Part 8 (2/2)

”Yes?”

”Good business to-day--not, Abie?--and such heat too! Mrs. Abrahams called across the hallway just now that she was in for a pair; but you was so busy with a customer she couldn't wait--that little pink-haired clerk, with her extravagant ways, had to go off and leave you in the heat! Shoe-b.u.t.toners she puts in every box like they cost nothing. I told her so last week, too.”

”She's a grand little clerk, mamma--such a business head I never seen!”

”Like I couldn't have come down and helped you to-day! Believe me--when I was in the store with papa, Abie, we wasn't so up-to-date; but none of 'em got away.”

”I should know when Mrs. Abrahams wants shoes--five times a week she comes in to be sociable.”

”I used to say to papa: 'Always leave a customer to go take a new one's shoes off; and then go back and take your time! Two customers in their stockinged feet is worth more than one in a new pair of shoes!' Abie, you don't look right. You'll tell me the truth if you don't feel well, won't you? I always say to have the doctor in time saves nine. If poor papa had listened to me--”

”I'm all right, mamma. Why don't you sit down by me? Don't light the gas--for why should you make it hotter? Come, sit down by me.”

”I go put the oven light out. Apple-pie I was baking for you yet; for myself I don't need supper--I had coffee at five o'clock.”

Dusk entered the little apartment and crowded the furniture into phantoms; a red signal light from the skeleton of the elevated road threw a glow as mellow as firelight across the mantelpiece. Mrs.

Ginsburg's canary rustled himself until he swelled up twice too fat and performed the ever-amazing ritual of thrusting his head within himself as if he would prey on his own vitals. The cooler breath of night; the smells of neighboring food; the more frequent rus.h.i.+ng of trains, and a navy-blue sky, pit-marked with small stars, came all at once. In the hallway Mrs. Ginsburg worked the hook of the telephone impatiently up and down.

”Audubon 6879! h.e.l.lo! Washeims' residence? Yetta? Yes, this is Carrie.

Ain't it awful? I'm nearly dead with it. Yetta, Abie ain't feeling so well; so we won't be up to-night. No--it ain't nothing but the heat; but I worry enough, I can tell you.”

”Mamma, don't holler in the telephone so--she can't hear you when you scream.”

”It's always something, ain't it? That's what I tell him; but he's like his poor papa before him--he's afraid no one can do nothing but him; his little snip of a clerk he gives a vacation, but none for himself. I'm glad we ain't going then; you always make yourself so much trouble. It's too hot to eat, Abie says. Beef with horseradish sauce I had for supper, too--and apple-pie I baked in the heat for him; but not a bite will that boy eat! And when he don't eat I know he ain't feeling well. Who?

Beulah? Ain't that grand? Yes, cooking is always good for a girl to know even if she don't need it. No; I go to work and thicken my gravy with flour and horseradish. Believe me, I cried enough when I did it! _Ach_, Yetta, why should I leave that boy? You can believe me when I tell you that not one night except when he was took in at the lodge--not one night since poor papa died--has that boy left me at home alone. Not one step will he take without me.”

”Aw, mamma!”

”Sometimes I say, 'Abie, go out like other boys and see the girls.' But he thinks if he ain't home to fix the windows and the covers for my rheumatism it ain't right. Yes; believe me, when your children ain't feeling well it's worry enough.”

”Aw, maw, I can take you up to the Washeims' if you want to go.”

”You ought to hear him in there, Yetta--fussing because I want to keep him laying down. Yes, I go with you; to-morrow at nine I meet you down by Fulton Street. Up round here they're forty-two cents. Ain't it so?

And I used two whites and a yolk in my pie-dough. Yes; I hope so too. If not I call a doctor. Nine o'clock! Good-by, Yetta.”

”Maw, for me you shouldn't stay home.”

Mrs. Ginsburg flopped into a rocker beside the flowered velvet couch.

”A little broth, Abie?”

”No.”

”When you don't eat it's something wrong.”

”You needn't fan me, mamma--I ain't hot now.”

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