Part 4 (1/2)

”Umhmph.”

”Only,” Molly Brandeis was thinking aloud now, quite forgetting that she was talking to a very little girl, ”only, life seems to take such special delight in offering temptation to those who are able to withstand it. I don't know why that's true, but it is. I hope--oh, my little girl, my baby--I hope----”

But f.a.n.n.y never knew whether her mother finished that sentence or not.

She remembered waiting for the end of it, to learn what it was her mother hoped. And she had felt a sudden, scalding drop on her hand where her mother bent over her. And the next thing she knew it was morning, with mellow September suns.h.i.+ne.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was the week following this feat of fasting that two things happened to f.a.n.n.y Brandeis--two seemingly unimportant and childish things--that were to affect the whole tenor of her life. It is pleasant to predict thus. It gives a certain weight to a story and a sense of inevitableness. It should insure, too, the readers's support to the point, at least, where the prediction is fulfilled. Sometimes a careless author loses sight altogether of his promise, and then the tricked reader is likely to go on to the very final page, teased by the expectation that that which was hinted at will be revealed.

f.a.n.n.y Brandeis had a way of going to the public library on Sat.u.r.day afternoons (with a bag of very sticky peanut candy in her pocket, the little sensualist!) and there, huddled in a chair, dreamily and almost automatically munching peanut brittle, her cheeks growing redder and redder in the close air of the ill-ventilated room, she would read, and read, and read. There was no one to censor her reading, so she read promiscuously, wading gloriously through trash and cla.s.sic and historical and hysterical alike, and finding something of interest in them all.

She read the sprightly ”d.u.c.h.ess” novels, where mad offers of marriage were always made in flower-scented conservatories; she read d.i.c.kens, and Thelma, and old bound Cosmopolitans, and Zola, and de Maupa.s.sant, and the ”Wide, Wide World,” and ”Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates,”

and ”Jane Eyre.” All of which are merely mentioned as examples of her catholicism in literature. As she read she was unaware of the giggling boys and girls who came in noisily, and made dates, and were coldly frowned on by the austere Miss Perkins, the librarian. She would read until the fading light would remind her that the short fall or winter day was drawing to a close.

She would come, s.h.i.+vering a little after the fetid atmosphere of the overheated library, into the crisp, cold snap of the astringent Wisconsin air. Sometimes she would stop at the store for her mother.

Sometimes she would run home alone through the twilight, her heels scrunching the snow, her whole being filled with a vague and unchildish sadness and disquiet as she faced the tender rose, and orange, and mauve, and pale lemon of the winter sunset. There were times when her very heart ached with the beauty of that color-flooded sky; there were times, later, when it ached in much the same way at the look in the eyes of a pushcart peddler; there were times when it ached, seemingly, for no reason at all--as is sometimes the case when one is a little Jew girl, with whole centuries of suffering behind one.

On this day she had taken a book from the library Miss Perkins, at sight of the t.i.tle, had glared disapprovingly, and had hesitated a moment before stamping the card.

”Is this for yourself?” she had asked.

”Yes'm.”

”It isn't a book for little girls,” snapped Miss Perkins.

”I've read half of it already,” f.a.n.n.y informed her sweetly. And went out with it under her arm. It was Zola's ”The Ladies' Paradise” (Au Bonheur des Dames). The story of the shop girl, and the crus.h.i.+ng of the little dealer by the great and moneyed company had thrilled and fascinated her.

Her mind was full of it as she turned the corner on Norris Street and ran full-tilt, into a yowling, taunting, torturing little pack of boys.

They were gathered in close formation about some object which they were teasing, and knocking about in the mud, and otherwise abusing with the savagery of their years. f.a.n.n.y, the fiery, stopped short. She pushed into the ring. The object of their efforts was a weak-kneed and hollow-chested little boy who could not fight because he was cowardly as well as weak, and his name (oh, pity!) was Clarence--Clarence Heyl.

There are few things that a mischievous group of small boys cannot do with a name like Clarence. They whined it, they catcalled it, they shrieked it in falsetto imitation of Clarence's mother. He was a wide-mouthed, sallow and pindling little boy, whose pipe-stemmed legs looked all the thinner for being contrasted with his feet, which were long and narrow. At that time he wore spectacles, too, to correct a muscular weakness, so that his one good feature--great soft, liquid eyes--pa.s.sed unnoticed. He was the kind of little boy whose mother insists on dressing him in cloth-top, b.u.t.toned, patent-leather shoes for school. His blue serge suit was never patched or s.h.i.+ny. His stockings were virgin at the knee. He wore an overcoat on cool autumn days. f.a.n.n.y despised and pitied him. We ask you not to, because in this puny, shy and ugly little boy of fifteen you behold Our Hero.

He staggered to his feet now, as f.a.n.n.y came up. His school reefer was mud-bespattered. His stockings were torn. His cap was gone and his hair was wild. There was a cut or scratch on one cheek, from which the blood flowed.

”I'll tell my mother on you!” he screamed impotently, and shook with rage and terror. ”You'll see, you will! You let me alone, now!”

f.a.n.n.y felt a sick sensation at the pit of her stomach and in her throat.

Then:

”He'll tell his ma!” sneered the boys in chorus. ”Oh, mamma!” And called him the Name. And at that a she wildcat broke loose among them. She pounced on them without warning, a little fury of blazing eyes and flying hair, and white teeth showing in a snarl. If she had fought fair, or if she had not taken them so by surprise, she would have been powerless among them. But she had sprung at them with the suddenness of rage. She kicked, and scratched, and bit, and clawed and spat. She seemed not to feel the defensive blows that were showered upon her in turn. Her own hard little fists were now doubled for a thump or opened, like a claw, for scratching.

”Go on home!” she yelled to Clarence, even while she fought. And Clarence, gathering up his tattered school books, went, and stood not on the order of his going. Whereupon f.a.n.n.y darted nimbly to one side, out of the way of boyish brown fists. In that moment she was transformed from a raging fury into a very meek and trembling little girl, who looked shyly and pleadingly out from a tangle of curls. The boys were for rus.h.i.+ng at her again.

”Cowardy-cats! Five of you fighting one girl,” cried f.a.n.n.y, her lower lip trembling ever so little. ”Come on! Hit me! Afraid to fight anything but girls! Cowardy-cats!” A tear, pearly, pathetic, coursed down her cheek.

The drive was broken. Five sullen little boys stood and glared at her, impotently.