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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78464 ***
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber’s Note
+  Italic text displayed as: _italic_
+
+
+
+
+  PICTURE
+  FRAMES
+
+
+
+
+_NEW BORZOI NOVELS FALL, 1923_
+
+
+  JANE—OUR STRANGER
+  _Mary Borden_
+
+  THE BACHELOR GIRL
+  _Victor Margueritte_
+
+  THE BLIND BOW-BOY
+  _Carl Van Vechten_
+
+  HEART’S BLOOD
+  _Ethel M. Kelley_
+
+  THE BACK SEAT
+  _G. B. Stern_
+
+  JANET MARCH
+  _Floyd Dell_
+
+  A LOST LADY
+  _Willa Cather_
+
+  LOVE DAYS
+  _Henrie Waste_
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PICTURE
+  FRAMES
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  THYRA SAMTER
+  WINSLOW
+
+  ALFRED A. KNOPF
+  NEW YORK       1923
+
+  [Illustration]
+]
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
+
+  _Published, February, 1923_
+  _Second Printing, March, 1923_
+  _Third Printing, April, 1923_
+  _Fourth Printing, July, 1923_
+  _Fifth Printing, December, 1923_
+
+  _Set up, electrotyped, printed and bound by the Vail-Ballou Press,
+    Inc., Binghamton, N. Y.
+  Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York._
+
+  MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  LITTLE EMMA                                                          3
+
+  GRANDMA                                                             21
+
+  MAMIE CARPENTER                                                     50
+
+  A CYCLE OF MANHATTAN                                                96
+
+  AMY’S STORY                                                        174
+
+  CITY FOLKS                                                         194
+
+  INDIAN SUMMER                                                      213
+
+  A LOVE AFFAIR                                                      237
+
+  BIRTHDAY                                                           255
+
+  CORINNA AND HER MAN                                                277
+
+  THE END OF ANNA                                                    298
+
+
+
+
+  PICTURE
+  FRAMES
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE EMMA
+
+
+When little Emma Hooper, from Black Plains, Iowa, came to Chicago to
+carve out her fortune, she did not leave behind her a sorrowing family
+who wondered about the fate of their dear child in the city. Neither
+did she sneak away from a cruel step-mother who had made life hard,
+unbearable. Emma’s family was quite glad to see her go.
+
+Emma’s father was a member of the Knights of Pythias and worked in an
+overall factory. Her mother, a lazy, whiny woman, kept house, assisted
+unwillingly and incompetently by such daughters of the house as
+happened to be out of work. There were three of these daughters besides
+Emma and they all worked when jobs were not too difficult to get or
+keep. They spent their spare time trying to get married. There was one
+son. He was next in age to Emma, who was the second youngest. He smoked
+cheap cigars and hung around the livery stable and garage. His name was
+Ralph.
+
+Emma came up to Chicago because she had read and heard a lot about that
+great city, and because she wanted to get away from Black Plains. She
+wanted to have a good time. There was nothing doing in Black Plains,
+and she knew it. She didn’t belong to “the crowd,” as fashionable
+society was called there, for she lacked both money and family. She was
+twenty-two and had gone with the drummers who stayed at the Palace
+Hotel since she was seventeen.
+
+Emma had been wanting to come to Chicago for a long time, but she
+didn’t have the money. She had been graduated from grade school and
+finished at the Black Plains Business College. Her father liked to
+refer to the fact but good jobs were few in Black Plains, and Emma
+had not mastered the details of her profession, such as spelling and
+punctuation, and so she never could save much.
+
+Emma’s money came rather unexpectedly. Clarence Avery got home from
+college. He was the banker’s son and had gone to grade school with
+Emma. At that time he had suffered from numerous colds in the head
+and was inclined to lankiness and freckles. At twenty-two he was the
+average small-town college graduate. Clarence belonged to the local
+society crowd, but after several years of metropolitan living he was
+bored and disappointed with the gaieties of Black Plains. When he met
+Emma on the street one day he was agreeably surprised. Emma was small
+and had dark hair that curled naturally and she knew how to do it
+up. She and her sisters read the fashion magazines and ordered their
+clothes from a Chicago mail-order house. She wasn’t afraid of a bit of
+rouge or an eyebrow pencil, either, and she had a neat little figure.
+
+“Hello,” said Clarence, “aren’t you—why, you couldn’t be little Emma
+Hooper!”
+
+“Well, I just am,” said Emma, and they stood and talked for a long time.
+
+Then Clarence began to call and, disobeying all of the rules of Black
+Plains society, he escorted Emma to the Airdrome and the movies and the
+most prominent ice cream parlour. This worried Avery, the banker. After
+he had argued with Clarence with no apparent success, he asked Emma
+to call at the bank. There he had made a proposition to her. If Miss
+Hooper would leave town, over the winter, say, a check for five hundred
+dollars would belong to her. It was all right, of course, he knew she
+was a nice girl, not a bit of harm meant or anything like that, but
+Clarence was young, oh, a fine boy, but young, and if Miss Hooper, now—
+
+So Emma had five hundred dollars. She didn’t like Clarence much,
+anyhow. He was a silly, conceited thing, who told long tales about
+himself, and hadn’t changed much, in fact, since his sniffy boyhood
+days.
+
+The Hoopers rejoiced in Emma’s luck, gave her advice about spending the
+money and called her a selfish thing, so she gave one hundred dollars
+to the girls, and then with the rest and a promise to write all about
+the new styles—Millie, the oldest, had nearly captured a drummer who
+travelled out of Kansas City—she came up to Chicago.
+
+On the train she figured it all out. Country girls were always
+important in a large city. She knew that. Didn’t she read about them
+in the magazines every day? Always “the girl from the country,” sought
+after, betrayed. Huh! But it sounded interesting, anyway.
+
+“For I’m rather good-looking,” mused Emma, modestly, “and if some
+country girl has got to be betrayed, it might as well be me. I’ll read
+the want-ads like the rest and apply for a job where they want girls
+fresh from the country. I’ll try to get a job with one of those nice,
+grey-haired old papas, who has a wife that misunderstands him, and some
+day he’ll take me out to dinner, and, well, of course, Clarence wasn’t
+a real conquest, that old thing, but if I can’t find a nice old geezer,
+well, something is the matter with this girl from the country stuff,
+that’s all.”
+
+As the train neared Chicago, a travelling man got on and sat down
+beside Emma. He tried to flirt with her. He asked her where she came
+from, and when she said Iowa, he said, “Oh, forget that stuff, kid; you
+haven’t been out of Chi a week.” She wondered why he said it, but it
+rather pleased her. She and her sisters had rather thought that they
+kept up with things, watching the fashion books and the movies, but she
+had been awfully afraid she would look like a rube. She resented the
+travelling man, though. What kind of a fish did he think she was? Why,
+even in Black Plains she wouldn’t have flirted with a cheap thing like
+him. He even held one hand over his wedding ring. You couldn’t put a
+thing like that over Emma.
+
+At seven o’clock Emma landed in the city. The lights and noises
+confused her for a minute, but she liked them then—it was like a
+carnival. She didn’t see a policeman, so she went up to a fairly
+respectable-looking man and asked where the Y. W. C. A. was. She knew
+about that and had decided to stay there until she had time to look
+around. The man looked at her and smiled. “Come, now, girlie, you don’t
+want to go there,” he said, “you and I’ll have something to eat and
+then I’ll show you a nice place to stay.”
+
+“Can you beat it?” said Emma, as she went on, with a toss of her head.
+“Do they really get away with that stuff in the city? Regular movie
+stuff. Can you beat it?”
+
+She finally found the Y. W. C. A. answered a number of questions
+drawled out by a peevish fat woman, and was given a room.
+
+Emma spent two weeks looking around. She visited all of the department
+stores and watched people. Then she took an inventory of her clothes.
+They looked better than she had expected. She’d spy around a bit before
+getting any new clothes. By putting her hat a bit more over her right
+ear and pulling her hair down over her forehead, she felt she could
+look as good as the next one.
+
+She went to matinées and discovered restaurants and hotels and tea
+rooms and little things to wear. She sent home hideously-coloured
+postcards, saying what a fine time she was having, and sent each of the
+girls a waist and her mother a pocketbook. She got tired of the Y. W.
+C. A. and found a nice, quiet, inexpensive room on the North Side. She
+liked the city.
+
+She flirted with one man in a tea room, but that was all. She didn’t
+like that sort of thing. She was looking for the old millionaire whose
+wife didn’t understand him and who liked little girls from the country.
+
+Finally, she found that her money was beginning to disappear. By this
+time she knew the city pretty well, and so she began to look for a
+position in real earnest. “They all like ’em from the country,” she
+told herself. She answered want-ads, those that asked for “young,
+inexperienced girls.” Maybe that was the kind the rich old men put in.
+They sounded that way.
+
+Emma did not meet with much success. Usually, the place was filled when
+she went to apply for it. Other times, men with wearied, blank faces
+asked her questions—but nothing ever came of it.
+
+For several weeks she looked for a position, somewhat carelessly at
+first, later with hard earnestness. Was it possible that there were
+no millionaires hunting for little girls, no positions even? For a
+week she had a job in a dirty, poorly-ventilated office, where the
+proprietor chewed tobacco. It was some sort of a fake insurance place.
+She was fired at the end of the week, but she would have quit anyhow.
+
+She looked again. It was a tiresome job. She still had over a hundred
+dollars. “Not a millionaire in sight!” she sighed, as she went to bed.
+“These magazines are sure putting it over people.”
+
+Then she applied for positions by mail. She said she was all alone in
+the city, from Iowa. She had more luck. Over half of her letters were
+answered, but, though she was given interviews, she wasn’t given a job.
+One man, tall, lean, sneering, looked at her for a long time.
+
+“What made you say you were from the country?” he asked.
+
+“I am,” said Emma, “Iowa.”
+
+“Iowa. Hell!” said the man. “One look is enough to show that the White
+City is the nearest the country you’ve ever been.”
+
+The White City is a summer amusement park, but Emma didn’t even know
+it. But she had got a hint at the truth.
+
+A week later she met Hallie Summers. They were both applying for the
+same position—“expert stenographer.” Hallie was correctly tailored,
+perfectly groomed. Her black suit had a bit of fur at the throat, her
+hat was a smart rough felt, trimmed with a single wing. Her white
+buckskin gloves were immaculate, her shoes absolutely correct.
+
+Emma gave her name and answered the usual questions. Hallie listened.
+She was next. As Emma waited for the elevator, Hallie joined her.
+
+“What,” asked Hallie, “is that gag you pulled about being from Iowa?”
+
+Emma smiled. She liked the looks of Hallie, straight haired, correct
+looking.
+
+“That,” said Emma, “was the honest truth. I am from Iowa and I don’t
+care who knows it. I don’t know a soul in town but a girl I roomed
+with in the ‘Y. W.’ She wears cotton stockings and is studying to be a
+milliner. Why?”
+
+“Well,” said Hallie, as she led the way into the elevator, “if that’s
+the truth or if it’s a stall, you’re the worst imitation of a country
+girl I ever saw.”
+
+“Meaning what?”
+
+“Why, meaning, of course, my dear child, that you don’t look the part.
+Where did you get those clothes, west side of State Street?”
+
+“Iowa, but they are what most people up here are wearing.”
+
+Emma had on a blue and white striped silk, trimmed with a touch of
+green and she liked it.
+
+“Sure,” said Hallie, “that’s what’s the matter with them.”
+
+“I don’t quite get you,” said Emma.
+
+Hallie smiled.
+
+“You poor thing,” she said, “I believe you really don’t, at that. Come
+up to the Clover Tea and I’ll buy a sandwich, though I’m not usually
+that kind of a philanthropist, and we’ll talk it over.”
+
+Hallie ordered tea and sandwiches and the girls talked. The only girls
+Emma had talked to in Chicago had been cheap and slow and stupid. She
+liked Hallie. Hallie was old, that indefinite age around thirty, and
+she was wise—next to things. She knew Chicago—the way she wanted to
+know it. She, too, was, in a way, looking for a millionaire, though she
+had found one and lost him again.
+
+The two girls talked. In five minutes they had bridged the distances
+more formal people would have spent years over. Emma knew all about
+Hallie, who wanted sixty dollars a week—and sometimes got it, and
+Hallie knew about Clarence and the five hundred dollars and the rich
+old papa who hadn’t appeared.
+
+“Now what’s the matter with my looks?” asked Emma.
+
+“It’s because there isn’t, in a way,” said Hallie. “You look like the
+average stenographer, the twenty-dollar-a-week kind, that’s all. Your
+clothes are cheap and they are almost in style. Look at all those bits
+of velvet and buttons.”
+
+“It said in the catalogue,” said Emma, “that it was the latest thing.
+I’ve seen several in this very pattern here.”
+
+“Sure you have. That’s why you oughtn’t to wear it. You may not know
+it, but people in cities have ideas about how country girls should
+look, though Heaven knows, they don’t look that way. They think that
+country girls wear ginghams and never know that styles change. You
+can’t wear a sunbonnet very well in the city, but if you want to
+get away with the country girl stuff you can wear plain things and
+look—sunbonnety. But rouge and made-up eyes—oh, my!”
+
+“I’m pale without rouge, and my eyes—”
+
+“Sure, you’re pale. Let your eyes alone. How much money have you left?”
+
+Hallie looked honest.
+
+“A little over a hundred dollars,” said Emma.
+
+Hallie nodded. “You can just about do it for that.”
+
+“You mean?”
+
+“Look the part—Iowa.”
+
+“Frumpy and back-to-the-farm?”
+
+“Oh, you don’t have to overdo it. All you’ve got to do is to look like
+a country girl from a city man’s viewpoint. It’s easy.”
+
+On the street, after lunch, Emma pointed to a girl that they passed.
+
+“Like her?”
+
+“Heavens, no. She’s just cheap. Halsted or Clark Street. Real
+simplicity, I mean,” said Hallie, leading the way to Michigan Avenue.
+“Cheap clothes are just like furniture—curlicues and frills and fancy
+velvets and silks and things ‘in style’ come cheapest of all. It’s
+simplicity that costs money. I know the shops, anyhow.”
+
+At an exclusive little shop, Hallie picked out a plain little frock. It
+was dark blue. A tiny white collar was around the neck. In front was a
+touch of silk embroidery in dull shades and a small flat black bow.
+
+“Old men, the kind you are looking for, fall for this stuff,” said
+Hallie. “They all came from the country—once, though they have
+forgotten what it looks like. Musical comedy and the magazines have
+done their worst. They expect frilly white aprons on the farm instead
+of Mother Hubbards. They want what they think is simplicity, so you may
+as well give it to them.”
+
+Emma bought the little frock. It cost forty-five dollars. The
+mail-order silk had cost fifteen.
+
+They bought a hat next, black and floppy and not too big, with a bow
+on one side. It cost more than six of the stylish kind. The shoes were
+stout and flat heeled and the gloves were grey. The coat was plain and
+dark and had a wide belt and big pockets.
+
+Hallie came over the next day and helped try things on. Emma’s dark
+hair was parted and drawn into a plain little knot.
+
+“That’s the stuff,” said Hallie. “To be a simple country girl you’ve
+got to buy the stuff on the Boul’ Mich’, if you’re in Chicago, or
+Fifth Avenue, if you’re in New York. I wish some one would expose this
+small-town stuff. Why, every town the size of a water bug has at least
+two stores where the buyers go to Chicago or New York twice a year.
+With travelling and mail-order houses—huh, it’s only city people that
+don’t know the girl from the country disappeared right after the Civil
+War.”
+
+“You’ve certainly got that straight,” said Emma. “Why, Black Plains
+people spend all of their time trying to look as if they just came from
+the city. But if they could see me in Black Plains dressed like this!”
+
+Under Hallie’s directions, Emma answered a few more want-ads. She
+picked out important office buildings. “Go where they are if you want
+to catch them,” said Hallie, and Emma did.
+
+In two days she had found a job. But the owner of the firm was young
+and happily married and the only other man around the office was a
+young boy who received twenty a week. “Nothing doing,” said Emma and
+she left.
+
+“Be careful, the city is full of allurements and pitfalls for country
+girls,” said the happily married man. Emma thanked him for his advice.
+“I wish I thought so,” she said to herself as she left.
+
+The next week she found her real job. It was what she had been looking
+for. She applied by mail and was told to call. She dressed in her new
+clothes and left off rouge and powder.
+
+A man of about forty-five interviewed her. He was the senior partner.
+He looked old enough to suit Emma. “A nice papa,” thought she. His
+younger brother was the junior partner—they sold bonds—the firm of
+Fraylir and Fraylir.
+
+Emma cast down her eyes during the interview and murmured things about
+being all alone and wanting to succeed. She got the job. Her work was
+to stay in the reception-room and answer questions when people came
+in. There was a little typing and stenography. The wages were twenty
+dollars.
+
+“The position is an easy one, for the right girl,” Frederick Fraylir
+had said. “Perhaps you don’t know what I mean because you are new to
+the city. I’m glad there are still girls like you, wholesome and sane
+looking. Now—”
+
+“I can start at once,” murmured Emma. She thought she noticed a funny
+little glint in his eye but she wasn’t sure. She knew she could just
+about live on that twenty dollars—for a while.
+
+“Now,” she told herself, “if Fraylir only works out according to
+specifications. Rich old man, girl from the country, wife who
+misunderstands—”
+
+At first Emma didn’t know that Frederick Fraylir was married, but she
+soon deduced the fact from conversation that she heard around the
+office and over the telephone. The brothers lived together in a big
+apartment on Lake Shore Drive and there was a Mrs. Fraylir who rang up
+rather frequently. The brothers called her Belle and she had a slow,
+drawling voice. “Hope she misunderstands him,” thought Emma.
+
+Emma liked her job, as much as she liked any kind of work. She liked
+Frederick and even his younger brother, Edward, though Edward was
+colder, more distant. Frederick was friendly, but not friendly enough,
+for Emma, though she sometimes caught him looking at her when the door
+of his office was open. The brothers had one large private office
+together.
+
+In a few months she was raised to twenty-five dollars, but she knew
+that this wouldn’t pay for a regular supply of the new kind of simple
+clothes. She had actually begun to like them. She read magazines in her
+spare time and wondered how long it would be before Fraylir would arise
+to the rôle of the devilish city man. At times she was almost on the
+point of quitting her job—before her clothes wore out—but she always
+stayed on. She did her work as well as she knew how—really tried, and
+cast down her eyes when spoken to and acted the modest and retiring
+country girl.
+
+“If they could see me act like this in Iowa,” she thought, “they’d be
+wondering if I was copying some new movie star.”
+
+But she liked it. It was so quiet and peaceful. There were no quarrels
+with her sisters, no whinings of her mother, no fights between her
+father and Ralph, no drummers to keep in their places.
+
+Several times Mrs. Fraylir called. She was tall and stately and
+dignified. “Cold as ice,” thought Emma, “just the kind to misunderstand
+a husband.” She dropped her eyes when she answered Mrs. Fraylir’s
+questions. “No use letting her suspect I’m even human. They make
+trouble enough—these wives.”
+
+Then Frederick asked her out to dinner. The suddenness of the
+invitation almost staggered her. It had been a rainy day and the
+evening was disagreeably cold and damp. She was putting on her simple
+hat and wondering if she could buy another one soon. It was getting a
+bit shabby.
+
+“Miss Hooper,” he said, “may I—will you come to dinner with me? I have
+to return to the office and look over these new papers. It’s a bit
+unusual, I know, but if you don’t mind, it might be a change for you.
+I thought—”
+
+He actually seemed embarrassed—and he had grey hair and was getting old!
+
+They went to a cozy, quiet restaurant. Fraylir ordered a simple, hearty
+meal. Emma put on her best I’m-all-alone-in-the-city manner. But pretty
+soon she began telling him her real impressions of the city and she was
+surprised to find that he seemed to enjoy them. He had a lot more sense
+than any other man she had ever known.
+
+Halfway through the meal a well-dressed young couple came into the
+restaurant. As they passed, Fraylir spoke to them. Emma was introduced,
+under her real name, as Fraylir’s stenographer, and at Fraylir’s
+invitation, the couple sat down at their table. Emma didn’t know
+things were ever done that way at all. The young couple didn’t even
+seem surprised. Emma liked to hear them talk, so quiet and well bred
+and clever. Emma was careful what she said. When Fraylir smiled his
+approval at her, it made her quite happy. “What kind of a fish am I
+getting to be?” she asked herself that night, when she got home.
