Part 24 (1/2)
”Nice people!”
”You couldn't get a pin between Tekla and him--honest, how that girl worked for him! Selma Blumenthal was there, too, and I must say she looked grand--those eyes of hers and that figure! But what those fellows can see in her so much I don't know. Honest, mamma, she's such a dumbhead she can't talk ten words to a boy.”
”Girls don't need so much brains. I always say it scares the men off.
Look at Gussie Graudenheimer--high school she had to have yet! What good does it do? Not a thing does that girl have--and her mother worries enough about it, too.”
”That's what Marcus says about her--he says she's too smart for him; he says he'd rather have a girl nice and sweet than too smart.”
Mrs. Katzenstein leaned her broom in a corner, daubed at the mantelpiece with a flannel cloth, and regarded her daughter surrept.i.tiously through the mirror.
”You had a nice time with Marcus last night? You've been out with him five times and still have nothing to say.”
”What's there to say, mamma? He's a fine boy and shows a girl a grand time. Last night it was sleeting just a little, and he had to have a taxi-cab. Honest, it was a shame for the money! Take it from me, Morris Adler walked Tekla. I saw them going to the Subway.”
”Well, what's what? Is that the end of it?”
”Aw, mamma, how should I know? I can't read a fellow's mind! All I know is he--he's coming over to-night.”
”Don't you bother with putting those slippers away, Birdie; you just lie round and take it easy this morning. When a girl's going to have company in the evening she should rest up--me and Tillie can do this little work.”
Birdie wrapped herself in a crimson kimono plentifully splotched with large pink and blue and red and green chrysanthemums and snuggled into a white wicker rocking-chair. Her lips, warmly curved like a child's, were parted in a smile.
”I don't want breakfast,” she announced. ”Irma Friedman quit it and lost five pounds in two weeks.”
”Papa and me were saying last night, Birdie, we aren't in a hurry to get rid of you; but such a young man as Marcus Gump any girl can be lucky to get. Aunt Batta said she heard for sure Loeb Brothers are going to make him manager of their new factory--think once, manager and three thousand a year!--just double his salary! Think of putting a young man like him in that big Newark factory!”
”It's surely grand; but for what does it have to be in a place like Newark?”
”Papa says that boy put March Hare boys' pants on the market for the Loebs. How grand for his mother and all, her a widow, to have such a son! Wasn't I right to invite her this afternoon?”
”I'm the last one to say a word against Marcus. You ought to heard them last night talking on the side about him and his new position he might get--just grand! Jeanette's got a new st.i.tch, mamma. It's not like eyelet or French, but sort of between the two, and grand for centerpieces. I could embroider a dresser-cover in a week.”
”I thought I'd have sardines this afternoon instead of cold tongue. For why should I make Mrs. Cohen feel bad that we don't buy at their delicatessen?”
”I'll fix the cut-gla.s.s bowl with fruit for the center of the table.”
”It's like papa and me said last night, Birdie--a girl makes no mistake when she follows her parents' advice. Marcus Gump's own mother told me when I was introduced to her at Hirsch's yesterday afternoon, you're the first girl he ever took out more than two or three times.”
Birdie snuggled deeper in her chair and stretched her arms with the gesture of Aurora greeting the day.
”Mamma,” she said, softly, ”what do you think he--he said I looked like last night?”
”What?”
”He said--he said--”
Mrs. Katzenstein paused in her dusting.
”He--said--Aw, mamma, I can't go telling it--so silly it sounds.”