Part 9 (2/2)
”Girls you can always get--not? Girls nowadays ain't what they used to be neither. I'd like to see a girl do to-day for papa what I did--how I was in the store and kitchen all at once; then we didn't have no satin-shoe clerks! Girls ain't what they used to be; in my day working-girls had no time for fine-smelling cologne-water and--”
”All girls ain't alike, mamma--satin shoes cost no more nowadays as leather. We got a dollar-ninety-eight satin pump, you wouldn't believe it--and such a seller! All girls ain't alike, mamma.”
”What you mean, Abie?”
Mr. Ginsburg turned on the couch so that his face was close to the wall, and his voice half lost in the curve of his arm.
”Well, once in a while you come across a girl that ain't--ain't like the rest of 'em. Well, there ought to be girls that ain't like the rest of 'em, oughtn't there?”
Mrs. Ginsburg's rocking and fanning slowed down a bit; a curious moment fell over the little room; a nerve-tingling quiescence that in its pregnant moment can race the mind back over an eternity--a silence that is cold with sweat, like the second when a doctor removes his stethoscope from over a patient's left breast and looks at him with a film of pity glazing his eyes.
”What you mean, Abie? Tell mamma what you mean. I ain't the one to stand in your light.” Mrs. Ginsburg's speech clogged in her throat.
”You know you always got a home with me, mamma. You know, no matter what comes, I always got to tuck you in bed at night and fix the windows for you. You know you always got with me the best kind of a home I got to give you. Ain't it?”
His hand crept out and rested lightly--ever so lightly--on his mother's knee.
”Abie, you never talked like this before--I won't stand in your way, Abie. If you can make up your mind, Beulah Washeim or Hannah Rosenblatt, either would be--”
”Aw, mamma, it ain't them.”
Mrs. Ginsburg's hand closed tightly over her son's; a train swooped past and created a flurry of warm breeze in the room.
”Who--is--it, Abie? Don't be afraid to tell mamma.”
”Why, mamma, it ain't no one! Can't a fellow just talk? You started it, didn't you? I was just talking 'cause you was.”
”He scares me yet! No consideration that boy has got for his mother!
Abie, a little broth--you ain't got no fever, Abie--your head is cool like ice.”
”You ain't had no supper yet, mamma.”
”I had coffee at five o'clock; for myself I never worry. I'm glad enough you feel all right. It's eight o'clock, Abie--I go me to bed. To-morrow I go to market with Yetta.”
”Aw, mamma, now why for do you--”
”I ain't too proud--such high-toned notions I ain't got. For what I pay forty-two cents for eggs up here when I can get 'em for thirty-eight?”
”Be careful, mamma; don't fall over the chair--you want a light?”
”No. Write me a note for the milkman, Abie, before you go to bed, and leave it out with the bottles--half a pint of double cream I want. I make you cream-potatoes for supper to-morrow. I laid your blue s.h.i.+rt on your bed, Abie--don't go to bed on it. It's the last time I iron it; but once more you can wear it, then I make dust-rags. I ironed it soft like you like.”
”Yes, mamma.”
”Put the cover on the canary, too, Abie. That night you went to the lodge he chirped and chirped, just like you was lost and he was crying 'cause me and him was lonely.”
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