+
+After that there were dinners and lunches and an occasional visit
+to the theatre. Emma saw several dramas; she had always limited her
+theatregoing to a musical comedy and vaudeville and had scoffed at
+high-brow stuff. She was surprised to find that she liked them and
+enjoyed discussing the problems they presented with Fraylir. Fraylir
+lent her books and she read them at night because she couldn’t go
+around alone very well and didn’t enjoy the other men and girls she
+met—silly things. She and Fraylir went to the Art Museum and even to
+a couple of private exhibitions and to musicales and she met some
+interesting people. She tried to talk to Fraylir and tried to learn as
+much as she could from him. After all, she had missed a lot of things
+in Black Plains, stopping school at the eighth grade and running around
+with a bunch of cheap, slangy travelling men.
+
+Winter passed. Spring came. Emma stayed at Fraylir and Fraylir’s. She
+knew there were dozens of millionaires looking for innocent country
+girls, but the prospect seemed less real and alluring than in the past.
+She felt pretty well satisfied, somehow. She went without lunches a
+couple of days and managed to get some new clothes—simple things.
+
+She met Hallie one day, Hallie with a new job and a new friend, more
+tailored looking than ever.
+
+“How’s your millionaire?” asked Hallie.
+
+“Fine,” answered Emma, “it was great of you to tell me about clothes
+and things.”
+
+“That’s right,” said Hallie, “I see you’re sticking to the styles I
+picked out for you. I hope your millionaire is the real thing.” Emma,
+for some reason, felt almost insulted. It had been, well, almost coarse
+of Hallie.
+
+Then Mrs. Fraylir went away for the summer. Emma learned about it
+when Mrs. Fraylir talked over the telephone to Edward or Frederick,
+whichever one happened to be in the office when she rang up.
+
+“Now’s the time,” thought Emma, “when their wives go away and
+they realize how misjudged they’ve been.” But she wasn’t exactly
+enthusiastic about it.
+
+Fraylir took her out to dinner and to the summer gardens. She tried
+to show him how sympathetic she could be. It surprised her to find
+out that she really meant it. She was almost afraid to use all of the
+little tricks that she had learned in Black Plains. It didn’t seem
+honest.
+
+Sometimes Edward Fraylir went with them, but usually the two of them
+went alone.
+
+She got a letter saying that Millie was married—she had finally landed
+the drummer who travelled out of Kansas City. And Irma, next youngest,
+was going with a Black Plains boy who kept a cigar store. Emma had to
+write back that she was still working and she took the answering jokes
+about her city success without a murmur. After all, there were so many
+things besides getting a rich papa!
+
+And then, one night without warning—
+
+Frederick Fraylir and Emma had stayed in the office after the others
+had gone. There was some work that had to be copied and they were
+going to have dinner together. As Emma slipped the last page from the
+typewriter, Frederick bent over her.
+
+“Little girl,” he said, “do you know that I care very much for you?”
+Emma closed her eyes. She was afraid to say anything. Why couldn’t
+things have kept on—the way they were? Her heart was beating rather
+rapidly. She had never thought about that.
+
+“Don’t you care, a little?” Frederick went on. “You must have known,
+how I felt, all these weeks.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean,” said Emma. She suddenly remembered that
+that was the right answer, though she was afraid that she had put it in
+the wrong place.
+
+“Why, I mean,” said Frederick, “that I love you. I’ve cared for you
+from the first. It’s hard to say—for an old fellow like me. You are so
+innocent, so sweet. You are so little and alone and unprotected. I love
+you, I want to—”
+
+Well, so it was over! “What about Mrs. Fraylir?” interrupted Emma. Mrs.
+Fraylir had never been brought into their conversation before. The
+words seemed to choke Emma a little.
+
+“Why, dear, she likes you too. She told Edward that as long as I felt
+this way, she hoped you liked me. She wanted to talk to you when she
+came to the office, but she was afraid she’d say the wrong thing, as
+long as I hadn’t said anything to you. I know you’ll like her, though.
+Edward and she will be glad they won’t have to bother with me, I guess.
+Ever since they’ve been married, over seven years, I’ve lived with
+them. They said they wanted me, but I guess they’ll be glad if—” he
+paused.
+
+“Ever since they’ve been married?” repeated Emma, mechanically. “I
+thought, why I thought—”
+
+Frederick misunderstood her.
+
+“Oh, yes,” he said, “seven years, and I’d like a home of my own. We can
+be married whenever you say the word, if you love me a little and I’m
+not too old. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, wanted to offer
+you a real home, wanted you to stop work, but you were so young, so
+unaccustomed to the world. I wanted you to know me and like me a little
+first, so that I wouldn’t frighten you when I proposed. You’re the
+kind of a girl I’ve always been looking for, a simple, small-town girl
+with pure thoughts about things. You’ll marry me, won’t you, dear?”
+
+And Emma, quite overcome, put her head on his shoulder and wept a
+little and said she thought she would. After all, she was all alone in
+the city and only a little country girl.
+
+
+
+
+GRANDMA
+
+
+I
+
+Grandma awoke with a start. She gained consciousness with the feeling
+that something was just about to happen. Then she sank back again on
+the pillow with a comfortable sigh of remembrance. Of course—this was
+the day on which she was going travelling.
+
+Even on usual days, Grandma could not lie in bed, idle. So much more
+reason why she should be up and about, to-day, with so much to do.
+Her train left at twelve o’clock—she had had her ticket and her berth
+reservation for over a week, her trunk was all packed, there were just
+a few necessary articles to put into her bag—but the morning would be
+busy, as all mornings were at Fred’s.
+
+Grandma bathed and dressed hurriedly, her bent, rheumatic fingers
+grasping each hook and button with a nervous haste. As usual, she was
+the first one in the bathroom. This morning she was especially glad.
+For at Fred’s, Grandma’s second son’s house, where she was visiting
+now, there was only one bathroom and there were eight in the family
+without her, if you count the two babies. If you didn’t get in the
+bathroom first....
+
+Grandma put on her neat housedress, as was her wont. She could change
+her dress later, and stuff the housedress into her bag. She arranged
+her thin grey hair in neat waves around her face—she could smooth that
+again, too.
+
+From a room at the other end of the house Grandma heard a baby commence
+to cry. It was Ruthie, Nell’s youngest baby, just a year old, one of
+Grandma’s two great-grandchildren. Grandma loved little Ruthie a great
+deal, a fine baby—still, it did seem good that she wouldn’t have to
+take care of her any more for a long time. Not that Grandma minded
+work—she had always worked, she liked something to do—but here at
+Fred’s house there were so few moments when she wasn’t working. Not
+that Fred’s family were mean to her! Grandma would have been indignant
+if you had suggested that. Didn’t they work as hard as she did, and
+harder? At seventy-three, Grandma was still strong and capable; no
+wonder they expected her to do her share and accepted it without
+comment.
+
+Fred was a good son and a good husband and a good father. Could you
+expect much more? But Fred never had much of a business head. Here he
+was, at forty-nine, just about where he had been fifteen years before,
+bookkeeper at the Harper Feed Store, a good enough position when times
+were better, but, with everything so high, Fred’s salary didn’t go very
+far. Still, no use complaining or worrying him about it, it was the
+best he could do. Fred never had had much ambition or “get up.” It was
+a good thing he had bought the house, years before. It had seemed too
+big and rambling then. It was just about the right size now, though not
+so awfully modern—and quite hard to keep clean.
+
+Emma, Fred’s wife, was a good woman and a good housekeeper. She wasn’t
+like the average daughter-in-law, either. She never quarrelled with
+Grandma about things—in fact, she was awfully kind, in her hurried,
+brusque way. Grandma sometimes wished she wasn’t so quick about things,
+and decided—still, when one is as busy as Emma....
+
+Emma was nearly Fred’s age. They had been married twenty-five years and
+she had always been a good wife to him. They had three children, all
+girls. Grandma had been sorry there couldn’t have been a son to help
+Fred share the burden of supporting the family. But things seemed going
+all right now—a little better than they had been, or so the family
+seemed to think—and, as long as they were satisfied....
+
+Nell, Fred’s oldest daughter, had married, four years before, and had
+gone to housekeeping. But Homer Billingsley, the boy she had married,
+had been sick for almost a year, so they had given up their little
+cottage and were living “with the old folks.” They had two children
+now, Freddie and Ruthie, nice good children, too. Grandma liked Homer,
+Nell’s husband, though she was sorry he was so much like Fred in his
+lack of ambition and power. Now that Homer was able to work again he
+had his old job at Malton’s Hardware Store. There didn’t seem much
+chance of his getting ahead there. Still, he was a good boy and awfully
+fond of Nell and the children.
+
+Edna, Fred’s second daughter, was stenographer at the First National
+Bank and made fifteen dollars a week. Edna was fine looking, really the
+beauty of the family. She paid her board every week, but never had
+much left over because she bought Alice’s clothes, too, and, of course,
+being in the bank, she had to look nice herself. Alice, the youngest
+daughter, was seventeen and in High School. Grandma loved Alice, too.
+Of course the child was thoughtless, she could have helped her mother
+a little more with the housework or Nell with the babies, but Grandma
+knew that, at seventeen, it’s pretty hard to sweep floors or take
+babies out. After all, Alice was young, and she ought to have a good
+time.
+
+While she stayed at Fred’s house, Grandma did her share of the work.
+Even this last morning she followed her usual routine.
+
+She hurried to the room where Ruthie lay and soon had her quieted.
+When Ruthie had her bottle—Grandma had learned all about sterilizing,
+though she hadn’t known there was such a thing when she brought up
+her own children—Grandma set the table, a plate, knife and spoon for
+each, salt and pepper castors that had been a wedding present to Emma
+and Fred, a butter dish with an uneven piece of butter in it, a sugar
+bowl containing rather lumpy sugar and a fluted sugar spoon, a dish of
+home-made plum preserves. She had the table all set when Emma hurried
+into the kitchen with a cheery, abrupt “Morning, Ma,” and started the
+coffee.
+
+At half-past seven all but Alice were ready for breakfast. Grandma had
+got the oatmeal out of the fireless cooker and boiled the eggs for
+Homer, who was rather delicate and needed eggs for breakfast. When the
+family sat down to their meal, Grandma put milk and sugar on little
+Freddie’s oatmeal and saw that he ate it—Freddie didn’t like oatmeal
+much.
+
+“Well, Ma,” said big Fred, who sat comfortably coatless, “so to-day’s
+the day you go travelling.”
+
+“Yes, it is,” said Grandma and smiled.
+
+“You got a good day for it. Let’s see, you leave Lexington to-day at
+noon and get to New York to-morrow at two, don’t you?”
+
+“Yes, Fred,” said Grandma.
+
+“You know,” he went on, munching toast as he talked, “I believe you
+enjoy travelling, going places. Never saw anything like it. Seems to
+me a woman your age would want to settle down, quiet. You could stay
+here all the time if you wanted to, you know that. Got a room all to
+yourself—more than you get at Mary’s—and yet, off you go, after four or
+five months. Here you’ve got a good home and all that.”
+
+“Well,” said Grandma, in her gentle, even tones, “you know you aren’t
+the only child I’ve got, Fred. There’s Albert and Mary.”
+
+“Yes,” Fred frowned. He disliked even hearing the name of Albert. It
+was the one thing that made him angry. “But we really want you, honest
+we do, Ma. Emma and the girls always miss you after you’re gone.”
+
+“You bet,” said Emma.
+
+Grandma smiled. At least at Fred’s home she was welcome and helpful. If
+she were only younger and stronger! At Mary’s and Albert’s, there was a
+wordless agreement that her visits end, almost mechanically, at the end
+of four months. Only mere surface invitations of further hospitality
+were extended “for politeness.”
+
+Fred and Homer finished eating and hurried off to business. Alice came
+down, then, and Grandma served her, bringing in hot coffee and oatmeal,
+as Emma started to clear away the dishes.
+
+Alice ate rapidly, then kissed Grandma good-bye—she didn’t come home
+at noon—and skipped off. Grandma and her daughter-in-law washed the
+dishes and, when the dishes were done, they made the beds, one standing
+on each side, straightening the sheets and pulling up the covers
+simultaneously.
+
+“Sure will miss you, Ma,” said Emma. “Nell’s no help at all. Don’t
+blame her. Freddie tagging at her heels and the baby crying.”
+
+While Emma straightened up the downstairs rooms, Grandma helped Nell
+bathe and dress the babies. Then the expressman rang and Grandma
+hurried to the door, saw that he took her trunk and put the check in
+her purse. Then Grandma cleaned up the room she had occupied. It was
+time, then, for Grandma to get ready for her journey. Usually, she
+helped prepare dinner after these tasks were done, peeling potatoes,
+setting the table, for at Fred’s one ate dinner in the middle of the
+day.
+
+Grandma put on her travelling dress. It was her best dress, of soft
+grey silk crêpe, trimmed with a bit of fine cream lace at the throat.
+Albert had given it to her on her birthday, two years before. Over this
+she put her best coat of black ribbed silk, also a gift of Albert. She
+adjusted her neat bonnet—five years old but made over every year and
+you’d never guess it.
+
+Emma and Nell were too busy with dinner and the babies to go to the
+station with Grandma, but the street-car that passed the corner went
+right to the station, and Homer and Fred would be there to tell her
+good-bye. At eleven—Grandma believed in taking plenty of time, you
+never could tell what might happen on the way to the station—Grandma
+kissed Emma and Nell and Freddie and Ruthie, giving Ruthie a very
+tender hug and Freddie a hearty kiss, in spite of much stickiness from
+the penny lollypop he had been eating. She took her bag and hurrying as
+fast as she could—Grandma took little, slow rheumatic steps—she caught
+the surface car.
+
+In the railway station Grandma sat down gingerly on one of the long
+brown benches, carefully pulling her skirts away from suspicious
+tobaccoy-looking spots on the floor, and waited for Fred and Homer and
+the train.
+
+Fred and Homer came up, together, puffing, just before the train was
+due. Homer presented Grandma with a half-pound box of candy and Fred
+gave her a paper bag filled with fruit.
+
+When the train came in, Fred and Homer both assisted Grandma in getting
+on, took her to her seat and kissed her, loudly, before their hurried
+exit—the Limited stops for only a minute at Lexington.
+
+Then, as the train moved away, Grandma waved a fluttering good-bye to
+the two men and sighed again, with happiness. She was travelling!
+
+
+II
+
+Not consciously, of course, for she never would have admitted such a
+terrible fact, Grandma looked forward, all year, to her days of travel.
+Usually, each year contained three trips, each of about the same
+length, and these days were Grandma’s golden milestones. Not that she
+wasn’t happy the rest of the time—of course she was—but this—well, this
+was different.
+
+At Fred’s now—Grandma was happy at Fred’s, of course, every one was
+friendly and pleasant, though her feet and head and sometimes her back
+ached at the end of the day. One isn’t so young at seventy-three and
+younger people are apt to forget how tired seventy-three becomes, after
+innumerable answerings of the door, step-climbing and dish-washing.
+Grandma loved being useful, of course, but she did wish that there
+was a little more leisure, a little time to sit down and rest—if only
+Fred’s and Albert’s homes could be combined, in some way!
+
+Grandma had three children. When they were young there had never been
+much money, but Grandma had tried to do her best for them. They had
+lived in Lexington then, and the three had been brought up just alike
+and yet how differently they had turned out! There was Fred, quite poor
+but happy, still in Lexington, where he was born. Mary had married John
+Falconer when she was twenty-four and had gone to St. Louis to live,
+and Albert, the ambitious one of the family, had gone to New York in
+search of fortune and had found part of it, at least.
+
+If only Fred and Albert hadn’t been so foolish and quarrelled, years
+ago! But they had. Albert had tried to give Fred advice and Fred had
+resented it. They had made up the quarrel, but there was nothing that
+Fred would let Albert do for him, even if Albert had wanted to do
+something. Fred liked to refer, in scorn, to his elder brother as
+“that New York millionaire,” and say things about being “just as well
+off if I haven’t got his money.” But then, Albert probably forgot,
+most of the time, that he had a younger brother. Outside of a polite
+inquiry, when Grandma arrived, he never referred to Fred at all. It
+worried Grandma to think that her children weren’t good friends, but
+she knew she could never do anything to make them feel differently.
+Years and circumstances had taken them too far apart.
+
+Grandma had no favorite child, unless it was a slight, natural leaning
+toward her only daughter. She liked Albert and was glad she was on her
+way to visit him. She just wished that Albert wasn’t so—well, so cold.
+He didn’t mean anything, of course. When one is busy all day on the
+Stock Exchange one hasn’t time for other things. And, when one is as
+rich as Albert, there are so many things to take up one’s time. Albert
+was awfully good to Grandma. She told herself that many times. He asked
+her if she needed anything, whenever she visited him. He frequently
+gave her expensive presents. She wouldn’t take any more money from him
+than she had to, and her wants were simple, for that wouldn’t have been
+right, though she let him give her some on her last visit and had given
+it to Nell for Homer—he had been sick then—without letting Fred find
+out.
+
+Grandma liked it all right at Albert’s. How could there be anything to
+complain of? At seventy-three, Grandma had learned to make the best of
+things. Albert was Grandma’s oldest child and now he was fifty-two. His
+ménage consisted of his wife, Florence; their two children, Albert,
+junior, who, at twenty-four, was being taught the business of Wall
+Street; their daughter, Arlene, twenty, and six servants.
+
+The Albert Cunninghams lived in a very large apartment in Park Avenue.
+Mrs. Cunningham was of rather a good New York family. Albert had met
+her after his first taste of success and had been greatly impressed
+with her and her antecedents. Even then Albert had learned to look
+ahead. The family had had some years of social strivings, but now lived
+rather quietly. Arlene had made her début the year before and now
+entertained and went out quite a little. Albert, junior, was rather a
+serious fellow, though he, too, enjoyed the social life that was open
+to him. Altogether, they were fairly sensible, decent people, a bit
+snobbish, perhaps, very self-centred, but with no really objectionable
+features.
+
+The thing that Grandma couldn’t understand nor enjoy in the Albert
+Cunninghams’ family life was the, to her, great coldness and formality.
+Grandma’s idea of how a family ought to live was the way Fred’s family
+lived, only with more money and more leisure and more pleasure and a
+servant or two, friendly, jolly, intimate. At Albert’s, the life was
+strangely lonely and distant. Grandma never felt quite at ease nor at
+home. She had no definite place in the family life. She had the fear,
+constantly, that she was doing something wrong, much more so than at
+Mary’s, where her acts were criticized and commented on. No one ever
+gave Grandma a harsh word at Albert’s. Albert, dignified; Florence,
+courteous, calm; Junior, a young edition of his father; Arlene, gentle,
+distant, quiet,—were all kind to Grandma. But most of the time they
+unthinkingly ignored her. She didn’t fit in, she knew that.
+
+At Albert’s, Grandma had her own room and her own bath, as did each
+member of the family. There was no regular “family breakfast.” Albert
+and Junior breakfasted about nine, going to the office in the closed
+car. Florence and Arlene breakfasted in their rooms. Grandma had gone
+to the dining-room for breakfast, on her first visit there eight years
+ago, after Grandpa died and her own modest home had been broken up.
+But Florence decided that it would be more comfortable for Grandma if
+she breakfasted in her room. So each morning, about nine, Grandma’s
+tray was brought up to her by Florence’s own maid, Terry, who asked,
+each time, “if there is anything I can do?” Grandma rather resented a
+personal maid. Wasn’t she able to bathe and dress herself, even if she
+was seventy-three? Grandma was always dressed when Terry knocked.
+
+All day there was nothing for Grandma to do at Albert’s. She couldn’t
+help at all around the house. She found that out, at her first visit.
+There was no darning nor mending to be done—a sewing woman came in
+regularly to do the things that Terry could not do. Albert didn’t care
+for the home dishes that had once delighted him and the cook didn’t
+want any one bothering around the kitchen. Grandma had luncheon at one,
+with Florence and Arlene, when they were at home, which was seldom
+enough. In the afternoon, on nice days, Grandma went for a drive,
+unless the cars were being used. Usually Grandma went alone, getting
+real pleasure out of the things she saw; sometimes Florence went with
+her. Florence, too, occasionally took Grandma to teas and receptions
+and musicales, most of which bored Grandma and at none of which did she
+feel at home.
+
+Grandma wondered where all of the old ladies were in New York. She
+seldom saw any. At the theatre, where she was taken once in a while,
+she would see white-haired old dowagers, carefully marcelled and
+massaged, in evening gowns with very low-cut bodices. Grandma didn’t
+mean that kind of old lady. She was always looking for comfortable old
+ladies, with neatly parted hair, ample old ladies with little rheumatic
+hands and wrinkles, but she never found them.
