Part 45 (1/2)

”That's always the way! What's the use of getting off the track? All we want to say, papa, is we got a chance like we never had before to sublet. Forty dollars a month, and no children. For three months we could live in the city on family rates, and maybe for three months I'd know I was alive. A--a girl's got feelings, papa! And, honest, it--it ain't no trip, papa--what's forty-five minutes on the car with your newspaper?--honest, papa, it ain't.”

Mr. Isadore Binsw.a.n.ger drained a gla.s.s of water.

”Give 'er a chance, pa. The boys'll show her a swell time in the city--Max Teitlebaum and all that crowd. It ain't no fun for me traipsin' out after her, lemme tell you.”

Mr. Binsw.a.n.ger pushed back his chair and rose from the table. His eyes, the wet-looking eyes of age and asthma, retreated behind a network of wrinkles as intricate as overhead wiring.

”I wish,” he cried, ”I was as far as the bottom of the ocean away from such nonsense as I find in my own family. Up to my neck I'm full. Like wolfs you are! On my neck I can feel your breath hot like a furnace.

Like wolfs you drive me till I--I can't stand it no more. All what I ask is my peace--my little house, my little pipe, my little porch, and not even my peace can I have. You--you're a pack of wolfs, I tell you--even your fangs I can see, and--and I--I wish I was so far away as the bottom of the ocean.”

He shambled toward the door on legs bent to the cruel curve of rheumatism. The sun had dropped into a bursting west, and was as red as a mist of blood. Its reflection lay on the smooth lawn and hung in the dark shadows of quiet trees, and through the fulvous haze of evening's first moment came the chirruping of crickets.

”I wish I was so far away as the bottom of the ocean.”

The tight-springed screen door sprang shut on his words, and his footsteps shambled across the wide ledge of porch. A silence fell across the little dining-table, and Miss Binsw.a.n.ger wiped at fresh tears, but her mother threw her a confident gesture of rea.s.surance.

”Don't say no more now for a while, children.”

Mr. Isadore Binsw.a.n.ger inserted a toothpick between his lips and stretched his limbs out at a hypotenuse from the chair.

”I'm done. I knew the old man would jump all over me.”

”Izzy, you and Poil go on now; for the theater you won't catch the seven-ten car if you don't hurry. Leave it to me, Poil; I can tell by your papa's voice we got him won. How he fusses like just now don't make no difference; you know how your papa is. Here, Poil, lemme help you with your coat.”

”I--I don't want to go, mamma!”

”_Ach_, now, Poil, you--”

”If you're coming with me you'd better get a hustle. I ain't going to hang around this graveyard all evening.”

Her brother rose to his slightly corpulent five feet five and shook his trousers into their careful creases. His face was a soft-fleshed rather careless replica of his mother's, with a dimple-cleft chin, and a delicate down of beard that made his shaving a manly accomplishment rather than a hirsute necessity.

”Here on the sideboard is your hat, Poil--powder a little around your eyes. Just leave papa to me, Poil. _Ach_, how sweet that hat with them roses out of stock looks on you! Come out here the side way--_ach_, how nice it is out here on the porch! How short the days get--dark nearly already at seven! Good-by, children. Izzy, take your sister by the arm; the whole world don't need to know you're her brother.”

”Leave the door on the latch, mamma.”

”Have a good time, children. Ain't you going to say good-by to your papa, Poil? Your worst enemy he ain't. Julius, leave Billy alone--honest, he likes that cat better as his family. Tell your papa good-by, Poil.”

”I--said--good-by.”

”She should say good-by to me only if she wants to. Izzy, when you go out the gate drive back that rooster--I'll wring his little gallivantin'

neck if he don't stop roosting in that bus.h.!.+”

”Good night, children; take good care of the cars.”

”Good night, mamma...papa.”

The gate clicked shut, and the two figures moved into the mist of growing gloom; over their heads the trees met and formed across the brick sidewalk a roof as softly dark as the ceiling of a church. Birds chirped.

Mrs. Binsw.a.n.ger leaned her wide, uncorseted figure against a pillar and watched them until a curve in the avenue cut her view, then she dragged a low wicker rocker across the veranda.