peony in the garden and giggled like water purling over stones.

"You can believe me, I wish I was jollying! Until I met you it was all right to say that about me; but now—but—Oh, well, what's the use of talking?"

He rose from the divan in some agitation, thrust his hands into his pockets, hitched his trousers upward, and walked away.

Birdie remained on the divan, observing the rules of the oldest game, clasped her hands on her knees, and held the silence. When she finally spoke her voice was filtered by the benign process of understanding.

"Look how easy he gets mad," she said, querulously; "just like I'm not glad he wasn't jollying!"

There was a pause; the large onyx clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly and impersonally, as if its concern were solely with time and not with man.