+
+Dinner, at Albert’s, was at seven. When the family dined alone, at
+home, the meals were about the same, good things to eat, but everything
+so cold and distant. It was hard for Grandma to remember just what to
+do, so that Florence and Arlene wouldn’t think she didn’t know, though
+they were always polite and gracious. Grandma was constantly afraid she
+would spill things when the maid presented the silver dishes to her or
+that she’d take too large a portion for politeness. Grandma was served
+first—she couldn’t watch to see the way the others did.
+
+When the family was having a real dinner party Grandma found that it
+was easier for every one if she had a tray in her room. She really
+liked that just as well—it was nice, seated at the little table in
+her room, comfortably unannoyed by manners. About half of the time
+the Albert Cunninghams did not dine at home—Arlene and Junior went to
+numerous dinners and even Florence and Albert had frequent engagements.
+Then Grandma usually dined alone in the big empty dining-room, a
+little, lonely figure amid empty chairs, silver and glass. She would
+have preferred a tray in her room, then, but didn’t like to mention
+it—this arrangement seemed to suit Florence. Grandma’s meals were
+always excellently prepared and served, but eating alone in a big,
+still room isn’t very jolly.
+
+After dinner, Grandma was occasionally included in some social affair,
+but nearly always she was supposed to sit in the library until about
+nine or ten and then retire, as the other members of the family
+sometimes did when they were at home. The family saw that Grandma was
+given interesting light fiction and magazines full of stories and
+current events, but Grandma had never had enough leisure in her youth
+to find time to learn to enjoy reading. She could read only a short
+time without falling asleep.
+
+Grandma knitted, too, so she was glad when the fad came back so she
+could be modern in something. Albert’s family approved of knitting,
+and on the last visit her old fingers had made many pairs of socks
+and sweaters for charity. Now she was glad to be able to get to
+knitting—she had had no time for it since she had been there before.
+
+Yes—Albert and his family were awfully nice—of course they didn’t mean
+anything, when they paid no attention to Grandma, when their days went
+on as serenely undisturbed as if she were not there. They asked her how
+she felt, nearly every day, a cool “trust you are well this morning,
+Mother,” and gave her presents. But thinking of the lonely hours in
+her room, the tiresome evenings, the long, useless, dragged-out days,
+Grandma wasn’t enthusiastic over her visit with Albert.
+
+
+III
+
+Mary, Mrs. John Falconer, Grandma’s youngest child, had always been
+a bit her favourite. Mary still lived in St. Louis, where she had
+gone after her marriage. The Falconers had four children, two sons
+of eighteen and fourteen, two daughters, sixteen and eleven. John
+Falconer, a lawyer of moderate means, was quite stingy in family
+matters. Although he had a great deal more money than Fred, the
+family occupied a much smaller house, though it was modern and in
+a good neighbourhood, and Grandma had to share the bedroom of the
+two daughters. Mary’s family had an advantage over Fred’s in having
+one maid, who did all of the cooking and washing and some of the
+cleaning, so there was not so much for Grandma to do. Grandma felt
+that she should have been very happy with the Falconers. But they were
+disagreeable people to live with. Grandma tried not to see their faults
+but it was not easy for her to be contented during her visits there.
+
+The Falconers had the habit of criticism. Nothing was ever just
+right with them. Mary always told Grandma that if it hadn’t been for
+Grandma’s encouragement she would never have married John Falconer—if
+she had waited she probably could have done much better. John Falconer
+was a former Lexington boy whom Mary had met when he was visiting
+his old home. Grandma didn’t remember that she had encouraged the
+match except to tell Mary that John was a nice boy and would probably
+make a good husband—Mary had been the one who seemed enthusiastic.
+But, somehow, Grandma was blamed whenever John showed disagreeable
+characteristics.
+
+Mary was dissatisfied with her social position, with the amount of
+money John gave her to spend, with her children. She spoke slurringly
+of Albert and “his rich family who are in society.” Mary would ask
+Grandma innumerable questions about the way the Albert Cunninghams
+lived, copy them when circumstances permitted and later bring the
+unused bits of information into the conversation, with disagreeable
+slurs.
+
+“I guess Albert wouldn’t call this dinner good enough for him, would
+he? It’s a wonder you are satisfied here, Mamma, without a butler to
+answer the door or a maid to bring breakfast to your room,” or “It’s a
+wonder Albert and Florence wouldn’t do something for Irene. I bet she’s
+a lot smarter and better looking than their stuck-up daughter. But not
+a thing does he do for her, except send a little box on Christmas—gave
+Irene a cheap wrist watch last year—you could buy the same kind right
+here in St. Louis. He could keep it for all I’d care.”
+
+The four Falconer children were badly brought up and noisy. They
+interrupted each other or all talked at once. At meals they reached
+across the table for dishes of food. The one maid had had no training
+and, as she did the cooking, her waitress duties consisted of putting
+bowls and platters of food on the table. Then John Falconer made a
+pretence of serving, always, after one or two plates, he’d “pass the
+things around so you can all help yourselves.”
+
+As there was no attempt to show Grandma any special favour—she was
+never served first, the first plate going to the person in the greatest
+hurry to get away, frequently Tom the eldest son—usually when the bowl
+or platter reached Grandma there was little left for her. Grandma
+didn’t mind this, unless the food happened to be a favourite—she had
+become accustomed to little sacrifices while raising her family. There
+was always enough bread and butter.
+
+What Grandma did object to at Mary’s was the spirit of unrest, the
+unkindness, the disagreeable taunts of the family, the noise and
+disorder. Every one criticized Grandma, calling her attention to
+the way she held her fork, though their own manners were frequently
+insufferable. They criticized, too, Grandma’s pronunciation of words,
+idioms of Lexington, and errors in grammar. These were made much of and
+repeated, with laughter. Then, too, if Grandma showed ignorance of any
+modern appliance or invention, this was thought to be a great joke and
+was introduced as a titbit in the table conversation.
+
+Grandma darned all of the stockings at Mary’s—there always seemed to be
+a basketful—and took care of the bedroom in which she slept, relieving
+the two girls of an unwelcome duty. She straightened the living-room,
+for Mary hated housework and grumbled about it and the overworked maid
+never quite got through her round of duties. But Grandma was not too
+busy at Mary’s. She liked having something to do. It was the taunts
+that made her unhappy, the little barbed things the family said. John
+Falconer made Grandma feel that she was an actual expense, that the
+amount of food she ate was a real item in the household budget. Mary
+came to her with little whines about the relatives—though they lived in
+other cities and paid little attention to her—about her husband, how
+stingy he was, how much better she could have done, had she not taken
+her mother’s advice in her marriage, about the children, how much money
+they spent, how they quarrelled with each other, how disobedient they
+were. Grandma always went from Mary’s home to Fred’s, and though she
+knew the work that awaited her, the tired hours in store, she actually
+looked forward to the next visit.
+
+
+IV
+
+So now, Grandma was travelling again. And, as the train covered the
+miles away from Lexington, Grandma put aside the worries of the visit
+she had just had, the memories of the unpleasantness of the visit
+with Mary, the apprehensions of the visit that awaited her. Grandma
+shed, all at once, all of these things and emerged, a wonderful, new
+personality, a dear, happy little old lady, travelling. Grandma became,
+as she always became, three days of each year, the woman she would have
+liked to have been, the old lady she sometimes dreamed she was.
+
+First, Grandma rang for the porter. She was well supplied with money
+for Albert always sent her a check for travelling expenses. She loved
+feeling independent, a personality. When the porter came, Grandma
+demanded, in the gentle, well-bred tone Florence might have used, that
+the porter bring her an envelope for her bonnet, a pillow for her head,
+a stool for her feet. She tipped him generously enough to make him
+grin his thanks and hurry to her whenever she rang. There were even
+porters who said, “Yes’m, you travelled on my car before,” when they
+saw Grandma.
+
+From her bag, Grandma took out a small black lace cap, with a bit of
+perky lavender ribbon on it and adjusted it on her thinning hair. At
+Mary’s house they were always telling her how thin her hair looked, the
+young boy even hinting something about old people who ought to wear
+wigs. Albert had sent her the cap in her last Christmas box, and, as
+usual, she had saved it for travelling. Grandma put on, too, a pair of
+gold-rimmed spectacles. She had needed them for years, but at first a
+sort of pride in her good eyes had kept her from getting them. Then, at
+Fred’s, she had been too busy; at Albert’s, no one paid much attention
+to her needs; at Mary’s they had laughed at her near-sightedness
+without offering a corrective. When she was at Albert’s, last year, she
+had told him, finally, her need of glasses and the next day Florence
+had driven her to an oculist. But she felt that she had annoyed and
+disturbed Florence, that getting glasses for an old lady wasn’t just in
+Florence’s pattern of things.
+
+Grandma put the cheap candy and the fruit from Fred and Homer into
+her bag. It had been awfully kind and good of them. She took out her
+knitting and added row after row, as the minutes passed.
+
+Then Grandma rang for the porter again. But, before he came, she looked
+around at her fellow passengers, as she always looked at them when she
+travelled. Two seats in front of her sat a tired-looking woman of about
+forty, with a thin, drawn face. Knitting in hand, Grandma took slow,
+careful little steps up the train to her.
+
+“How do you do?” said Grandma, with her sweetest smile, “I wonder if
+you won’t have tea with me, keep an old lady company? It seems so—so
+unsocial, having tea alone.”
+
+The woman gasped and looked at Grandma. She saw the well-dressed,
+comfortable little old lady, with the frill of soft lace at throat and
+wrists, a tiny black cap on her grey hair, grey knitting in her gnarled
+hands, a picture-book Grandma for all the world.
+
+“Why, yes, I—that would be delightful,” she said.
+
+Grandma led the way back to her own seat. When the porter came she
+ordered tea and toast and little cakes and sandwiches, “and some of
+that good orange marmalade you always have on this road.”
+
+Grandma hadn’t had any lunch but she didn’t say so. When the little
+table was adjusted and the tea things brought in, Grandma poured tea,
+as if, every day, in her own home, the routine included the serving of
+tea at a dear little tea table.
+
+Grandma listened sympathetically to the other woman’s story. Grandma
+knew that each woman who was travelling had a story and would tell it,
+if encouraged at all, but she wasn’t much interested—she had heard so
+many stories during the past years. Then, when her guest had finished,
+Grandma talked.
+
+Grandma didn’t say much, really. She told about her visits, about her
+two wonderful sons and her splendid daughter. As Grandma told these
+things, they, too, emerged into beauty, the journey threw a magic over
+them as it did over Grandma. The things she told were so real that
+Grandma believed them, herself, because she wanted to.
+
+“I have three children, so, of course, I spend four months of the year
+with each of them. Each of them wanted me all the time—they are such
+good children—so the best way seemed to be to divide the time. I’m
+on my way to visit my older son, now. Maybe, as you’ve lived in New
+York, you’ve heard of him—he has a seat on the Stock Exchange and is
+a director in so many things—Albert Morrell Cunningham. His wife was
+a Mornington, and they have two such wonderful children, a boy and a
+girl. Arlene made her début last year, so you can imagine what a good
+time she’s having and what fun it is to be there with her, she’s so
+popular and pretty. I’ll show you her picture, later. Each day I’m
+there, nearly, they do something for me, a drive in the park, theatres
+and concerts. I really get too gay in the city—it’s wonderful.
+
+“Then I go to see Mary, my only daughter, and you know how a mother
+feels toward a daughter. She is married to a lawyer in St. Louis and
+they have four of the dearest children. The oldest, a boy, is eighteen
+and the youngest, a girl, is eleven. Quite an ideal family, isn’t it?
+Mary’s husband is quite well-to-do, but they live so comfortably and
+simply, no airs at all. Mary doesn’t care a great deal for society,
+just wrapped up in her husband and children, but she goes with such
+nice people.
+
+“I’ve just come from my second son, Fred. And there—perhaps you’d never
+guess it, people have flattered me so long about looking youthful that
+I believe them—but I’ve two great-grandchildren, the older three years
+old, the younger just a year, the dearest things. Nell, the children’s
+mother and her husband and the children are all living right at home.
+Fred and his wife won’t hear of them going away. They were housekeeping
+for a while, but the family didn’t like it—they are all so devoted to
+the children. There are two other girls in the family besides Nell and
+they have a great big old-fashioned home, set way back in a broad lawn,
+lots of trees and flowers. Yes, it’s Fred’s own home. It’s a good thing
+he bought such a big one, years ago, he needs it with so many young
+people. They do have such good times together—and, of course, it’s
+young people who keep us all young, these days.”
+
+Then, from her bag, Grandma drew a bundle of photographs. The
+photographers, from the maker of the shiny products of Lexington to the
+creator of the soft sepias of Fifth Avenue, had, with their usual skill
+at disguise, smoothed away the lines of discontent on Mary’s face,
+the bold impudence of her children, had added a little kindness and
+humanness to Florence and Albert, had made Fred’s family look placid,
+undisturbed and prosperous. The pictures showed Grandma’s family to be
+all she had said of them, even to the dimpled little Ruthie, taken just
+a few weeks before, on a post-card by a neighbourhood photographer.
+
+It didn’t sound like bragging, as Grandma told things. It was just the
+simple, contented story of an old lady of seventy-three, who spent her
+days satisfied and serene, travelling from one loving and beloved set
+of relatives to another.
+
+When tea was finished, Grandma allowed the other woman to return to
+her seat with a gentle nod and a “thank you for keeping an old woman
+company.” Then Grandma knitted and looked at the passengers again.
+Always, whenever she travelled, out of the set that presented itself,
+Grandma was able to find those she needed.
+
+A tiny, plump little woman with a too-fat baby was seated just a seat
+or so back of Grandma, on the left. It was to her that Grandma went,
+now.
+
+“May I hold the baby?” she asked. “I know how tired you must get,
+holding him all day, on a day like this. I’ve two great-grandchildren.
+Your baby is just about in between them, in age, I think. Sometimes, I
+hold them for just a little while and I know how heavy babies can be.”
+
+Deftly, Grandma took the child in her arms and settled him comfortably.
+
+“When dinner is announced,” said Grandma, “you go in and eat. I’ll
+take care of the baby. It will be a rest for you—it is so difficult
+travelling with a baby—you’ll enjoy your dinner more, alone. Sometimes,
+when we go on picnics with my great-grandchildren....”
+
+Grandma told about the babies, about their mother, about her own
+grown-up children, whom she visited. She even told little things about
+their childhood, as mothers tell to mothers, but, always, she came back
+to the present, telling of her visits, encased in the rose colour of
+her journey. Not that Grandma told deliberate falsehoods. She didn’t
+claim servants or wealth for Fred nor jollity for Albert. But each fact
+she brought forth was broidered with the romance that travel brought
+to Grandma—the stories all showed Grandma welcome, beloved, happy, made
+her children kind, considerate, affectionate, successful, capable.
+Grandma helped her listeners, too, for she spread some of this haze
+over them. You can’t envy, you must enter into the pleasure of it, when
+an old lady of seventy-three shows you the treasures that a lifetime
+has handed to her.
+
+Grandma smiled as she sat with the little mother and her baby. And she
+smiled as she held the heavy, squirming bundle, while the mother ate
+dinner.
+
+“It’s a real pleasure to help you even a little,” said Grandma, as the
+woman came back from the dining car to claim her baby and thank Grandma.
+
+Grandma washed her face carefully before she went in to her own dinner.
+She took a clean handkerchief from her bag, dainty, lavender-bordered,
+the present that Edna, Fred’s second daughter, had given her last
+Christmas. On it she sprinkled a bit of perfume, a gift from Alice, two
+years before. She smoothed her hair, brushed the dust from her waist. A
+new adventure always awaited her in the dining car.
+
+She walked with stiff little steps the length of the three cars,
+holding tight to the seats as she passed. And, through the cars, she
+smiled at the children and to grown-ups, smiles a bit patronizing,
+perhaps, as smiles should be from such a distinguished, contented old
+lady.
+
+In the diner, Grandma was seated across from a stout, middle-aged
+man, who was eating an enormous meal. She smiled at him. He couldn’t
+misjudge her—one doesn’t flirt that way at seventy-three.
+
+“It’s a wonderful day for travelling, isn’t it?” she said. “Last time I
+travelled, four months ago...”
+
+Grandma was telling of her children, of her journeys.
+
+Grandma ordered carefully—a steak, you are really safe about steaks
+when you travel, a fresh vegetable, a green salad, a bit of pastry,
+black coffee. Grandma ordered as if the ordering of a dinner were a
+usual but precious rite. She felt correct, prosperous, a woman of the
+world. The man across the table, pleased with his meal and moved a
+bit by Grandma’s story of her happy and fortunate life, her devoted
+children, saw in Grandma the things that made this devotion. He even
+grew a bit gallant.
+
+“I can see why your children are so good to you, ma’am. It makes me
+wish I had a grandma or mother like you myself.” This during mouthfuls.
+
+Grandma was equal to it.
+
+“Why me, I’m just what my children have made me. Just think of you,
+making such lovely speeches to an old lady. You’re deserving of the
+best mother a man ever had, I’m sure.”
+
+There were more pretty speeches. The man became almost flowery. Grandma
+actually blushed, before she paid her check, adding her usual generous
+tip—the stranger had offered to pay but Grandma wouldn’t have that,
+of course. Then, as Grandma arose, the man opposite rose, too, and
+courteously escorted her through the cars and to her seat, stopping for
+a moment to talk.
+
+Grandma couldn’t knit at night. The motion of the car and the electric
+lights were not a good combination for her old eyes. She put her
+knitting into her bag and extracted a deck of cards, flamboyant, with
+green and gold gift-looking backs. She chose now two young women and a
+good-looking young man in his early thirties. She approached them all
+with the same question.
+
+“Wouldn’t you like a game of bridge? It seems so lonely, an evening
+alone, in a sleeper—”
+
+Strangely, all three did play bridge and would like a game. The porter
+brought a little table, again, and they played, rather indifferently,
+to be sure—Grandma was no expert and one of the young women played even
+a poorer game than she did—but several hours passed pleasantly. Then,
+after they stopped playing, Grandma brought the fruit from her bag.
+Grandma told them about Fred bringing the fruit to her, and, as they
+ate, she told, too, of her visits, of her children, her grandchildren,
+and the two little great-grand ones. The three card-players really
+seemed interested, so of course the photographs were brought out for a
+round of approval.
+
+After the guests had gone to their seats, Grandma had her berth made
+up. She was rather particular about this—she wanted it made with her
+feet to the engine. Grandma thought this knowing about head and foot
+gave her a travelled air. Besides, she really didn’t like to feel that
+she was travelling backwards.
+
+In the dressing-room she put on her violet silk dressing gown, a
+gift from Florence three years before, which she kept carefully
+for travelling, and a frivolous little cap of cream lace, to keep
+the dust out of her hair while she slept. She spread her ivory
+travelling articles in their leather case—five years old on her last
+birthday—before her, and, as she prepared for sleep, talked pleasantly
+with the woman who happened to come into the dressing-room while she
+was there.
+
+Grandma slept fairly well for travelling, waking up frequently to pull
+up the shade and look out on the hurrying landscape, the occasional
+lights, the little towns. She thought it was mighty pleasant travelling.
+
+She was up at seven and dressed swiftly. A new woman had got on during
+the night and now occupied the seat opposite Grandma, a well-gowned
+woman in her late thirties, with a smart, city-like air.
+
+Grandma nodded a pleasant good morning.
+
+“We seem to be making good time,” she said.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” the woman smiled, “pleasant day for travelling.”
+
+With the air of one born traveller to another, Grandma talked a bit,
+then motioned the woman to sit beside her. The pleasant conversation
+gave Grandma a warm feeling of well-being. She suggested breakfast and
+the two of them went in together, the younger woman steadying Grandma
+just a bit when the train swayed around a curve.
+
+It was a pleasant breakfast. Grandma ordered three-minute eggs. They
+were the way she liked eggs best, but she seldom had them. At Albert’s
+it seemed so self-assertive to ask for things like that, special
+directions and everything—and at Fred’s and Mary’s!
+
+Grandma and her new friend talked about New York, about plays they
+had both seen the year before. They discussed food and the cost of
+living, servants, the usual things that two hardly acquainted women
+talk of, when circumstance throws them together. There was nothing
+condescending in the new acquaintance’s attitude. Why should there
+have been? Grandma was neither an unnecessary member of a cool,
+indifferent household nor an overworked old woman—she was the ideal
+Grandma, cultured, clever, kindly. It was no wonder, then, that, after
+breakfast, the two of them should loiter in Grandma’s seat and Grandma
+should show a few family photographs and dwell, pleasantly, on how
+fortunate she was in having such splendid sons, such a lovely daughter
+and such wonders of grandchildren, to say nothing of the two babies.
