Part 11 (2/2)

Thank you! Call again. Now, madam, what can I do for you? Yes, we have them in moccasins in year-old size--sixty cents, and grand and soft for their little feet. Wait; I'll see. Mr. Ginsburg, have we got those 672 infants' in pink?”

”Sure thing. Wait, Miss Ruby--I'll climb for you. I have to go up anyway.”

”Aw, you're busy with your own customers. Don't trouble.”

”Nothing's trouble when it's for you, Miss Ruby. Show her those ta.s.sel tops, too.”

”Oh, Mr. Ginsburg, ain't you the kidder, though! Yes'm; the ta.s.sel tops are eighty. Ain't they the cutest little things?”

At six o'clock a medley of whistles shrieked out the eventide--clarions that ripped upward like sky-rockets in flight; hard-throated soprano whistles that juggled with the topmost note like a colorature diva. The oak benches emptied, Mr. Ginsburg raised the front awning and kicked the carpet-covered brick away from the door, so that it swung quietly closed; daubed at his wrists and collar-top with a damp handkerchief.

”First breathing s.p.a.ce we've had to-day, ain't it, Miss Ruby?”

Miss Cohn flopped down on a bench and breathed heavily; her hair lay damp on her temples; the ruffles at her neck were limp as the ruff of a Pierette the morning after the costume ball.

”You should worry, Mr. Ginsburg! With such a business next year at this time you'll have two clerks and more breathing s.p.a.ce than you got breath.”

Mr. Ginsburg seated himself carefully beside her at a wide range, so that a customer for a seven-E last could have fitted in between them.

”I've built up a good business here, Miss Ruby. The trouble with poor papa was he was afraid to spend, and he was afraid of novelties. I couldn't learn him that a windowful of satin pumps helps swell the storm-rubber sale. Those little dollar-ninety-eights look swell on your feet, Miss Ruby; you're a good advertis.e.m.e.nt for the stock--not?”

”Funny what a hit them pumps make! Mr. Leavitt was crazy about them, too; but, say, what your mother thinks of these satin slippers I'd hate to tell you. When she was down the day before I left she looked at 'em till I got so nervous I tripped over the cracks between the boards. Say, but wasn't she sore about the new gla.s.s fixtures! I kinda felt like it was my fault, too; but I was strong for 'em because--”

”Mamma's the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind, Miss Ruby--her and poor papa like the old way of doing things. She's getting old, Miss Ruby, but she means well. She's a good mother--a good mother.”

”She's sure a grand woman--carrying soup across to old Levinsky every day, and all.”

”She's more'n you know she is, too, Miss Ruby--little things that woman does I could tell you about--when she didn't have it so good as now neither.”

Miss Ruby dropped her lids until her eyes were as soft as plush behind the portieres of her lashes; her voice dropped into a throat that might have been lined with that same soft plush.

”I had a mother for two days--like I said to Mr. Leavitt the other day up in the country--we was talking about different things. I says to him, I says, she quit when she looked at me--just laid down and died when I was two days old. I must have been enough to scare the daylights out of any one. Next to a pink worm on a fish-hook gimme a red-headed baby for the horrors! Say, you ought to seen Mr. Leavitt fis.h.!.+ Six ba.s.s he caught in one day--I sat next him and watched; we had 'em fried for supper.

He's some little--”

”What a pleasure you'd 'a' been to your mother, Miss Ruby! Such a girl like you I could wish my own mother.”

”That's just what Mr. Leavitt used to tell me; but, gee! he was a kidder! I--I oughtta had a mother! Sometimes I--sometimes in the night when I can't sleep--daytimes you don't care so much--but sometimes at night I--I just don't care about nothing. With a girl like me, that ain't even known a mother or father, it ain't always so easy to keep her head above water.”

”Poor little girl!”

”Since the day I left the Inst.i.tootion I been dodging the city and jumping its mud-holes like a lady trying to cross Sixth Avenue when it's torn up. I--oh, ain't I the silly one?--treating you to my troubles!

Say, I got a swell riddle! I can't give it like Leavitt--like Simon did; but--”

”Always Mr. Leavitt, and now it's Simon yet--such a hit as that man made with you--not?”

”Hit! Can't a girl have a gentleman friend? Can't you have a lady friend--a friend like Miss Washeim, who comes in for shoes three times--”

”Ruby, can I help it when she comes in here?”

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