Part 12 (2/2)

”You said that last year, and by April my preserve cupboard looked like Old Mother Hubbard's.”

But then, Mrs. Brandeis was famous for her preserves, as Father Fitzpatrick, and Aloysius, and Doctor Thalmann, and a dozen others could testify. After the strain and flurry of a busy day at the store there was something about this homely household rite that brought a certain sense of rest and peace to Molly Brandeis.

All this moved through f.a.n.n.y Brandeis's mind as she sat with the crumpled ap.r.o.n in her lap, her eyes swimming with hot tears. The very stains that discolored it, the faded blue of the front breadth, the frayed b.u.t.tonhole, the little scorched place where she had burned a hole when trying unwisely to lift a steaming kettle from the stove with the ap.r.o.n's corner, spoke to her with eloquent lips. That ap.r.o.n had become a vice with f.a.n.n.y. She brooded over it as a mother broods over the shapeless, scuffled bit of leather that was a baby's shoe; as a woman, widowed, clings to a shabby, frayed old smoking jacket. More than once she had cried herself to sleep with the ap.r.o.n clasped tightly in her arms.

She got up from the floor now, with the ap.r.o.n in her hands, and went down the stairs, opened the door that led to the cellar, walked heavily down those steps and over to the furnace. She flung open the furnace door. Red and purple the coal bed gleamed, with little white flame sprites dancing over it. f.a.n.n.y stared at it a moment, fascinated. Her face was set, her eyes brilliant. Suddenly she flung the tightly-rolled ap.r.o.n into the heart of the gleaming ma.s.s. She shut her eyes then.

The fire seemed to hold its breath for a moment. Then, with a gasp, it sprang upon its food. The bundle stiffened, writhed, crumpled, sank, lay a blackened heap, was dissolved. The fire bed glowed red and purple as before, except for a dark spot in its heart. f.a.n.n.y s.h.i.+vered a little.

She shut the furnace door and went up-stairs again.

”Smells like something burning--cloth, or something,” called Annie, from the kitchen.

”It's only an old ap.r.o.n that was cluttering up my--my bureau drawer.”

Thus she successfully demonstrated the first lesson in the cruel and rigid course of mental training she had mapped out for herself.

Leaving Winnebago was not easy. There is something about a small town that holds you. Your life is so intimately interwoven with that of your neighbor. Existence is so safe, so sane, so sure. f.a.n.n.y knew that when she turned the corner of Elm Street every third person she met would speak to her. Life was made up of minute details, too trivial for the notice of the hurrying city crowds. You knew when Milly Glaenzer changed the baby buggy for a go-cart. The youngest Hupp boy--Sammy--who was graduated from High School in June, is driving A. J. Dawes's automobile now. My goodness, how time flies! Doeppler's grocery has put in plate-gla.s.s windows, and they're getting out-of-season vegetables every day now from Milwaukee. As you pa.s.s you get the coral glow of tomatoes, and the tender green of lettuces. And that vivid green? Fresh young peas! And in February. Well! They've torn down the old yellow brick National Bank, and in its place a chaste Greek Temple of a building looks rather contemptuously down its cla.s.sic columns upon the farmer's wagons drawn up along the curb. If f.a.n.n.y Brandeis' sense of proportion had not been out of plumb she might have realized that, to Winnebago, the new First National Bank building was as significant and epochal as had been the Woolworth Building to New York.

The very intimacy of these details, f.a.n.n.y argued, was another reason for leaving Winnebago. They were like detaining fingers that grasped at your skirts, impeding your progress.

She had early set about pulling every wire within her reach that might lead, directly or indirectly, to the furtherance of her ambition. She got two offers from Milwaukee retail stores. She did not consider them for a moment. Even a Chicago department store of the second grade (one of those on the wrong side of State Street) did not tempt her. She knew her value. She could afford to wait. There was money enough on which to live comfortably until the right chance presented itself. She knew every item of her equipment, and she conned them to herself greedily: Definite charm of manner; the thing that is called magnetism; brains; imagination; driving force; health; youth; and, most precious of all, that which money could not buy, nor education provide--experience.

Experience, a priceless weapon, that is beaten into shape only by much contact with men and women, and that is sharpened by much rubbing against the rough edges of this world.

In April her chance came to her; came in that accidental, haphazard way that momentous happenings have. She met on Elm Street a traveling man from whom Molly Brandeis had bought for years. He dropped both sample cases and shook hands with f.a.n.n.y, eying her expertly and approvingly, and yet without insolence. He was a wise, road-weary, skillful member of his fraternity, grown gray in years of service, and a little bitter.

Though perhaps that was due partly to traveling man's dyspepsia, brought on by years of small-town hotel food.

”So you've sold out.”

”Yes. Over a month ago.”

”H'm. That was a nice little business you had there. Your ma built it up herself. There was a woman! Gos.h.!.+ Discounted her bills, even during the panic.”

f.a.n.n.y smiled a reflective little smile. ”That line is a complete characterization of my mother. Her life was a series of panics. But she never lost her head. And she always discounted.”

He held out his hand. ”Well, glad I met you.” He picked up his sample cases. ”You leaving Winnebago?”

”Yes.”

”Going to the city, I suppose. Well you're a smart girl. And your mother's daughter. I guess you'll get along all right. What house are you going with?”

”I don't know. I'm waiting for the right chance. It's all in starting right. I'm not going to hurry.”

He put down his cases again, and his eyes grew keen and kindly. He gesticulated with one broad forefinger. ”Listen, m' girl. I'm what they call an old-timer. They want these high-power, eight-cylinder kids on the road these days, and it's all we can do to keep up. But I've got something they haven't got--yet. I never read anybody on the Psychology of Business, but I know human nature all the way from Elm Street, Winnebago, to Fifth Avenue, New York.”

”I'm sure you do,” said f.a.n.n.y politely, and took a little step forward, as though to end the conversation.

”Now wait a minute. They say the way to learn is to make mistakes. If that's true, I'm at the head of the cla.s.s. I've made 'em all. Now get this. You start out and specialize. Specialize! Tie to one thing, and make yourself an expert in it. But first be sure it's the right thing.”

”But how is one to be sure?”

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