+
+Then the woman suggested that she and Grandma go to the observation
+car, and, before long, Grandma was seated in a big chair, knitting
+again, and glancing at the flying scenery.
+
+All the morning Grandma’s former acquaintances came to talk to her.
+The thin woman with the sad face offered her some candy. Grandma had
+a little chat with the plump mother and the baby and held the baby
+again while his mother ate luncheon. The stout man, reading a magazine,
+dropped it long enough to come over and ask Grandma how she was feeling
+and if there was anything he could do for her. Grandma’s bridge
+companions, now well acquainted, with the sudden friendship that travel
+brings, gathered around Grandma for a chat, laughing at everything.
+Several others, coming into the car, stopped for a word with Grandma.
+
+Grandma and her latest acquaintance had luncheon together, too. Then,
+after luncheon, Grandma prepared, a whole hour ahead, as she always
+did, for the end of her journey. She washed off as much of the soot as
+she could. She took off the little lace cap and replaced it with her
+decent old bonnet, which had been resting in its bag all this time.
+She slipped on her black travelling coat over her grey crêpe dress.
+She took out a clean handkerchief, sprinkling a bit of perfume on it.
+Before closing her bag, Grandma took out the cheap candy that Homer had
+brought to the station and gave it, with a gracious smile, to the woman
+with the baby. It was good to be able to give something—and, besides,
+what could she do with the candy at Albert’s? She didn’t care for candy
+and even the servants would have laughed at it.
+
+Grandma closed her bag then and sat waiting. Her chance acquaintances
+passed, nodded, smiled and talked. Grandma was a real person of
+importance, a dear, happy old lady, with a devoted family, spending
+her life contentedly divided among them. Didn’t all these people know
+about Grandma? Hadn’t they heard of her children and her grandchildren
+and her great-grandchildren? Hadn’t they seen their photographs, even?
+Didn’t they know that, after four pleasant months with Fred and his
+happy, jovial family, she was on her way to visit Albert, rich and
+prominent and kind?
+
+
+V
+
+The train drew into the Grand Central Station. Grandma, trembling a
+little—for the excitement of travelling is apt to make one tremble at
+seventy-three—allowed the porter to brush her coat, bade farewell to
+her train acquaintances, followed her bag down the aisle and into the
+station.
+
+A man in a chauffeur’s uniform took Grandma’s bag and addressing
+Grandma politely, gravely, told her that Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham were
+sorry, but engagements prevented them from meeting her. They would see
+her at dinner at seven.
+
+Grandma, with short, unsteady little steps, went out to the waiting
+car. There was something very near a tear in her eye. After all,
+travelling has its difficulties when one is seventy-three. The shell
+of radiance, of smiling independence, of being cared for, important,
+loved, fell away. Grandma was just a little, tired, lonely old lady
+again. Another of Grandma’s romantic journeys was over.
+
+
+
+
+MAMIE CARPENTER
+
+
+I
+
+Millersville, Missouri, was the usual small town. It boasted, according
+to the Millersville _Eagle_ and the annual leaflet of the Chamber of
+Commerce, a population of twenty thousand souls. There were, perhaps,
+ten thousand actual human beings in Millersville, including the farmers
+within a radius of five miles, the few Italians and Slavs down near the
+railroad tracks, and the negroes.
+
+Millersville’s main street extended nearly the full length of the
+town, footed by the Sulpulpa River and the Union Depot, and headed by
+the Brick Church. On Hill Street were the Grand Hotel—five stories
+high; the Bon Marché and the New York Store, whose buyers went to New
+York—or anyhow Chicago—twice each year; the Busy Bee, candy fresh
+every day, always two kinds of ice cream, with marble topped tables in
+the back half of it for sodas and ice creams; an assortment of drug
+stores and cigar stores; garages, still carrying the outward semblance
+of the stables from which they had sprung; “gents’ furnishings,” with
+clerks who copied, in their fashion, the styles in the men’s clothing
+advertisements, always standing near the doors where they could most
+easily ogle the feminine passerby; groceries displaying the season’s
+best potatoes and onions, with sawdust floors and clerks in white
+aprons and pencils behind their ears; and two furniture stores with
+windows brimming with golden oak rockers.
+
+On either side of Hill Street, the streets stretched out in a regular
+checkerboard, the first blocks of them devoted to the lesser business
+establishments that had overflowed Hill Street, and the remaining
+blocks given over to residences. The majority of these streets, a few
+blocks out, were full of neat houses—old houses with mansard roofs and
+cupolas; new houses in atrocious, too-low bungalow effects, with awful,
+protruding roofs; simple white cottages, each with its green lawn and
+over half with a red swing in front and a small, one-car garage in
+back. Then came a turning into tumbledown negro quarters or the homes
+of the neighbourhood “white trash.”
+
+There was a difference in streets, too. Up near the Brick Church the
+streets were respectable for all their length, the houses were bigger,
+and the lawns were better cared for. Maple Street, the last to enter
+Hill, was the best of all, turning into Maple Road, later on, when it
+became even more select until, when it reached Burton Addition—the old
+Burton farm—it burst forth into a spasm of country homes, a dozen of
+them, with pretentiously landscaped “grounds.”
+
+Each house showed an attempt at grandeur in architecture. Some aped
+Southern Colonial, with white clapboards or brick; others aimed at
+English styles, with stucco or half-timber. Each house, too, had
+a peculiar, inappropriate and ineffectual name: “The Elms,” “The
+Lonesome Pine,” “Pleasure,” “Crestwood,” “Hilltop.” Miss Drewsy, of the
+Millersville _Eagle_, whose rich cousins, the Horns, lived in Maple
+Street, which gave her social standing, mentioned the names of these
+houses in her society column, whenever possible.
+
+On the other side of town, toward Union Station and the river, the
+streets became gradually less pleasing and less important, until,
+when one reached Gillen Row, the neat houses had given way to grey
+ramshackle affairs, a bit tipsy as to roof or wall or chimney, with a
+porch awry, a baluster missing and an occasional broken window patched
+with papers or rags. These houses were surrounded by grey lawns tufted
+with weeds, and around them were unpainted picket fences with half the
+pickets missing.
+
+Mamie Carpenter lived in Gillen Row, in the least pleasing block of it.
+Her home was a one-story cottage which had, in its adolescence, showed
+the spruce yellow and white of a poached egg, but in its senility one
+could barely see the remains of this glory. The porch which ran across
+the front sagged. One of the posts was missing. The bottom of the three
+steps leading up to the porch was loose, the wood breaking into long
+brown slivers under one’s foot. One went directly from the unevenly
+floored porch, which held two once-green rockers and a bench of slatted
+wood, into the living room, papered in what had formerly been gold and
+green but was now a more fortunate, though dirty, tan.
+
+The living room held a figured red rug, a table and half a dozen
+unmatched chairs, mostly rockers, of uncertain wood and construction.
+Back of this was the dining-room, with a table and four chairs and a
+huge, golden oak, mirrored sideboard. Next came a narrow hallway,
+leading on one side to a dark green kitchen, and on the other to the
+small and incomplete bath. Beyond were the two bedrooms, one occupied
+by Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter, who slept in a large bed of yellow wood,
+with high head and foot board, new when they were married, twenty-two
+years before, and the other, with its iron and brass bed and rickety
+dresser of imitation mahogany, occupied by their daughter Mamie.
+
+
+II
+
+Mamie Carpenter was twenty-one. She could have passed for eighteen;
+she knew it and, when meeting new acquaintances, she often did. She
+was small and had blonde hair, not white and faded-looking, but real
+blonde, which needed only an occasional touching up with peroxide to be
+a lovely, gleaming mass of gold. Her hair was not especially thick nor
+long, but it waved naturally and Mamie had acquired the knack of doing
+it high on her head so that it looked pleasantly mussed and fresh.
+
+Her nose was short and well chiselled. Her eyes were round and blue
+and she pencilled them just a little, which gave the necessary accent.
+Her mouth was perhaps a bit too full, but her complexion was creamy
+and her cheeks pleasantly pink and plump. She had learned that if you
+can’t afford many things, it’s better to stick to plain things—if your
+figure is good enough. Mamie’s figure was trim and softly curved, with
+a roundness that hinted of fat at thirty.
+
+Mamie clerked at the Busy Bee candy store. She had left school in her
+second year of High School when, after a series of small accidents at
+the yards, her father, a “railroad man,” found himself more frequently
+out of work than usual.
+
+She had become tired of school, anyhow, but had kept on going until
+then, partly out of habit and partly because she felt superior to her
+parents and her neighbours and wanted the further superiority of a
+higher education. Her mother could do nothing but housework, and that
+but poorly, and would not consider the indignity of doing menial labour
+for others, so Mamie, not knowing where to turn at first, and being
+untrained, went into the overall factory, one of Millersville’s few
+industries. She found the work monotonous and disagreeable. A doctor’s
+reception room and a cashier’s cage next claimed her in turn. Both
+bored her.
+
+Then she heard that the Busy Bee was enlarging the store and wanted
+pretty saleswomen. Mamie knew she was pretty. She applied for and
+got the job and had been there ever since. Mamie daily disproved the
+theories that, if you give a girl enough candy to eat she soon tires
+of it, that candy-shop girls do not care for sweets, and that sugar
+ruins the complexion. She nibbled at chocolates at intervals all day
+long, and, except that perhaps her cheeks were a bit pinker, her hair a
+trifle more blonde, she remained just the same.
+
+To the mere buyer of candy, Mamie was one of the pretty, polite
+little girls in big white aprons who waited on you at the Busy Bee.
+To her acquaintances and the dwellers in Gillen Row she was old
+Joe Carpenter’s girl, a reproach in itself—rather a wild piece. To
+Millersville, socially, she was, of course, nothing at all. She did
+not exist to Millersville’s smartest circle except as a purveyor of
+sweets. She was below even the least important members of the church
+societies, who occasionally got into the end paragraphs in Miss
+Drewsy’s society column.
+
+Mamie knew how Millersville felt about her, and her liking for
+Millersville was shaped accordingly. She especially disliked the
+“society girls,” the ones who lived in Maple Road, because they had
+good times and did the sort of things she would like to have done. They
+could flirt and not get talked about. The girls in the Busy Bee looked
+up to them, whispered about them when they came in.
+
+The rest of Millersville Mamie didn’t mind, but she despised those
+girls with a keen, sharp, unbelievable hate. She was better looking
+than any of them. She knew that. Society? Good blood? Family? What did
+they mean, in Millersville?
+
+Mamie scorned Millersville’s social pretensions. She knew that in some
+cities, London and New York, maybe, there was society, real people
+with generations of good blood back of them, and money and breeding.
+People like that Mamie could look up to. But she knew Millersville. In
+Millersville, what did society amount to? A joke; that’s what it was.
+No one really came to anything, did anything.
+
+The Elwood Simpsons, the leaders of Millersville society—look at them!
+There was a little grave in Oakdale Cemetery that Mamie knew all
+about—and it was closely connected with the girlhood of Mrs. Elwood
+Simpson—and there were other babies who did not die but who arrived at
+equally inopportune times. The Coakleys were one of Millersville’s
+oldest and best families—and Frank Coakley’s half-brother spent most of
+his time in jail, and his other half-brother, Bill, was half-witted,
+went around with his tongue hanging out and saying silly things. The
+Binghams—ugh—they had to get their servants out of town, and sometimes
+at the last minute had to break engagements because some one in their
+third floor would cry and scream—their oldest daughter, some said it
+was.
+
+Mamie knew other things about Millersville society. The rich Ruckers
+made their money getting land away from ignorant farmers. The Bilcamps
+made theirs selling fake oil stocks in Oklahoma. There was some sort of
+a misrun bank in the Grantly family. It wouldn’t do to look too closely
+into the histories of any of them. Yet they were “society” and had a
+Country Club—and lots of good times.
+
+Mamie knew she was as good as any of them—better than most. Her family
+had moved to Millersville from Lexington when she was thirteen. Her
+father had got into some sort of a scrape over a woman—or a girl—she
+had never known much about it, but anyhow, it was enough to make them
+move. Of course the news of it had seeped to Millersville, made the
+Carpenters a bit more outcast than they would have been, though they
+wouldn’t have been anything, in any case, without money or connections.
+
+Coming to Millersville hadn’t made any difference to Mamie. The new
+house was just as unpleasant as the old. She had had just as good a
+time playing with the boys of the neighbourhood, catching on wagons
+for rides, in Millersville as in Lexington. She had liked Millersville
+all right. She had gone to school rather unevenly, staying at home for
+frequent imaginary ills. But a sense of herself had kept her in school
+beyond the age of most of her friends.
+
+It was in High School that she had first felt the social barriers
+of Millersville—and she had sneered at them even as they hurt her.
+The teachers had all been partial to the two stupid Redding girls,
+pale-haired, fat and awkward, because Samuel Redding was president
+of the school board. Their essays had been praised and read aloud in
+the class. Mamie had known that hers were quite as good and that she
+was just as clever—and much prettier. But nobody had ever praised or
+noticed her.
+
+On Friday nights there had been parties, which “the crowd” attended.
+During the week, eating her lunches in the school lunch-room, echoes
+of the glories of the parties had reached her—how Marion Smith had
+let Harold Frederickson put his arm around her, how much salad Louis
+Bingham had eaten. There had been clubs at school, intimate things with
+secrets and pins and bows of coloured ribbon; there had been cryptic
+jokes handed from one member of the selected set to another, to be
+referred to, giggled over. But Mamie had been out of it all.
+
+There had been other sets, less desirable, the church societies,
+smaller, less exclusive organizations. Mamie had not been welcomed
+to these, either, though by a great effort the daughter of old Joe
+Carpenter might have attained the least of them. She had not wanted to
+belong. She had not wanted to go with the “society set” of her age,
+either. It had been more than that. She had wanted them to want _her_.
+But her father, a ne’er-do-well, had been run out of Lexington, her
+mother was a slovenly woman with wispy hair, and her home was a grey
+shamble in Gillen Row.
+
+So Mamie, as she grew up, did not improve her social position. She
+remained old Joe Carpenter’s girl, from Gillen Row.
+
+
+III
+
+But, if society did not recognize Mamie, the masculine element of it
+did, in a hidden, stealthy way.
+
+Even when she had gone to High School the most desirable boys had
+offered her—secretly—invitations, moonlight drives—the best people of
+Millersville did not allow their daughters to drive after sundown with
+masculine escorts—and other forbidden pleasures. When she was younger
+Mamie accepted these invitations, but when she grew older and came
+to the Busy Bee to work, she learned how unpleasant they could be.
+Gradually, the men had ceased bothering about her. After all, she was
+only old Carpenter’s daughter and not a good sport—no pep to her.
+
+In the Busy Bee, too, had come invitations from the commercial
+travellers who hung around the Grand Hotel. Mamie accepted them for
+a while. She wanted a good time. She flirted and laughed, went for
+walks and drives. But finally she stopped going with the travelling
+men—refused their invitations altogether. She didn’t know why—just no
+fun any more, nothing to it.
+
+Not that these refusals helped her reputation in Millersville. A girl
+as pretty as Mamie and coming from such a neighbourhood as Gillen Row
+and with Joe Carpenter as a father had no reputation to lose.
+
+But when she quit “running around” it left her pretty much alone. She
+even refused the invitations of the girls who worked with her at the
+Busy Bee. Their homes were neater than hers. She couldn’t return their
+invitations. Anyhow, she didn’t care anything about them. Their beaux,
+decent clerks, annoyed her. Occasionally, lately, she had allowed Will
+Remmers, of the New York Store, to take her to some of Millersville’s
+infrequent theatrical performances. She didn’t care for Will Remmers, a
+stupid fellow who thought he was doing her a favour, but, at least, he
+was decent—some one to go with. She didn’t care for any one especially.
+She had learned a lot about men, being pretty and meeting them since
+she was sixteen.
+
+Mamie had tried to think of some way to get out of Millersville, but
+she never went far enough to plan anything definitely. The home in
+Gillen Row took all of her money; she could barely keep out enough to
+dress decently. She saw no future by the route of the drummers of the
+Grand Hotel. She had no profession or training. Really, she didn’t
+dislike being in Millersville. If she could have been one of the
+society set she felt she would have liked it very well indeed. It was
+just her position that annoyed her—having nothing, no pretty things,
+being nothing—when girls like the Reddings had so much.
+
+The Reddings especially annoyed Mamie.
+
+There were two Redding girls: Sophie, the older, rather fat and white
+with colourless hair, and Esther, a bit more presentable, but a trifle
+more stupid, if anything. The Redding girls giggled, holding their
+heads on one side. They tossed their light curls. They snuggled up to
+their young men. They were always coming into the Busy Bee, the head
+of a little group, laughing and chatting, selecting tables with great
+care, ordering elaborate sundaes or sodas. They always had new little
+tricks, new clothes. If they recognized Mamie as one of their old
+schoolmates, they gave no sign. They had each had a year at the Craig
+School, a second-rate boarding school that New York maintained for rich
+Westerners, and liked to forget that they had ever attended any other
+institution.
+
+When Marlin Embury came into the Busy Bee to make a purchase, Mamie
+might have paid no attention to him at all if Rose Martin hadn’t nudged
+her.
+
+“That’s William E. Embury’s son,” she said. “He’s back in town. Do
+you know him? I read in the _Eagle_ he’s gone in with his father in
+business. He goes with Sophie Redding. They say he is going to marry
+her, though they haven’t announced the engagement.”
+
+Mamie looked at Embury and liked him. That nice-looking fellow—for
+Sophie Redding! Not nearly as handsome as the man who had played
+in the stock company in Millersville the month before, but not
+bad-looking—didn’t compare with Wallace Reid or John Barrymore, but
+then they were only on the screen—pictures as far as she was concerned,
+and married—she’d read that in a magazine—and Embury was right here.
+
+She knew who Embury was, had seen him, years ago, before he went away
+to college, had sort of kept track of him through the papers. She had
+read, several months before, that he was back in Millersville, after
+two years as manager of some of his father’s oil wells in Oklahoma.
+
+And now he was going with Sophie Redding! Good-looking and rich—the
+only son of rich parents—and Sophie Redding would get him! He had
+a good face, was young, couldn’t be more than twenty-four. That
+young kind is easy—falls for anything. Mamie knew that. He had
+gone to a boys’ preparatory school, then to a college that was not
+co-educational, then two years in a little town. Why he didn’t
+know anything about girls. He’d be easy even for Sophie Redding to
+capture—Sophie, with her home, “Crestwood,” out in Maple Road, her
+father, grey-haired and pompous, and her mother, fat and smiling—always
+giving parties—good times.
+
+No wonder Sophie could get him, even if she was fat and white and
+silly! Sophie had everything. What chance had she against Sophie?
+
+Until then it hadn’t occurred to Mamie that she was entitled to a
+chance—that there was even the possibility of her and Sophie having
+aims in the same direction. And yet—
+
+She looked at Embury.
+
+He had bought a huge box of candy. It was being wrapped up for him. He
+was a nice boy with sleek black hair, not especially tall, but then she
+herself was small and didn’t like tall men. He had nice shoulders, a
+slim figure, a good head, just a boy. Fat Sophie Redding, with her pale
+eyes and giggles—why, she _knew_ she was prettier—smarter than Sophie!
+And yet—Sophie—!
+
+Why not do something about it? _Do_ something? Get Embury? Why not?
+Wasn’t his father about the richest man in Millersville? Wasn’t he the
+most eligible man in town, now that Bliss Bingham had gone to Chicago
+and Harold Richardson was married?
+
+There were other men, of course, but either they were old bachelors
+who knew too much about her, old and snobbish, or poor or too young.
+Embury had already made good in Oklahoma. Now his father had taken him
+into business, wouldn’t disinherit him—if he married her. Wasn’t it
+rumoured that Mrs. Embury—stately and dignified enough now—had before
+her marriage “worked out”? She wouldn’t dare object too strenuously to
+Joe Carpenter’s daughter as her daughter-in-law.
+
+After all, Mamie had always wondered if she could do something clever
+if she had a chance. Here was her chance—she’d never have a better
+one, she knew that. After all, no one would help her—all she had was
+herself. Maybe, if she tried hard enough....
+
+Embury took his package and went out of the store. He had not noticed
+Mamie Carpenter.
+
+
+IV
+
+Embury was glad to get home again. He thought Millersville a jolly
+place to live in after Sorgo, Oklahoma, with its constant smell and
+feel of oil. He enjoyed his old room again and the new car and being
+with the crowd.
+
+He was not an especially brilliant fellow, nor a rapid thinker, nor
+much of a reader. He liked a good time, in a quiet way. He wore good
+clothes and liked to be with others who did. He thought girls were
+awfully jolly, but hard to get acquainted with. He found the girls in
+Millersville unusually pleasant. But, of course, that was as it should
+be; they were home-town girls.
+
+Sophie Redding—she was jolly and cute and had a way of making him feel
+awfully at home. It was pleasant at the Reddings, sitting out on the
+big porch and drinking lemonade, with Sophie ready to laugh at his
+jokes and some of the others of the crowd likely to drop in at any
+time. Yes, Sophie was a pretty fine girl. His folks liked her, too,
+always awfully glad when he called on her, kept telling him what a fine
+girl she was and how much they liked the family. Now, if he showed her
+a good time all summer and autumn, did all he could for her, maybe
+Sophie would care for him.
+
+Embury was driving down Hill Street four or five days later when a
+pretty girl nodded to him, just a formal, pleasant little nod.
+
+Embury couldn’t place her, exactly, but he spoke, of course. He even
+took his eyes off the road ahead long enough to glance back at her.
+She was pretty, and he liked little girls who wore plain blue dresses
+in summer. Some one, probably, he’d met out at the Country Club and
+didn’t remember. Still, she seemed prettier than most of the girls he
+had met there. Maybe some one he used to know. He tried to conjure up a
+childhood acquaintance who might have blossomed into this little blonde
+girl, but he couldn’t. Anyhow, she was pretty.
+
+Two weeks later, walking up Elm Street after leaving the office—he
+frequently walked home and always went that way when he did—the same
+little figure overtook him, passed ahead. His heart palpitated quite
+pleasantly. But this time the nod was even cooler, more formal. He
+returned it as cordially as he could. That night there was a dance
+at the club and Embury watched each new arrival, but there was no
+pretty little blonde with big eyes and radiant hair. Sophie found him
+preoccupied and told him so. He tried his best to be more courteous to
+her. After all, why worry about a strange girl? You couldn’t tell who
+she might turn out to be.
+
+He saw her again, a week later, when he was driving. Again he received
+a cool little nod. He’d ask some of the boys about her—she might be
+good fun—evidently wasn’t one of the crowd. Millersville was a slow
+place, not much to do, a little affair on the side—by another year he
+might be married and settled down—might as well have a good time while
+he could.
+
+He didn’t have to ask any of the boys, for the very next day, on Elm
+Street, the little figure in blue held out her hand as he overtook her.
+
+“I don’t believe you know me,” she laughed prettily, shyly. “You’ve
+looked—so amazed, when I’ve spoken. Don’t tell me your years out of
+town have made you forget old acquaintances altogether. I’m Mamie
+Carpenter.”
+
+“Why, of course, Miss Carpenter, I’m delighted,” he stammered.
+
+“Oh, I’m so ashamed,” she said, then hurriedly, with embarrassed little
+pauses between the words: “Here, I’ve stopped you to tell you how—how
+glad Millersville is to have you back—and—I’m afraid you don’t remember
+me, after all. I don’t blame you—I was such a little girl when you
+left—and I’m not—important. But I remember when I went to Grant School,
+and you were in High, I used to stop every day and watch you practise
+football. You wore a red sweater, I remember. You—you were one of my
+youthful heroes, you see.”
+
+He thought, then, that he did remember her, and said so. Little girls
+change—he knew that. It was pleasant for him to think that, after all
+these years, she remembered him. He had worn a red sweater—still,
+wasn’t the school colour red; hadn’t all the other boys worn them, too?
+Well, anyhow, he had played football. No one else had said anything
+about those days. How pretty she was—a wonderful complexion! Why, in
+comparison, it made Sophie’s seem almost pasty. Of course, Sophie was a
+Redding—that was different—a serious thing, a bully girl, too. Mamie—he
+liked the name—it was like her, simple, plain, pretty. She might be
+great fun. To think of her remembering him all these years! What a
+plain little dress she wore! Poor people, evidently. Oh, well—
+
+Two weeks later, in Elm Street—it was a quiet street, tree-lined—he met
+Mamie again. She was walking ahead of him, as he turned up from Hill.
+He caught up with her.
+
+“You live near here?” he asked.
+
+She told him, very seriously, that she lived in Gillen Row and that her
+parents were awfully poor.
+
+“I—I work, you know—in the Busy Bee, the candy store. It makes things
+a little easier for mother—and my father. I stopped school before my
+junior year—to—to help them. Of course I’ve kept up with reading—but—I
+didn’t mind stopping—my father had an accident and they needed me. It
+isn’t bad—it’s rather pleasant at the Busy Bee—interesting to watch
+people.”
+
+“I’m sure you’re the sweetest thing there,” said Embury, and was
+surprised at his own boldness and a bit ashamed when he saw how Mamie
+blushed and dropped her eyes. What a dear little thing she was, leaving
+school to help her folks and not even complaining about it—and not
+ashamed, either, didn’t try to conceal it. It never occurred to him
+that he probably would have seen her in the Busy Bee any day and so
+discovered her position for himself.
+
+“You always walk home in Elm Street?” he asked, to cover her
+confusion—she was still blushing.
+
+“Yes, it’s so quiet and peaceful, the trees and all.”
+
+“That’s funny. That’s why _I_ go this way, when I don’t take the car to
+the office.”
+
+“You do?” Mamie showed great surprise. “Isn’t it funny, our tastes in
+streets?”
+
+Perhaps even more remarkable, if she had mentioned it, would have been
+the fact that Mamie had never honoured Elm Street with her presence
+until—investigating by little scurries after leaving the shop in the
+evening—she had found that Embury usually chose it when walking home.
+
+
+V
+
+Two days later, Embury walked up Elm Street with Mamie again. He had
+looked for her the day before, and had been disappointed when he did
+not see her. Hadn’t she said she walked there every day?
+
+“I didn’t see you yesterday,” he said with a smile, as he joined her.
+
+Mamie explained—not the real fact, that she had taken her old route
+home so as not to appear too eager for his acquaintance—but that she
+had gone a shorter way so that she could hurry home to cook dinner—her
+mother wasn’t well.
+
+“Poor little girl,” thought Embury, “working all day and then cooking
+dinner at night, too.”
+
+“I missed you,” he said.
+
+Mamie blushed again. She was rather good at it. Many people are.
+
+“Are you going to stay here in Millersville?” Mamie asked.
+
+No use getting excited, working hard over him, if he wasn’t. Embury was
+the first real opportunity she had had—if she could only get him before
+the others poisoned his mind against her or before the Reddings made
+his escape impossible—if he were going to leave Millersville, there
+wouldn’t be any use bothering about him.
+
+Embury told her that he was to stay in town, and she showed pleasure
+and blushed again. She asked him about his work and his plans.
+
+To his surprise, Embury found himself telling her about himself. Here
+was a girl, intelligent, interesting. The other girls didn’t know
+anything about business. But, of course, thrown on her own resources
+as she had been, she’d learned to take a real interest in the business
+world.
+
+They walked together until a block before the street down which Embury
+usually turned.
+
+“I go this way,” said Mamie.
+
+She could have continued on Elm Street, but she thought it best to be
+the first to break their walk together.
+
+“Wait a minute; don’t go away so quickly,” said Embury.
+
+He felt as if he were on a delightful adventure.
+
+Quietly, Mamie waited.
+
+“When am I going to see you again?” he asked.
+
+She started to say something, blushed then; “Why, I don’t know—I mean,
+any evening, walking home this way. I’m at the Busy Bee all day, you
+know.”
+
+“At night. Can’t I call? Can’t you go for a drive?”
+
+Mamie knew how her home would look to Embury, the porch with its
+sagging floor, the living-room with its clutter of ugly chairs, her
+parents quarrelling, more than likely. She couldn’t receive him at
+home. It didn’t seem fair—she had to fight against so many odds—and
+Sophie Redding had the whole Redding home, with its great porches,
+its big living rooms for entertaining. How she hated Sophie Redding
+with her giggles, her light stringy hair. Still, if she were smart
+enough—there might be ways....
+
+“I’m afraid I can’t let you call at all,” she said, modestly. “You
+see, I’m not one of the society girls. It—it wouldn’t look right, I’m
+afraid. You know how—how careful a girl has got to be.”
+
+What a dear little thing she was! Modest and shy and good. Each second
+Embury felt himself more and more a man of the world. This little
+thing, so fragile and dainty—and awfully pretty. Of course she was
+right. People would talk—and yet....
+
+He didn’t know that Millersville would not talk about Mamie, no matter
+how many men called on her, that they had talked when she was a little
+girl and dismissed her, carelessly, as “Joe Carpenter’s daughter, a bad
+egg.” Mamie knew. It didn’t make her feel any happier. Still, this was
+no time to worry about it.
+
+“Couldn’t we go for a ride some evening?” he asked. “No one would see
+us, honestly they wouldn’t.”
+
+“I really couldn’t. Really. You know how it is. I’d love to—but—it
+wouldn’t be right. I can’t go.”
+
+She appeared to want to yield to him. She knew how society in
+Millersville regarded girls who went automobiling with young men,
+alone. Embury would find out, if he didn’t know already, and his
+opinions would be moulded by the others.
+
+“You’re the funniest girl I ever saw,” he smiled at her.
+
+She was just small enough so that he looked down into her face when he
+stood close to her. Embury liked little girls. He was glad Mamie was
+small.
+
+“Other girls would go with me, honestly they would.”
+
+“You’d better take them, then,” she pouted, prettily.
+
+“I don’t mean that. I don’t want to sound conceited. Only I would like
+to take you, honestly I would. I know a little road house, ‘Under Two
+Flags,’ where they make awfully good things to eat, French cooking. We
+could ride out there some night, if you’ll go.”
+
+Mamie knew the road house. She used to think it great fun. She had
+slapped the faces of six commercial travellers driving home from it and
+finally had given it up as a dangerous place. It was, nevertheless,
+a fairly decent resort, with only a slightly sporty reputation, but,
+after all, the ride there and the supper weren’t worth the trouble of
+keeping her escort in his place all the way back. Why did men expect
+such big rewards for a ride and a bite to eat?
+
+Mamie smiled wistfully.
+
+“I’m afraid not,” she said. “I wish you wouldn’t—tempt me so. You see,
+I never go driving—I—I don’t have many good times.”
+
+Embury’s conscience hurt him. She was such a dear. Of course she
+shouldn’t go. He felt more wicked than ever.
+
+“But look here,” he said, “can’t I see you at all?”
+
+Mamie was thoughtful.
+
+“I don’t know,” she said; then, “next Friday I have a holiday—I work
+every second Sunday, the Busy Bee is open on Sundays too.”
+
+Embury was supposed to be at the office every day but he knew he was
+not indispensable.
+
+“Fine,” he told her, “that’s awfully good. Can we go in my car and make
+a picnic of it?”
+
+Mamie thought that would be a lot of fun. They made plans for the
+meeting. That was Wednesday. On Thursday, Mamie avoided Elm Street.
+
+
+VI
+
+Friday she was a few minutes late. She had appointed the corner of Elm
+and East streets as the meeting place. From a distance she saw Embury’s
+car waiting at the curb near the corner. He sprang out when he saw her.
+
+“This is jolly,” he said.
+
+She looked charming and she knew it. She had on a thin little dress of
+white, flecked with little rosebuds. It was plain and not new, but very
+fresh. A floppy leghorn hat was tied under her chin with a pale pink
+and yellow ribbon. She had trimmed the hat, herself, after a picture
+she had seen in a copy of Vogue that some one had left in the Busy Bee.
+She knew it suited her. The night before she had had a quarrel with her
+father because she had not “turned in” enough money. She had purchased
+a tiny bottle of her favourite perfume, rather an expensive brand.
+
+It was a perfect day, not too warm nor too sunny. Mamie did not snuggle
+close, as she felt Sophie would have done. She did not talk too much.
+But she took off her hat and let the wind blow her hair back—she had
+washed it the night before and it blew in soft waves. She sat near
+enough for Embury to smell the perfume of it.
+
+They drove to a small near-by town where Embury attended to some
+business his father had asked him to look after the week before. At
+noon he suggested eating in the town’s one hotel. Mamie shuddered
+prettily, then had an idea.
+
+“Can’t we have a picnic—a real out-of-doors picnic?” she begged. “I’m
+shut away from the sunshine so much of the time.”
+
+Embury thought the idea delightful. With much laughter, they bought
+things at the little stores, bread and pickles and olives, tinned meats
+and cakes and a piece of ice in a bucket and lemons and sugar for
+lemonade. They rode, then, until a bit of woods attracted them. They
+soon had the improvised luncheon spread out under a tree.
+
+Embury was surprised at his enjoyment. He watched Mamie’s little white
+hands arranging the things to eat. He tramped to a near-by farm for
+water and returned with an extra pail containing fresh, cool milk. It
+all seemed decidedly pure and rural to him. The food tasted remarkably
+good and, when they had finished, he leaned against a tree and smoked,
+smiled as he looked at Mamie, still cool in the sprigged lawn.
+
+“Having a good time?” he asked.
+
+“Wonderful,” she told him, “this is the best time I’ve ever had, I
+think. It’s different. You’re not like the other men I’ve known. I
+can—talk with you, tell you things. This seems sort of—of a magic day.”
+
+Embury thought so, too. He told her so. He told her other things, about
+his business, his thoughts, what he was going to do. Finally, he was
+telling her about his two years in Oklahoma.
+
+“That was prison,” he said. “It was smoky and oily—you could feel the
+oil, taste it in your food. It hung over you, all day, like a cloud.
+Still, it was worth going through—for this.”
+
+“You are—nice,” said Mamie, very softly.
+
+“Let’s keep this day for a secret,” she said. “Just the two of us will
+know about it. Let’s keep all of our times together as secrets—if we
+ever see each other again.”
+
+Embury agreed that secrets were very nice things to have.
+
+They were silent for a while.
+
+Finally, he got up, walked over to her. Mamie got to her feet, too. He
+came close and put his hand on her shoulder, started to put his arms
+around her.
+
+“You’re a dear little girl,” he said.
+
+Mamie lifted big eyes to him.
+
+“Please don’t,” she moved away, ever so slightly. “Please let me keep
+to-day perfect—as a memory. We—may never see each other again. I want
+to remember to-day as it is now. I—”
+
+She broke off, embarrassed. Embury felt suddenly bad, ashamed. How
+innocent she was! If he were going to be a man of the world, he’d have
+to think of another way. He couldn’t break the silken wings of her
+innocence by spoiling her day—her perfect day—she worked so hard and
+was so good. It had been a pleasant day for him, too. Later—he could
+see her other times, of course.
+
+“I wanted to make the day more beautiful,” he said, but he did not try
+to touch her again.
+
+They rode home almost in silence. When she told him good-bye, in Elm
+Street, she let her hand lie in his a moment. How small it seemed. Why,
+actually, it trembled.
+
+“When am I going to see you again?” he asked.
+
+“I don’t know,” said Mamie. Then, “I walk up Elm Street every day, you
+know. I—I had a wonderful time.” She smiled a bit sadly, and was gone.
+
+That night there was a party at the Country Club and Embury took Sophie
+Redding.
+
+For the first time since he knew her he noticed how fat her hands were,
+a trifle red, too—and how she took possession of him, as if they were
+already married—and he’d never proposed to her. She giggled too much.
+It made him nervous. He knew a dainty, pretty girl, a simple little
+girl, who didn’t go to Country Club dances nor roll her eyes nor put
+her hands on fellows’ shoulders. Of course, Sophie was the sort of girl
+that a fellow married—position and all that—his mother kept hinting
+things—what a fine family the Reddings were, what a nice wife Sophie
+would make....
+
+Still, he was young yet. Too young to settle down. He’d have his fling
+first, anyhow.
+
+For five days Embury walked home on Elm Street. He did not see Mamie.
+On the sixth day he went into the Busy Bee. There she was, the blonde
+hair more golden and beautiful than ever. She smiled a quick greeting
+at him. He had been afraid to go in, ashamed almost. What if it would
+embarrass her—what if she didn’t want to see him? Of course, he wasn’t
+going in to see her—he really had a purchase to make, still....
+
+Should he let her wait on him or get some one else? He saw her speak to
+another girl. Then she walked back of the counter to meet him.
+
+“Hello,” she said, very low, but gaily.
+
+“How have you been?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you for days.”
+
+She laughed.
+
+“It’s good of you to bother. My mother has been ill again. I wasn’t
+down at all yesterday. You wanted to buy some candy? May—I wait on you?”
+
+She was so modest, didn’t think he had come in especially to see her.
+He bought a box of chocolates and took it away under his arm.
+
+That evening he met her in Elm Street.
+
+“The candy is for you,” he told her.
+
+She accepted it, with as seeming a gratitude as if she didn’t get all
+the candy she could eat all day long.
+
+“You bought my favourite chocolates,” she told him. “I wondered—”
+
+She broke off, blushing.
+
+“Whom they were for?”
+
+“I—I mean I didn’t think they were for me. You know how girls in—in
+stores gossip. I heard—some one said that you were attentive to—I mean
+that you liked—some one here in Millersville.”
+
+“I do,” said Embury boldly, and caught her eye.
+
+She blushed again, prettily.
+
+“It was Miss Redding they meant,” she said.
+
+So—people were saying things about him and Sophie Redding. Embury
+didn’t like it. He was too young to get married. He felt that. That’s
+the trouble with a small town, no sooner you start going with a girl
+than the town has you engaged and married. Mrs. Redding, too—she was
+being too nice to him—too affectionate.
+
+“Miss Redding is an awfully nice girl,” he told her. “We’ve been to a
+few parties together, but that’s all. You know how Millersville is.”
+
+“I know. I went to High School with the Redding girls. They’re just
+a few years older than I am. I’m sorry I said anything. I guess I
+just listened to gossip. You know how you hear things. Just to show
+how wrong people can be—why, what I heard was that—that Miss Redding
+herself had said that you were—were going together. Millersville is
+awfully gossipy, isn’t it?”
+
+So, Sophie had been talking about his going with her. But it was just
+the thing she would do. A few weeks ago he had felt that if he could
+win Sophie it would be a very desirable thing. But lately he’d been
+annoyed at her. She’d shown him too many attentions—or too many pointed
+slights to pique him. He felt himself falling into a sort of net she
+was spreading. Why, even this little girl, so far away from the set in
+which Sophie moved, had heard things. He’d be careful—he wasn’t engaged
+to Sophie, yet.
+
+He admitted that Millersville was gossipy but that there was “nothing
+to” the gossip about him. He and Mamie had a pleasant walk up Elm
+Street.
+
+After that, for several weeks, he met Mamie every day. He tried to make
+other engagements, but she wouldn’t go for picnics or drives, even on
+her days off. She told Embury that she had to help her mother, who
+wasn’t strong and needed her. But she consented to the evening walks
+home.
+
+How sweet and simple she was, Embury felt. Other girls would have
+playfully avoided him, teased him, tried to make him more eager by
+their indifference. Mamie was always admittedly glad to be with him.
+Excepting when she had to hurry home a shorter way, she was always
+walking up the street when he overtook her. He began to look forward
+to these little walks, down the quiet, tree-shaded way. Mamie, on the
+warmest days seemed to remain cool and fresh-looking, her blonde hair
+soft and fluffy. In the shade she would take off her hat and turn her
+face up to catch any stray breeze. She’d have jolly little stories to
+tell him and be interested in everything that he was doing.
+
+Walking next to her he could watch the soft curve of her body, smell
+the pleasant fragrance of the perfume she used. Later, when he was
+alone, he contrasted her; gentle of voice, sweet, simple, sensible;
+with Sophie and Esther, the other girls of the crowd, their giggles and
+affectations, their attempts at intimacies, pressing close to him while
+they danced, overheated after dancing, their hair moist, their voices
+loud, their behaviour foolish. This little girl had more refinement
+than any of them—knew how to keep her self-respect, too. These walks
+were the pleasantest part of his day.
+
+Then, one evening Mamie was standing at the corner of Elm and East
+Street waiting for him, her eyes wide and frightened. From a distance
+he had seen her dainty figure, the plain straw hat, the simple frock.
+
+“What’s the matter?” he asked.
+
+“It’s really nothing,” she said, but her eyes held tears.
+
+“Tell me. Is it serious?”
+
+“It’s nothing. That is, you’ll think it’s nothing at all. I—I can’t
+tell you. It—spoils things—our little walks, our pleasant friendship.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“It’s awful—Millersville. I hate it—People misunderstand. I’m poor,
+you know—and work. It’s so easy for people to talk about a girl in
+my position. And some one told my—my father that I meet you every
+evening. He—he grew awfully angry. You don’t know my father—he has a
+terrible temper. I—I can’t ever meet you any more. That’s all.”
+
+She wiped her eyes carefully, with her small handkerchief. “Of
+course—it’s nothing to you, but it’s meant so much—I’m silly, I guess,
+but it’s been the pleasant part of—of my life.” She sniffled, very
+gently.
+
+“My dear, my dear,” Embury was moved. He wanted to take her into his
+arms. Such a little girl—talked about—because she went walking with
+him! He danced with other girls, put his arms around them on porches,
+kissed them, even. And this little girl, walked with him—and even that
+was denied her.
+
+Suddenly, it came to him how much the walks meant—how much Mamie
+meant to him. Each day he told her everything he had done, talked
+over his small business difficulties with her. She was always asking
+such sensible, thoughtful questions about things. None of the other
+girls cared—all they cared was that he was old man Embury’s son—good
+as an escort—or to bring candy or flowers. He had never taken Mamie
+any place, nor spent money on her. She seemed apart from things—their
+little walks up the quiet street seemed to belong to another world.
+
+“It’s nonsense,” he said. “I won’t stand it. It’s ridiculous. Of course
+we can keep on seeing each other.”
+
+“I’m afraid not,” her voice was unsteady.
+
+“But we must. Don’t you care?”
+
+“I—I—told you—I don’t dare think how lonely I’ll be. Thinking about our
+talks has helped me all day long.”
+
+Mamie wouldn’t let Embury call on her, either. Not just yet—maybe
+later, when her father was no longer angry. She didn’t dare disobey
+him, he was rather cross, almost cruel to her.
+
+They walked the rest of the way in silence. At her street Mamie held
+out her hand and Embury took it and held it. It seemed a very solemn
+occasion.
+
+Mamie’s expression was not so sad as she turned down the side street.
+It was decidedly pleasant and smiling. It might have puzzled Embury if
+he had seen it, but not more than the conversation would have puzzled
+Joe Carpenter. For, not since Mamie was ten had her father tried to
+give her advice concerning her associates. No one ever came to him with
+tales of Mamie and he had never even heard that the rich Mr. Embury had
+a son.
+
+
+VII
+
+For weeks, then, Embury didn’t see Mamie. At first he dismissed the
+whole thing with a careless, “Well, that little affair is over,”
+a slight disappointment that Mamie hadn’t been a better sport. It
+was just as well—Some one had told his parents, too, and they had
+questioned him, rather teasingly, about the companion of his evening
+walks. But they had been serious, at that. They didn’t want him to get
+“mixed up” with any one.
+
+Then he began to miss Mamie, miss the chance to talk about himself,
+miss her soft femininity. To put her out of his mind he devoted himself
+more thoroughly to Sophie.
+
+After all, she was the girl for him, one of the Redding girls, one of
+his own class. But when he talked to her he couldn’t help comparing
+her to Mamie, whom he felt he knew very well. Mamie was fresh and
+wholesome and innocent. She never went to parties or dances, things
+like that. Sophie was full of little tricks, liked to say things with
+double meanings—and giggle. If the girls had been changed around—Sophie
+in Mamie’s place—he couldn’t quite understand it.
+
+Sophie became too affectionate when he was with her, begged to light
+his cigarettes, always putting her hands on his shoulders, pinching
+his arm when anything exciting happened—and then pretending she
+hadn’t meant to do it. She was an awfully nice girl, of course. But
+she so definitely pursued him. He got tired of hearing her praises
+sung at home, too. Her tricks of breaking engagements, pretending
+indifference—they were worse than her affectionate moods. Her hair was
+colourless, her eyes too light. Compared with Mamie....
+
+As the days passed he missed Mamie more and more. He hated himself for
+his stupidity—he found himself passing the Busy Bee on all possible
+occasions, looking into the windows, over the display of assorted
+candy, into the store. Sometimes, above the counters, he’d see her,
+in her crisp white apron, her blonde, radiant hair framing her lovely
+little face. She was always busy, always cheerful. Other girls wasted
+their lives having good times. Mamie worked on, day after day—gentle,
+good. Sometimes Embury thought her face looked serious, a bit sad. Did
+she miss him?
+
+Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. He cursed himself for his
+silliness—he went into the Busy Bee, bought some candy. He had promised
+himself he wouldn’t annoy her—she was right—it was better that they
+shouldn’t see each other any more. Yet he was shedding the dignity of
+an Embury, acting the mere oaf, hanging around a candy store hoping for
+a smile from a salesgirl. He should have known better, scorned such
+behaviour. But there he was.
+
+Mamie was busy. He waited—some one called to her and she went into
+the back of the shop. He felt like a fool—didn’t dare ask for her.
+He bought his candy and went out. Next day he passed the shop three
+times. The day after he went inside again. He watched Mamie’s slim
+fingers flying among the candy trays, putting chocolates into a box for
+a customer. How he loved her hands. They were too fine for such work.
+Why—he did love her—of course—that was it—he loved her—no use denying
+it.
+
+He looked at her—her lovely profile, her fair complexion. She
+turned—smiled at him, rather a sad little smile—and went on packing
+chocolates, an adorable colour surging over her face. She had to pack
+chocolates—his girl! He loved her—and couldn’t even walk down the
+street with her. He made a purchase and went out, hating himself the
+rest of the day.
+
+He took the candy out to the Reddings that evening. Ten or twelve of
+the crowd were there. They turned on the Victrola and danced, then had
+lemonade. Every one was in high spirits. Some one suggested a short
+drive to cool off after dancing, so they all piled into the cars that
+stood waiting for them along Maple Road. Embury drove his car and
+Sophie sat next to him.
+
+“Propose to her,” something told him. “Go on, get definitely attached,
+have it over with. Then you’ll be settled, nothing to worry about. No
+use thinking about Mamie—you can’t marry her.”
+
+But he couldn’t propose, then nor later, when he was alone with her.
+Sophie chattered. The soft, pleasant night seemed marred. He thought of
+Mamie, their one ride together. He was sick of Sophie, of her tricks,
+her silliness, his parents’ praise of her. He wanted Mamie.
+
+He thought of Mamie before he fell asleep that night. He did love her.
+He knew that. But he couldn’t marry her. Of course not. If he did,
+though, his father would be horribly disappointed. But he’d get over
+it—and his mother, too. It wasn’t that. Mamie was far prettier and
+sweeter than any girl in the crowd. But she didn’t belong—it was just
+that she lived in Gillen Row. The crowd would laugh at him.
+
+What if they did laugh? Oh, well, it was something. He didn’t want to
+hurt his future. Mamie was in another set—another world—that was all.
+He couldn’t marry her. Still—he could see her. There were other things
+beside marriage. He had to have his fling. He hadn’t had any affairs.
+He was still young. Here was an affair, that was all. After that—you
+can settle such things with money—there was time enough for marriage,
+then—with Sophie, of course.
+
+He woke up feeling quite the conquering hero, as if he had already
+taken definite steps in his approach on Mamie. She was a dear, a little
+innocent. He was a college man, a man of the world. Of course she was
+no match for him. Still—he’d be a fool not to follow the thing up—she
+was too pretty to leave—if not him, some one else then. Why not him?
+
+At noon, when he left the office in his car, he drove up Gillen Row.
+What a street! There had been no rain for days—everything was covered
+with grey dust. There was a horrible sense of rust and decay and
+dirtiness. He didn’t know which house was Mamie’s, but they all looked
+alike in the sunshine, a squalid, ramshackle row,—how different from
+his own home—from the Redding home, with their terraced lawns, their
+pleasant green bushes and flowers. This was a different life from the
+life he led, from the pleasant, comfortable ways of his people. And
+yet—Mamie—
+
+
+VIII
+
+At half-past five he went into the Busy Bee. Mamie was not busy. She
+was standing near a glass counter, listlessly leaning one elbow against
+it. She looked pale, he thought, and yet dainty—dainty and sweet, and
+she’d come out of Gillen Row. It had been a hot summer. He was glad
+September was here.
+
+She smiled as she saw him. How little she was! Hadn’t she missed him
+at all? She had cared a little for him—he felt that. He could make her
+care again, if she’d give him a chance.
+
+“I must see you,” he told her.
+
+She looked around, rather frightened. He had forgotten that she had
+to be careful about her position—that she actually was forced to sell
+candy in the Busy Bee.
+
+“Don’t you want to see me?” he added.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“You won’t meet me in Elm Street?”
+
+“I don’t dare. I told you. You don’t understand—I—can’t meet you.”
+
+“May I come to see you?”
+
+“I—I told you—”
+
+“But I _must_ see you. Let me call.”
+
+“I don’t—well, all right then, if you want to come. I shouldn’t let
+you. My father—still, if you want to. I live way down in Gillen Row. We
+are—are very poor, you know. If you want—”
+
+“Of course I do. Why didn’t you let me come, before? May I come right
+away, to-night?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“Where do you live?”
+
+“The third house after Birch Street, Number 530. It’s a little cottage.”
+
+“Go driving with me?”
+
+“I—I told you I couldn’t—at night—and I never have time, other times.”
+
+“To-night then, about eight. How’s that?”
+
+Mamie nodded again, smiled. Embury bought a box of candy to cover his
+embarrassment.
+
+Going into a candy shop to make an engagement with a shopgirl—trembling
+when she spoke to him, grinning and ogling over the counter! He had
+never thought himself capable of that.
+
+As he ate his dinner the engagement became something vastly important,
+a bit different, a bit devilish. He’d take her out in his car. Of
+course. It would be a moonlight night. He understood girls. A simple
+girl like that—
+
+
+IX
+
+A few minutes before eight he drove up to the cottage where Mamie
+lived. It was even more terrible than he had imagined it, a crooked
+little cottage with a funny, sagging porch, the paint peeled off, the
+lumber turned grey. There had been no attempt to beautify the small
+grey yard.
+
+As he stepped out of the car Mamie came out on the porch, walked
+hurriedly toward him. She had on pink, a thin, delicate pink, made very
+plain. Her complexion looked quite pale, her hair softer and brighter
+than ever.
+
+She came up to him, put her hand on his arm, drew it back again.
+The gesture that had been affectation with Sophie became genuine
+embarrassment here.
+
+“You—can’t—call,” she said nervously. “I told father at dinner. He’s
+just stepped out. He’d get furious—if he found you here. He—he keeps
+on harping on what that man told him—about my being seen with you—he
+says—I’m not in your class—that you don’t mean—aren’t—that I shouldn’t
+go with you.”
+
+He saw that she was trembling. How soft she was and little. He wouldn’t
+be cheated out of a ride with her—this evening—hadn’t seen her for a
+long, long time. How he’d missed her!
+
+“Jump in the car,” he said. “Hurry up, before your father gets back.
+He’ll never know.”
+
+“I can’t. You don’t know how angry he’d be. Girls don’t ride at night,
+in Millersville, this way. It will make things worse.”
+
+She drew back.
+
+“You don’t want to go?”
+
+“Oh, I do, I do! You don’t know how much.”
+
+“Then jump in.”
+
+“It wouldn’t be right. You wouldn’t respect me. Other girls—”
+
+“My dear child, you don’t know the world. Other girls go driving at
+night—and do worse things than that. Only night before last I took a
+girl out driving—Sophie Redding—Miss Redding and I—”
+
+“I know, but she’s—you know—I told you what I heard.”
+
+“There’s no truth in that. I told you so. Now come on, be a nice girl,
+jump in. It’s too perfect an evening to waste. We’ll drive down Rock
+Road. No one will see us.”
+
+“I don’t know—I—”
+
+“Please come. You’ll please me, won’t you?”
+
+He felt bold, masterful, put his hand on her arm. He saw that he had
+done the wrong thing, been too hasty. She drew away, frightened.
+
+“I—maybe—I’d better not see you any more, ever. That’s what I’d
+planned—”
+
+“Please come on, won’t you, dear? Don’t talk like that. Come on.”
+
+He let his voice grow tender—he was surprised to find how much he meant
+the tenderness. What if she wouldn’t go?
+
+She hesitated a moment, then:
+
+“All right,” she nodded, and jumped into the car.
+
+She had ordered her parents to keep away from the front of the house,
+but she knew them. She was eager to get away before they peered out of
+the window or slouched out on the porch.
+
+They left Gillen Row and were soon out in the country.
+
+Mamie sighed, a pleasant sigh of happiness.
+
+“I suppose I oughtn’t to be here,” she said. “It’s wrong, I know, but
+it seems right when I’m with you. I’ve been so lonely lately. It seems
+wonderful.”
+
+“You’ve missed me a little, then?”
+
+“Missed you—of course.”
+
+The moon came out. They drove along the Sulpulpa River, and the moon
+rippled a path on the water. Embury stopped the car.
+
+“This is great, isn’t it?” he asked.
+
+“Wonderful. I almost lose my breath at it. I’m that way about scenery—I
+can’t say much. And to be here, now—”
+
+He looked at her. She seemed almost ethereal in the moonlight, the pale
+pink of her dress, the soft gleam of her hair.
+
+He put his arm around her, very gently, drew her close to him, held up
+her chin, looked at her. She was lovely, her fragrant, soft complexion,
+her big eyes. He kissed her.
+
+She gave a little gasp. But there was no pulling away, none of the
+“how-dare-yous” which he had feared. As simply as a child she put her
+arms around his neck, kissed him, gave little whispers of contentment.
+
+“You dear, you dear!” Embury whispered over and over again.
+
+Then she drew away from him, turned her back, broke into a paroxysm of
+sobbing.
+
+“What’s the matter?” Embury asked, genuinely perplexed.
+
+He hadn’t quite understood her kissing him, though the kisses had been
+very pleasant. He understood her now least of all.
+
+“I—I shouldn’t have come with you,” she sobbed. “Don’t you see—I—I—let
+you kiss me—I kissed you—I wanted to kiss you—I’m as much to blame as
+you—more. It’s wrong. I shouldn’t have come with you—now, you can’t
+respect me any more. After this you’ll think—”
+
+“Now, now,” he soothed, “don’t carry on this way. Honest, it’s all
+right. It really is. Of course I respect you, honey. You’re the dearest
+girl I know. Why—I—love you!”
+
+He stumbled over the word—he had never told a girl that he loved
+her, before. He was quite sincere, now. Marriage—of course that was
+different. He knew that. But this little girl—she was a dear—lovely, as
+she lay in his arms, soft and yielding, her lips against his. Still,
+now he wanted her to stop crying—he had made her cry—
+
+“Why, dear, kisses aren’t anything, really. Lots of girls—You don’t
+know the ways of the world, that’s all. Now, cheer up—I didn’t mean to
+frighten you.”
+
+“It—it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have come. Of course, when I
+came, you thought—and I—I _wanted_ to kiss you. That’s the worst of
+it. Only—I did want to come—I never have anything. I’m—only nothing
+at all—and live in Gillen Row and you’re Marlin Embury—and now—I’ve
+kissed you.”
+
+He drove her home. All the way home she sobbed softly. There was a
+light in the little cottage.
+
+“Don’t drive me to the house,” she said. “Father’s home—it’s late—if he
+saw you—I don’t know what he’d do. I’ll be all right—if I go in alone.
+My mother will be waiting, too. She’ll keep him from being too angry—if
+I explain to her. I—I think she’ll understand.”
+
+He let her out at the corner, pressing her hand as he told her good-bye.
+
+“Now don’t you worry,” he said. “I’ll see you to-morrow, dear. A kiss
+is nothing to worry over, really it isn’t.”
+
+She watched his car as he drove away, sent a tiny little wave of
+farewell to him as he looked back.
+
+Her mother had gone to bed. Her father was playing cards with three
+cronies in the dining-room.
+
+“That’s right, come trailing in at all hours—running around with some
+one else—got some one new?” he growled, as she passed them.
+
+“That’s my business,” she answered curtly.
+
+Her father might have detected a new tone in her voice if he hadn’t
+been too busy seeing that he got the best of his friends before they
+took advantage of him.
+
+
+X
+
+Embury worried about the kisses pretty much that night after he got
+home.
+
+After all, Mamie was such a little thing and awfully young, not more
+than eighteen, probably, and not worldly, sophisticated, like the
+girls he went with. He oughtn’t to have—well, taken advantage of her.
+She had said she would never see him again—and then, after he had said
+he’d see her to-morrow, he had seen her wave farewell. If he didn’t
+see her—perhaps that would be best, after all. Still,—her kisses were
+sweet—she was a dear—he remembered the touch of her soft lips.
+
+In the morning Embury still thought only of Mamie’s arms around his
+neck, her kisses. Of course he’d see her again. Why, he loved her. She
+was smarter, prettier, than Sophie. Sophie wouldn’t have cried had
+he kissed her—she would have thought he had proposed and put their
+engagement in the papers. She probably thought they were even now.
+Wouldn’t it be a joke on Sophie if he didn’t marry her, after all? His
+parents—why should they rule his life?
+
+Of course, marrying Mamie was out of the question—still, with pretty
+clothes, she’d beat any girl in Millersville on looks and brains. Why,
+she had them beat already. Hadn’t she gone to High School until she
+had to stop to help out at home? Working every day, selling candy,
+luxuries—to others. Dear little thing—and now she was probably worrying
+because he had kissed her. Of course he’d see her—keep on seeing her....
+
+At ten o’clock he peered into the windows of the Busy Bee. Mamie was
+not there. At eleven he looked in again. He went to the office and
+attempted to work. He looked into the shop windows both going to and
+coming from luncheon. He couldn’t keep his mind on what he was trying
+to do in the afternoon. Before three, he left for the day and went to
+the Busy Bee, looked in, went inside. It was almost a relief not to
+see Mamie—a relief, and yet it worried him.
+
+A brown-haired girl he had never seen asked for his order. Embarrassed,
+he told her he wanted to speak to Miss Carpenter. What a fool he was.
+What else could he do?
+
+Miss Carpenter hadn’t been down all day—no, she didn’t know what was
+the matter. Something she could do for him? Mechanically he ordered a
+box of candy.
+
+He was glad he hadn’t found Mamie there. After last night he didn’t
+like to think of her clerking—waiting on people. He’d take her
+away—some place. Where? That was it—take her away. Still, he had to
+stay in Millersville—a town like Millersville! And she—why she cried
+when he kissed her—she was such a fragile, dainty little thing—like a
+lily—that was it—a lily, who had grown up in the muck of Gillen Row.
+Even too dainty for him. She wasn’t at the store. What was the matter?
+What if—
+
+He drove to Gillen Row as rapidly as he could, stopped his car in front
+of the forlorn cottage. What if her father was at home? Well, he could
+manage him—must manage him.
+
+He ran up the front walk, up the broken steps, knocked at the door—the
+bell seemed out of order. He waited. No answer. He couldn’t believe
+that the house was empty. He would wait. He stood on the porch,
+hesitating, wondering what to do. Then the door opened. It was Mamie.
+
+She had on a blue suit, a plain little suit, with a white collar and a
+little black hat, turned up all around. He had never seen her except
+in summer things. How well she looked, with her bright hair showing
+below the hat-brim.
+
+“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “You mustn’t come. Go away—I
+never—was going to see you again.”
+
+“What’s the matter? You aren’t ill? You weren’t at the Busy Bee?”
+
+“I’m not going back again, ever. I—I can’t stand it.”
+
+“What are you going to do, Mamie?”
+
+She looked so little and tragic.
+
+“Last night father was waiting for me when I got home. You don’t know
+my father. He’s cruel, brutal, sometimes. He seemed to know, before
+I told him—that I’d been driving with you. So—I’m going away—I can’t
+stand—this—any more.”
+
+“Going—where?”
+
+He came inside, closed the door. What a mean little house it was.
+
+“I don’t know. Away from this—any place. I’ve enough money to get to—to
+Giffordsville. I can find something to do there. I’ve got to have peace
+and contentment—something. And you must hate me—after I kissed you last
+night. You can’t care for me—respect me—and your respect was all I had.”
+
+“My dear, my dear little girl. Why, I—I—”
+
+His arms were around her again. But this time she did not meet his lips
+with hers. She dropped her head, struggled a little, then sighed.
+
+“You see,” she said, “I can’t struggle against you. I must go away. I
+can’t stand it—any longer. This house, everything—and now—”
+
+“Mamie.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Look at me.”
+
+“I can’t.”
+
+He forced her face upward.
+
+“Do you love me?”
+
+“Don’t ask me to say it. You—know. Please don’t be cruel to me. Let me
+go while I can.”
+
+“Cruel to you? Mamie, I love you. You know that. You mustn’t go away
+from Millersville.”
+
+“I _must_ go. After the quarrel with father, I can’t stay here. That’s
+settled.”
+
+“You _mustn’t_ go.”
+
+He repeated it over and over. He couldn’t let her go. Without her,
+Millersville would be worse than oil-soaked Oklahoma. He dared not
+imagine it, even.
+
+“I’m going now—I’m all ready for travelling. How can anything stop me?”
+She pointed to a little packed bag.
+
+In his arms she was fragrant, sweet. How could she get along—what could
+she do, alone in the world? Why—she was his girl—he could take care of
+her. She understood him—his family—he wouldn’t let his parents ruin his
+life.
+
+Marry her, of course. Wasn’t she better, nobler than the rest of
+the girls—a cruel father who misunderstood her—alone in the world,
+really—little and sweet and dear. Going away? Why, if he married her he
+could keep her here. Of course.
+
+“I’m glad you’re ready,” he said, “because you’re going with me.”
+
+“What—what do you mean?”
+
+She drew away.
+
+“What could I mean? We—we love each other. We can drive right down to
+the court-house this minute. You—you won’t mind—marrying me, will you?”
+
+She snuggled close to him and hid her head. From the sounds she made,
+he couldn’t tell whether she was sobbing or giggling. But it didn’t
+matter. Surely a girl could have her own method of accepting a proposal
+of marriage.
+
+
+XI
+
+The marriage has really turned out very well. Even Millersville admits
+it. After all, Mamie Embury proved herself an exceptional woman, and
+was quite able in every way to take her rightful place in society as
+Marlin Embury’s wife. If her parents seemed below the Millersville
+social level, no one dared dwell upon it. For young Mrs. Embury, under
+her soft and blonde exterior, has rather a sharp manner at times and,
+when necessary, can refer, in the pleasantest way, to things that have
+taken place in the past—and even the best Millersville families have
+their skeletons, forged cheques, little unnamed graves, jail sentences,
+things like that. So, after all, a worthless father can’t be held
+against a person, these days, all things considered.
+
+Mamie is getting to be a bit of a snob, though, even her best friends
+think, because she objects to Millersville’s newest rich belonging to
+the “society” set and speaks about drawing more conservative lines. Her
+father was the black sheep of the family, it appears. The Carpenters
+are really an old Kentucky family and she often tells that her mother
+was one of the Virginia Prichards. Millersville knows that there is
+a great deal in heredity—that blood will tell—so her friends can
+understand her seeming snobbishness.
+
+Mamie is a charming hostess, and prettier than ever, even if she has
+grown a bit rounder, and her husband is devoted to her. A poor girl who
+married the richest man in town—it’s beautiful—and it’s such a relief,
+with so many sordid things going on every day, to see real romance, a
+genuine love match, once in a while.
+
+
+
+
+A CYCLE OF MANHATTAN
+
+
+I
+
+The Rosenheimers arrived in New York on a day in April. New York,
+flushed with the first touch of Spring, moved on inscrutably, almost
+suavely unawares. It was the greatest thing that had ever happened to
+the Rosenheimers, and even in the light of the profound experiences
+that were to follow it kept its vast grandeur and separateness, its
+mysterious and benumbing superiority. Viewed later, in half-tearful
+retrospect, it took on the character of something unearthly,
+unmatchable and never quite clear—a violent gallimaufry of strange
+tongues, humiliating questionings, freezing uncertainties, sudden and
+paralyzing activities.
+
+The Rosenheimers came by way of the Atlantic Ocean, and if anything
+remained unclouded in their minds it was a sense of that dour and
+implacable highway’s unfriendliness. They thought of it ever after as
+an intolerable motion, a penetrating and suffocating smell. They saw it
+through drenched skylights—now and then as a glimpse of blinding blue
+on brisk, heaving mornings. They remembered the harsh, unintelligible
+exactions of officials in curious little blue coats. They dreamed for
+years of endless nights in damp, smothering bunks. They carried off the
+taste of strange foods, barbarously served. The Rosenheimers came in
+the steerage.
+
+There were, at that time, seven of them, if you count Mrs. Feinberg. As
+Mrs. Feinberg had, for a period of eight years—the age of the oldest
+Rosenheimer child—been called nothing but Grandma by the family and
+occasionally Grandma Rosenheimer by outsiders, she was practically a
+Rosenheimer, too. Grandma was Mrs. Rosenheimer’s mother, a decent,
+simple, round-shouldered “sheiteled,” little old woman, to whom life
+was a ceaseless washing of dishes, making of beds, caring for children
+and cooking of meals. She ruled them all, unknowing.
+
+The head of the house of Rosenheimer was, fittingly, named Abraham.
+This had abbreviated itself, even in Lithuania, to a more intimate Abe.
+Abe Rosenheimer was thirty-three, sallow, thin-cheeked and bearded,
+with a slightly aquiline nose. He was already growing bald. He was
+not tall and he stooped. He was a clothing cutter by trade. Since his
+marriage, nine years before, he had been saving to bring his family
+over. Only the rapid increase of its numbers had prevented him coming
+sooner.
+
+Abraham Rosenheimer was rather a silent man and he looked stern.
+Although he recognized his inferiority in a superior world, he was not
+without his ambitions. These looked toward a comfortable home, his own
+chair with a lamp by it, no scrimping about meat at meals and a little
+money put by. He had heard stories about fortunes that could be made
+in America and in his youth they had stirred him. Now he was not much
+swayed by them. He was fond of his family and he wanted them “well
+taken care of,” but in the world that he knew the rich and the poor
+were separated by an unscalable barrier. Unless incited temporarily to
+revolution by fiery acquaintances he was content to hope for a simple
+living, work not too hard or too long, a little leisure, tranquillity.
+
+He had a comfortable faith which included the belief that, if a man
+does his best, he’ll usually be able to make a living for his family.
+“Health is the big thing,” he would say, and “The Lord will provide.”
+Outside of his prayer-book, he did little reading. It never occurred to
+him that he might be interested in the outside world. He knew of the
+existence of none of the arts. His home and his work were all he had
+ever thought about.
+
+Mrs. Rosenheimer, whose first name was Minnie, was thirty-one. She was
+a younger and prettier reproduction of her mother, plump and placid,
+with a mouth inclined to petulancy.
+
+There were four Rosenheimer children. Yetta was eight, Isaac six,
+Carrie three and little Emanuel had just had his first birthday. Yetta
+and Carrie were called by their own first names, but Isaac, in America,
+almost immediately gave way to Ike and little Emanuel became Mannie.
+They were much alike, dark-haired, dark-eyed, restless, shy, wondering.
+
+The Rosenheimers had several acquaintances in New York, people from the
+little village near Grodno who had preceded them to America. Most of
+these now lived in the Ghetto that was arising on the East Side of New
+York, and Rosenheimer had thought that his family would go there, too,
+so as to be near familiar faces. He had written several months before,
+to one Abramson, a sort of a distant cousin, who had been in America
+for twelve years. As Abramson had promised to meet them, he decided to
+rely on Abramson’s judgment in finding a home in the city.
+
+Abramson was at Ellis Island and greeted the family with vehement
+embraces. He seemed amazingly well-dressed and at home. He wore a large
+watchchain and no less than four rings. He introduced his wife, whom he
+had married since coming to America, though she, too, had come from the
+old country. She wore silk and carried a parasol.
+
+“I’ve got a house all picked out for you,” he explained in familiar
+Yiddish. “It isn’t in the Ghetto, where some of our friends live, but
+it’s cheap, with lots of comforts and near where you can get work, too.”
+
+Any house would have suited the Rosenheimers. They were pitifully
+anxious to get settled, to rid themselves of the foundationless
+feeling which had taken possession of them. With eager docility, Yetta
+carrying Mannie and each of the others carrying a portion of the
+bundles of wearing apparel and feather comforts which formed their
+luggage, they followed Abramson to a surface car and to their new home.
+In their foreign clothes and with their bundles they felt almost as
+uncomfortable as they had been on shipboard.
+
+The Rosenheimers’ new home was in MacDougal Street. They looked with
+awe on the exterior and pronounced it wonderful. Such a fine building!
+Of red brick it was! There were three stories. The first story was
+a stable, the big door open. Little Isaac had to be pulled past the
+restless horses in front of it. The whole family stood for a moment,
+drinking in the wonders, then followed Abramson up the stairs. On the
+second floor several families lived in what the Rosenheimers thought
+was palatial grandeur. Even their own home was elegant. It consisted of
+two rooms—the third floor front. They could hardly be convinced that
+they were to have all that space. There was a stove in the second room
+and gas fixtures in both of them—and there was a bathroom, with running
+water, in the general hall! The Rosenheimers didn’t see that the paper
+was falling from the walls and that, where it had been gone for some
+years, the plaster was falling, too. Nor that the floor was roughly
+uneven.
+
+“Won’t it be too expensive?” asked Rosenheimer. Abramson chuckled.
+Though he himself was but a trimmer by trade, he was pleased with the
+rôle of fairy godfather. He liked twirling wonders in the faces of
+these simple folk. In comparison, he felt himself quite a success, a
+cosmopolite. Just about Rosenheimer’s age, he had small deposits in two
+savings banks, a three-room apartment, a wife and two American sons,
+Sam and Morrie. Both were in public school, and both could speak “good
+English.” He patted Rosenheimer on the back jovially.
+
+“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “A good cutter here in New York
+don’t have to worry. Even a ‘greenhorn’ makes a living. There’s half
+a dozen places you can choose from. I’ll tell you about it, and where
+to go, to-morrow. Now, we’ll go over to my house and have something
+to eat. Then you’ll see how you’ll be living in a few years. You can
+borrow some things from us until you get your own. My wife will be glad
+to go with Mrs. Rosenheimer and show her where to buy.”
+
+The Rosenheimers gave signs of satisfaction as they dropped their
+bundles and sat down on the empty boxes that stood around, or on the
+floor. This was something like it! Here they had a fine home in a big
+brick house, a sure chance of Rosenheimer getting a good job, friends
+to tell them about things—they had already found their place in New
+York! Grandma, trembling with excitement, took Mannie in her arms and
+held him up dramatically.
+
+“See, Mannie, see Mannischen—this is fine—this is the way to live!”
+
+
+II
+
+Things turned out even more miraculously than the Rosenheimers had
+dared to hope. After only three days Rosenheimer found a job as a pants
+cutter at the fabulous wages he had heard of. He could not only pay the
+high rent, twelve dollars a month, he would also have enough left over
+for food and clothes, and to furnish the home, if they were careful.
+Maybe, after the house was in order, there would even be a little to
+put by. Of course it was no use being too happy about it, he told Mrs.
+Rosenheimer.
+
+“It looks fine now, but you know you can’t always tell. It takes a
+whole lot to feed a big family.”
+
+Although secretly delighted, he was solemn and rather silent over his
+good fortune. Abraham Rosenheimer was a cautious man.
+
+Mrs. Abramson initiated Grandma and Mrs. Rosenheimer into New York
+buying. It was fascinating, even more so than buying had been at home.
+There were neighbourhood shops where Yiddish was spoken, and already
+the family was beginning to learn a little English. Mrs. Rosenheimer
+listened closely to what people said and the children picked up words,
+playing in the street.
+
+The next weeks were orgies of buying. Not that much was bought, for
+there wasn’t much money and it had to be spent very carefully, but
+each article meant exploring, looking and haggling. Grandma took the
+lead in buying—didn’t Grandma always do such things? Grandma was only
+fifty-seven and spry for her age. Didn’t she take care of the children
+and do more than her share of the housework?
+
+Grandma was supremely happy. She liked to buy and she felt that
+merchants couldn’t fool her, even in this strange country. A table
+was the first thing she purchased. It was almost new and quite large.
+It was pine and bare of finish, but after Grandma had scrubbed it and
+scoured it it looked clean and wholesome. It was quite a nice table
+and only wobbled a little when you leaned on it heavily, for the legs
+weren’t quite even. One was a little loose and Grandma didn’t seem able
+to fasten it. Assisted by Mrs. Rosenheimer and Yetta, she scrubbed the
+whole flat, so that it equalled the new table in immaculateness. There
+were families who liked dirt—Grandma had seen them, even in America—but
+she was glad she didn’t belong to one of them.
+
+Then came chairs, each one picked out with infinite care and much
+sibilant whispering between Grandma, Mrs. Rosenheimer and Mrs.
+Abramson. There was a rocker, slat-backed, from which most of the
+slats were missing, though it still rocked “as good as new.” The
+next chair was leather-covered, though the leather was cut through
+in places, allowing the horse-hair stuffing to protrude. But, as Mrs.
+Abramson pointed out, this was an advantage, it showed that the filling
+wasn’t an inferior cotton. There were two straight chairs, one with a
+leatherette seat, nailed on with bright-coloured nails, the other with
+a wicker seat, quite neatly mended. There was a cot for Grandma and a
+bed for Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheimer and Emanuel. The other children were
+well and strong and could sleep on the floor, of course. Hadn’t they
+brought fine soft feathers with them?
+
+All of the furniture was second- or third-hand and the previous owners
+had not treated it with much care. So Grandma got some boxes to help
+out, and she and the Rosenheimers worked over them, pulling and
+driving nails. Finally they had a cupboard which held all of the new
+dishes—almost new, if you don’t mind a few hardly noticeable nicked
+edges—and decorated with fine pink roses. Some of the boxes were still
+used as chairs, “to help out.” One fine, high one did very nicely as
+an extra table, with a grand piece of brand-new oilcloth, in a marbled
+pattern, tacked over it. They had a home now.
+
+Grandma and Mrs. Rosenheimer marketed every day at the stores and
+markets in the neighbourhood. Rosenheimer sometimes complained that
+they used too much money, but then, he “liked to eat well.” The little
+Rosenheimers grew round and merry.
+
+Grandma and Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheimer, looking at the children and at
+their two big rooms—all their own and so nicely furnished—could hardly
+imagine anything finer. Grandma and Rosenheimer were absolutely at
+peace. But Mrs. Rosenheimer knew that, with more money, there were a
+lot of things you could buy. She had walked through Washington Square
+and up Fifth Avenue. She had seen people in fine clothes, people of her
+own race, too. She didn’t have much, after all. Still, most of the time
+she was content.
+
+Gradually, too, Rosenheimer saw shadows of wealth. He heard rumours of
+how fortunes were made overnight—his boss now, a few years before, had
+been a poor boy.... Nevertheless, smoking his cigarettes and reading
+his Yiddish paper after his evening meal, or talking with Abramson or
+one of the men he had met, he was well satisfied with New York as he
+had found it.
+
+
+III
+
+As the months passed, the Rosenheimers drank in, unbelievably fast,
+the details of the city. Already the children were beginning to speak
+English, not just odd words, here and there, but whole sentences.
+Already, too, they were beginning to be ashamed of being “greenhorns”
+and were planning the time when they could say they had been over for
+years or had been born here. Little Mannie was beginning to talk and
+every one said he spoke English without an accent.
+
+Yetta and Ike started to school. Each day they brought home some
+startling bit of information that the family received and assimilated
+without an eye-wink. Although most of the men at the shop spoke
+Yiddish, Rosenheimer was learning English, too. He even spoke, vaguely,
+about learning to read it and write it, and he began to look over
+English papers, now and then, interestedly. Mrs. Rosenheimer also
+showed faint literary leanings and sometimes asked questions about
+things.
+
+Ike was always eager to tell everything he had learned. In a sharp
+little voice he would instruct, didactically, any one within hearing
+distance. He rather annoyed Rosenheimer, who was not blinded by the
+virtues of his eldest son. But he was Mrs. Rosenheimer’s favourite. She
+would sit, hands folded across her ample lap, smiling proudly as he
+unrolled his fathomless knowledge.
+
+“Listen at that boy! Ain’t he wonderful, the way he knows so much?” she
+would exclaim.
+
+Yetta’s learning took the form, principally, of wanting things. Each
+day, it seemed, she could find out something else she didn’t have,
+that belonged to all American children. And, no matter how penniless
+Rosenheimer had just declared himself to be, unsmilingly and a bit
+shamefacedly, he would draw pennies out of the depths of the pocket of
+his shiny trousers.
+
+Only Grandma showed no desire to learn the ways of the new country.
+She didn’t mind picking up a little English, of course, though she’d
+got along very nicely all of her life without it. Still, in a new
+country, it didn’t hurt to know something about the language. But as
+for reading—well, Yiddish was good enough for her, though she didn’t
+mind admitting she didn’t read Yiddish easily. Grandma had little use
+for the printed word.
+
+Each week the Rosenheimers’ clothes changed nearer to the prevailing
+styles of MacDougal Street. Only a few weeks after they arrived Mrs.
+Rosenheimer, overcome by her new surroundings, bought, daringly, a lace
+sailor collar, which she fastened around the neck of her old-world
+costume. As the months passed, even this failed to satisfy. The dress
+itself finally disappeared, reappearing as a school frock for Yetta,
+and Mrs. Rosenheimer wore a modest creation of red plaid worsted which
+Grandma and she had made, huge sleeves, bell skirt and all, after one
+they had seen in Washington Square on a “society lady.”
+
+Just a year after they arrived in America, Mrs. Rosenheimer discarded
+her _sheitel_. She even tried to persuade Grandma to leave hers off,
+but Grandma demurred. There were things you couldn’t do decently, even
+in a new country. Mrs. Rosenheimer made the innovation in a spirit of
+fear, but when no doom overtook her and she found in a few weeks how
+“stylish” she looked, she never regretted the change. She was wearing
+curled bangs, good as the next one, before long.
+
+Little Ike had a new suit, bought ready-made, his first bought suit,
+not long afterwards. The trousers were a bit too long, but surely
+that was an advantage, for he was growing fast, going on eight. They
+couldn’t call him a “greenhorn” now. He came home, too, with reports of
+how smart his teacher said he was and of the older boys, unbelievers,
+whom he had “got ahead of” in school. His shrill voice would grow
+louder and higher as he would explain to the admiring Mrs. Rosenheimer
+and Grandma what a fine lad he was getting to be.
+
+Other signs of change now appeared. Scarcely a year had gone by before
+lace curtains appeared at the two front windows. They were of different
+patterns, but what of that? They had been cheaper that way, as
+“samples.” By tautly drawn strings, white and stiff they hung, adding
+a touch of elegance to the abode. Only three months later a couch was
+added, the former grandeur of its tufted surface not at all dimmed by
+a few years of wear. Yetta and Carrie slept on it, luxuriously, one at
+each end. It was a long couch and they were so little.
+
+Then a cupboard for dishes appeared. Grandma bought it from a family
+that was “selling out.” It had glass doors. At least there had been
+glass doors. One was broken now, but who noticed that? In the corner of
+the front room, opposite the couch, it looked very “stylish.” And not
+long afterward there was a carpet in the front room, three strips of
+it, with a red and green pattern. Then, indeed, the Rosenheimers felt
+that they could, very proudly, “be at home to their friends.” They had
+company, now, families of old friends and new, from the Ghetto and from
+their own neighbourhood. And they visited, _en masse_, in return.
+
+There wasn’t much money, of course. Rosenheimer was getting good wages,
+but children eat a lot and beg for pennies between meals. And shoes!
+But like many men of his race and disposition, Rosenheimer never
+contributed quite all of his funds to his household. Nor did he take
+his women into his confidence. He felt that they could not counsel
+him wisely, which was probably right, for neither Grandma nor Mrs.
+Rosenheimer was interested in anything outside of their home and their
+friends. Besides this, he had a natural secrecy, a dislike of talking
+things over with his family. So, each week, he made an infinitesimal
+addition to the savings account he had started. He even considered
+various investments—he knew of men who were buying the tenements in
+which they lived on wages no bigger than his, living in the basement
+and taking care of the house outside of working hours. But he felt that
+he was still too much the “greenhorn” for such enterprises, so he kept
+on with his small and secret savings.
+
+
+IV
+
+In 1897 another member was added to the family. This meant a big
+expense, a midwife and later a doctor, but Rosenheimer had had a raise
+by this time—he was, in fact, now a foreman—so the expense was met
+without difficulty. There was real joy at the arrival of this baby—more
+than at the coming of any of the previous children. For this was an
+American baby, and seemed, in some way, to make the whole family more
+American. The baby was a girl and even the sex seemed satisfactory,
+though, of course, at every previous addition the Rosenheimers had
+hoped for a boy.
+
+There was a great discussion, then, about names. Before this, a baby
+had always been named after some dead ancestor or relative without much
+ado. It was best to name a child after a relative, but, according to
+custom, if the name didn’t quite suit, you took the initial instead.
+By some process of reasoning, this was supposed to be naming the child
+“after” the honoured relative. Now the Rosenheimers wanted something
+grandly American for the new baby. Grandma wanted Dora, after her
+mother. But Dora didn’t sound American enough. Ike suggested Della, but
+that didn’t suit, either. Finally Yetta brought home Dorothy. It was a
+very stylish name, it seemed, and was finally accepted.
+
+Little Emanuel, aged four, was told that “his nose was out of joint.”
+He cried and felt of it. It seemed quite straight to him. It was. He
+was a handsome little fellow, and, when Mrs. Rosenheimer took him out
+with her, folks would stop and ask about him. She was glad when she
+could answer them in English. And as for Mannie—at four he talked as if
+no other country than America had ever existed.
+
+Very gradually, Mrs. Rosenheimer grew tired of MacDougal Street. She
+tried to introduce this dissatisfaction into the rest of the family.
+Grandma was very happy here. With little shrugs and gestures she
+decried any further change. Weren’t they all getting along finely?
+Wasn’t Rosenheimer near his work? Weren’t the children fat and healthy?
+What could they have better than this—two rooms, running water, gas
+and everything? Didn’t they know people all around them? Rosenheimer
+was indifferent. Some of his friends, including the Abramsons, had
+already moved “farther out.” Still, he didn’t see the use of spending
+so much money; they were all right where they were. Times were hard;
+you couldn’t tell what might happen. Still, if Minnie had her heart set
+on it— The children were ready for any change.
+
+Mrs. Rosenheimer, revolving the matter endlessly in her mind, found
+many reasons for moving. All of her friends, it seemed, had fled from
+the noise and dirt of MacDougal Street. On first coming to New York
+she had been disappointed at not living in the Ghetto over on the
+East side. Now, when she visited there, she wondered how she had ever
+liked it. When she moved she wanted something really fine—and where
+her friends were, too. She had a good many friends outside of the
+Ghetto now. On arriving in America she hadn’t known MacDougal Street
+was dirty. She knew it now. And the little Italian children in the
+neighbourhood—oh, they were all right, of course, but—not just whom
+you’d want your children to play with, exactly. Why, every day Ike
+would come home with terrible things they had said to him. And their
+home, which had looked so grand, was old and ugly, too, when compared
+with those of other people. Of course Grandma liked it, but, after all,
+Grandma was old-fashioned. Mrs. Rosenheimer discovered, almost in one
+breath, that her mother belonged to a passing generation, and didn’t
+keep up with the times—that she, herself, really had charge of the
+household.
+
+Out in East Seventy-seventh Street there were some tenements, not at
+all like those of MacDougal Street nor the Ghetto, but brand-new, just
+the same as rich people had. Each flat had a regular kitchen with a
+sink and running water and a fine new gas stove. The front room had a
+mirror in it that belonged to the house—and—unbelievably but actually
+true—there was a bathroom for each family. It had a tub in it, painted
+white, and a washstand—both with running water—and already there was
+oilcloth, in blue and white, on the bathroom floor. The outer halls had
+gas in them that burned all night—some sort of a law. Those tenements
+were elegant—that was the way to live.
+
+Rosenheimer got another raise. There was some sort of an organization
+of cutters, a threatened strike, and then sudden success. Mrs.
+Rosenheimer never understood much about it but it meant more money.
+Now Rosenheimer had no legitimate reason for keeping his family in
+MacDougal Street.
+
+So he and Mrs. Rosenheimer and Grandma went out to the new tenements
+and looked around. Mrs. Rosenheimer acted as spokesman, talking with
+the woman at the renting office, asking questions, pointing things out.
+At the end of the afternoon Rosenheimer rented one of the four-room
+flats in a new tenement building.
+
+On the way home, Mrs. Rosenheimer leaned close to her husband:
+
+“Ain’t it grand, the way we are going to live now?” she asked.
+
+“If we can pay for it.”
+
+“With you doing so well, how you talk!”
+
+“Good enough, but money, these days—”
+
+“Abe, do you want to do something for me?”
+
+“Go on, something more to spend money on.”
+
+“Not a cent, Abe. Only, won’t you—shave your beard? Moving to a new
+neighbourhood and all. Not for me, but the neighbours should see what
+an American father the children have got.”
+
+Rosenheimer frowned a bit uneasily. Mrs. Rosenheimer didn’t refer
+to it again, but three days later he came home strangely thin and
+white-looking—his beard gone. Only a little moustache, soft and mixed
+with red, remained.
+
+Before the Rosenheimers moved they sold the worst of their furniture
+to the very man from whom they bought it, five years before, taking
+only the big bed, the table and the couch. It was Mrs. Rosenheimer who
+insisted on this.
+
+“Trash we’ve got, when you compare it to the way others live. We need
+new things in a fine new flat.”
+
+On the day they were moving, Yetta said something. The family were
+amazed into silence. Yetta was thirteen now, a tall girl, rather plump,
+with black hair and flashing eyes.
+
+“When we move, let’s get rid of some of our name,” she said. “I hate
+it. It’s awfully long—Rosenheimer. Nobody ever says it all, anyhow.
+Let’s call ourselves Rosenheim.”
+
+“Why, why,” muttered her father, finally, “how you talk! Change my
+name, as if I was a criminal or something.”
+
+“Aw,” Yetta pouted, she was her father’s favourite and she knew it,
+“this family of greenhorns make me tired. Rosenheimer—if it was longer
+you’d like it better. Ike Rosenheimer and Carrie Rosenheimer and Yetta
+Rosenheimer! It’s awful. Leaving off two letters would only help a
+little—and that’s too much for you. Since the Abramsons moved they
+are Abrams, and you know it. And Sam—do you know what? At school they
+called him MacDougal because he lived here on this street and he liked
+it better than Sam, so he’s calling himself MacDougal Abrams now. And
+here, you old-timers—”
+
+“She’s right, Mamma,” said Ike, “our names are awful.”
+
+Mannie didn’t say anything. He sucked a great red lollypop. At six one
+doesn’t care much about names. Nor did Carrie, who was eight.
+
+There was a letter-box for each family in the entrance hall of the new
+tenement building and a space for the name of the family just above
+it. Maybe Rosenheimer had taken the advice of his children. Perhaps
+he wrote in large letters and couldn’t get all of his name in the
+space made for it. Anyhow, Rosenheim was announced to the world as the
+occupant of Flat 52.
+
+
+V
+
+Flat 52 was quite as handsome as Mrs. Rosenheim had dreamed it would
+be. There were four rooms in it. In the parlour was the famous built-in
+mirror, with a ledge below it to hold ornaments. And, before long,
+ornaments there were, three big vases. They were got with coupons from
+the coffee and tea store at the corner—it was a lucky thing all the
+Rosenheims liked coffee. There was the couch, too, but best of all was
+the new table. It was brand-new—no one else had ever used it before.
+Mrs. Rosenheim bought it in Avenue A and was paying for it weekly out
+of the household allowance. It was red and shiny and round and each
+little Rosenheim was warned not to press sticky fingers on it, though
+it was always full of finger marks.
+
+On the table was a mat of blue plush and on the plush mat was—yes—a
+book—“Wonders of Natural History.” It had been Yetta’s birthday present
+from her father and was quite handsome enough, coloured pictures, red
+binding and all, to grace even this gem of a table. There was a new rug
+in this room, too, though it was new only to the Rosenheims. There
+were roses woven right into it and Grandma thought it was the most
+beautiful thing she had ever seen. She liked to sit and look at it as
+she rocked.
+
+Yetta, Carrie and Grandma slept in the front room—just the three of
+them alone in the biggest room. There was a cot, covered with a Turkish
+spread, for the girls and Grandma slept on the couch—no sleeping on
+the floor any more for this family. So wonderful was the new home that
+there was a bedroom devoted exclusively to the rites of sleeping.
+Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheim and Dorothy occupied it. The third room was
+the dining-room, where Ike and Mannie slept all alone on a cot and
+weren’t afraid. No one slept in the kitchen or bathroom at all. In
+the dining-room there was a whole “set” of furniture, bought from the
+family that was moving out, a square table and six chairs. It was lucky
+Mannie and Dorothy were so little they could sit on others’ laps.
+
+The dining-room with its fine “set,” brought the habit of regular meals
+with it. In MacDougal Street there was a supper-time, of course, but
+the children weren’t always there and the other meals had been rather
+haphazard, half of the family standing up, likely as not. Now there
+was a regular breakfast in the morning, every one sitting down, and
+early enough for Rosenheim to get to work on time and Yetta and Ike
+and Carrie to get to school. Lunch was still informal, eaten standing
+around the kitchen. Supper was a grand meal, every one sitting down at
+the same time, the table all set with tablecloth and dishes, as if it
+were a party.
+
+It was easy to settle down into the pleasant rhythm of East
+Seventy-seventh Street. There were big new tenements on each side of
+the street and before long each member of the family made lots of
+friends.
+
+Rosenheim didn’t have as many friends as the others. He didn’t care
+for them. His hours were long and he was getting into the habit of
+working, sometimes, at night. It takes a lot of money to pay rent—six
+dollars every week—and buy clothes and food for a family and save a
+little, too. Rosenheim didn’t complain unless his usual solemn face and
+prediction of hard times can be called complaining. It never occurred
+to him that he had anything to complain about. Didn’t he have a fine
+home and a lot to eat, a home grander than he ought to spend the money
+for, even? When he wasn’t busy, he and Abrams and a friend of theirs,
+sometimes a man named Moses, would play cards long hours at a time,
+talking in loud, seemingly angry voices and smoking long cigarettes.
+Or, with coat, collar and shoes off, as he always sat in the house,
+he would read the paper—he could read English quite easily, but he
+preferred Yiddish. He didn’t talk much and the children were taught
+“not to worry Papa,” when he was at home.
+
+Grandma grew to like the new home in time, though it never seemed quite
+as pleasant as that in MacDougal Street. She did all of the cooking, of
+course, and could order the children around as much as she wanted to,
+though they were good children as a rule, when you let them see who was
+boss. She would exclaim with clasped hands over the grandeur of things
+and beg her God that the people from her home-town might see “how we
+live like this.” She was always busy. She never learned to speak
+English well, and though at sixty-two she could drive a bargain as good
+as ever, she didn’t feel quite comfortable in the near-by shops as she
+had in MacDougal Street. Gradually her daughter took over the marketing
+from her.
+
+The spirit of change had reached Mrs. Rosenheim and she did what she
+could to grasp it. She tried again to persuade Grandma to take off her
+_sheitel_.
+
+“See, Grandma, these other people. Ain’t you as good as them? It ain’t
+nothing to be ashamed of, a _sheitel_, but here in America we do what
+others do.”
+
+But Grandma kept her _sheitel_. She couldn’t yield everything to the
+customs of the unbelievers. She even muttered things about “forgetting
+your own people.”
+
+Mrs. Rosenheim tried to acquire “elegant English.” She was very proud
+of her children because their language was unsullied by accent. But
+perhaps because she never liked to read and it never occurred to her
+that she might study, or because her tongue had lost its flexibility,
+she was never able to conceal her foreignness. She was becoming a
+little self-satisfied, too, a bit complacent with her own ways, and
+this may have hindered her progress. The new language issued forth in a
+strange, twisted form, the “w’s” and “v’s” transposed, the intonations
+of the Yiddish always noticeable. She managed to make nearly all of the
+ordinary grammatical errors of the native and a few pet ones of her
+own. Her sentences were full of inversions. Her voice, never very low,
+became louder and louder and the singing intonations more marked as she
+grew excited. Rosenheim spoke with an accent, too, which he always
+retained, but his voice was quite low and he soon overcame this strange
+sing-song of his native tongue. Then, too, Rosenheim never talked very
+much.
+
+Mrs. Rosenheim bloomed in East Seventy-seventh Street. Her mother did
+the cooking and Yetta helped with the housework. Even then, with so
+many children in the house, there was enough to do, but she spent much
+time in visiting her neighbours, gossiping about her children, the
+prices of food, other neighbours. Although her family came first, she
+began to pay more attention to herself, buying clothes that were not
+absolutely necessary, cheap things that looked fine to her. She became
+ambitious, too. She found that there was another life not bounded by
+the tenements and that “other people,” the rich part of the world, were
+not much different outside of their possession of money. Her humility
+was wearing away. “We’re as good as anybody” came to her mind, and
+was beginning to fertilize. She didn’t want to associate with any one
+outside of her own group, but she liked to feel that others were not
+superior. The children, continuing their acquisitiveness, encouraged
+their mother.
+
+Yetta had her fourteenth birthday soon after the family moved to East
+Seventy-seventh Street. She began to mature rather rapidly, arranging
+her hair in an exaggerated following of the fashion and even purchased
+and wore a pair of corsets. She had a high colour and her flashing
+eyes made her quite attractive. Her mouth was rather wide. Yetta did
+not speak with a foreign accent, but her voice was a trifle hoarse and
+was not well modulated. She had a lot to say about nearly everything
+and delighted in saying it. The niceties of conversation had not been
+introduced into the Rosenheim family life and most of the things Yetta
+thought of occurred when some one else was talking. Her favourite
+method of attracting attention was to interrupt or talk down, in a
+louder voice, any one who had the floor. Ike had this pleasant little
+habit, too, so between them conversation rose in roaring waves of sound.
+
+Yetta felt that many things about her could be improved. She began to
+criticize things at home—her clothes; her mother’s language, which was
+too full of errors, too singing to suit her daughter; the actions of
+the younger children. She never liked to read, but she “loved a good
+time” and was always with a group of girls and boys, laughing and
+talking.
+
+Ike was much like Yetta, though a bit more serious, more inclined to
+argument. He could argue over anything even at twelve. He, too, had
+definite notions about the upbringing of the younger children and the
+modernity of the household. He didn’t want any one making fun of the
+family he belonged to. His own name came in for his disapproval about
+this time.
+
+He had a fight with a boy named Jim and Jim hit him and called him
+names. But the cruelest part of Jim’s name-calling had been merely to
+repeat, over and over again, “Ikey Rosenheim, Ikey Rosenheim.” For this
+cruelty Ike had fought Jim and had emerged not entirely victorious,
+bringing back a black eye and the memory of the derision in the mouth
+of the enemy.
+
+“I’m going to change my name,” Ike announced at supper that night. “I
+don’t care what this family says. You make me sick, naming me Ike. You
+might have known. This family has terrible names. No wonder people make
+fun of us. After this I’m—I’m going to be—Harold.”
+
+“Oh, no, not Harold,” Grandma wailed, with uplifted hands.
+
+“No,” Mrs. Rosenheim groaned, “you’ve got to keep the letter, the ‘I.’
+You were named after your Papa’s father.”
+
+“There’s a lot of good names beginning with ‘I,’” Yetta encouraged. So,
+between them, they found Irving, which seemed satisfactory to every
+one. Little Irving, at school, told his teacher that Ike had been a
+nickname and that the family wanted him called by his own name, now.
+Jim, not satisfied with Irving Rosenheim as a reproach, had to find
+something else to fight about.
+
+Carrie and Mannie and Dorothy were still too little to bother about
+names. They begged for pennies for lollypops on sticks, candy apples,
+licorice and other delicacies that the neighbourhood afforded,
+satisfied to tag after Mrs. Rosenheim as she did the marketing. They
+were nice children, though of course Dorothy was a little spoiled—the
+youngest child and always having her own way about everything.
+
+
+VI
+
+During the next year something came up in a business way that caused
+Rosenheim and Abrams to hold long consultations during many evenings.
+They nodded together over bits of paper on which there were many
+figures. Mrs. Rosenheim felt that they had “something in their
+heads” they weren’t telling her about, but, being a dutiful wife—and
+knowing her husband, and how useless it would have been—she didn’t
+press matters. A few weeks later she found out. E. G. Plotski had died
+suddenly, leaving no near relatives except a wife. Abrams had heard
+about the case. Mrs. Plotski couldn’t keep up the business alone. If
+she couldn’t “sell out,” complete, she was going to give it up and sell
+the machinery. She had some cousins in a far-Western place called,
+Abrams believed, Iowa, and was desirous of living with them. If Mrs.
+Plotski “gave up the business” there was a tremendous loss, it seemed
+to Abrams and Rosenheim—for Plotski already had operators, customers,
+“good will.” And with their knowledge of the pants business....
+
+It seemed, indeed, a visitation, as if a whole pants business had
+descended to them as a direct reward for their long and faithful
+work. But Mrs. Plotski had friends, not just in a position to buy the
+business, it seemed, but quite capable of giving advice about selling
+it. And herein lay the need of much nodding and figuring. Finally it
+was settled. Abrams and Rosenheim went to their several banks—it’s
+never safe to put all of your savings in one bank, even if it does look
+like a fine big one—drew out their saving accounts, for of course they
+had no checking accounts, and, after the usual legalities had been
+concluded, were the joint partners of The Acme Pants Company, Men’s and
+Boys’ Pants.
+
+After they had signed their names, Marcus L. Abrams and Abraham G.
+Rosenheim, Rosenheim allowed his stern face to relax into a rather sad
+smile.
+
+“Good, eh, Marcus? Here, I’m only ‘over’ seven years and I’m partner
+in a business already. Of course, we can expect hard times, but, a
+business ain’t anything to be ashamed of.”
+
+The family saw Rosenheim’s new signature and liked it. Irving wrote
+it above the letter-box. The G stood for nothing in particular, but
+Rosenheim had no middle name and of course he ought to have one. It
+was indeed American. The neighbourhood did not notice, it was used to
+changes.
+
+Abrams and Rosenheim worked all day and most of the night. They “went
+over the books” with great deliberation. They looked into every minute
+detail of the business, and wrote numerous letters by hand on the old
+Acme Pants Company letterheads that they found in Plotski’s desk. When
+this paper was used up they ordered more, retaining the cut of the
+building at the top but substituting their names for the name of the
+deceased former owner.
+
+They were very happy over their new business, though you would never
+have known it by their actions. They always wore long faces.
+
+The factory did well. People liked ready-made pants, it seemed. The two
+men hurried around seeking new trade, satisfied with as small a profit
+as possible. They bought job lots of woollens from the factories and
+did numberless other things to reduce expenses. Rosenheim cut the pants
+and Abrams was not too proud to do his share of the menial labour.
+Before another year had passed the whole of the third floor loft
+belonged to the Acme Pants Company.
+
+Mrs. Rosenheim was proud of her husband. It was mighty fine, these
+days, to speak of “my husband’s factory” to those women whose more
+unfortunate spouses were forced to exist on mere wages handed them
+by their overlords. But even this, in time, stopped satisfying. What
+good does it do for your husband to own a factory if you still live in
+a tenement in East Seventy-seventh Street? Mrs. Rosenheim knew that
+her husband was working hard and was nearly always worried over money
+matters, bills to meet, wages to be paid. But, as long as he actually
+was a manufacturer, and owner of a business, a payer of wages, it was
+unbelievable that they should live in a tenement. Weren’t they as
+good as anybody? Several months ago the Abrams had moved. Of course,
+with only two boys the expenses were less, but what of that? And the
+Moskowskis—now the Mosses—had moved, too. The Rosenheims had been in
+the tenement three years and now the neighbourhood was filling up
+with terrible people, straight from the Ghetto—or the old country—and
+bringing foreign habits with them. It was no place to bring up growing
+American children.
+
+It was Yetta who precipitated the moving. Although he petted and
+humoured Dorothy, it was his oldest child who was Rosenheim’s
+favourite. Now Yetta tried all of her most endearing tricks.
+
+“Papa,” she said, “I’m sixteen. I ought to get out of this
+neighbourhood. Ask Mamma. I’m almost a young lady. I want good things—a
+fine man like you with a factory shouldn’t keep his children in the
+tenements. All of my crowd are gone. I miss them something awful. You
+don’t want me to go with the—the ‘greenhorns’ who are moving in around
+here, do you?”
+
+Similar arguments managed to convince Rosenheim. Anyhow, one night he
+nodded solemnly and consented to move.
+
+“You women will ruin me yet, with all your spending,” he said, but
+Yetta, tall though she was, jumped on his lap and kissed his thin cheek.
+
+“None of that,” he said, in assumed brusqueness, as he pushed her away.
+“You make a fool of your old Papa, eh? Well, go along and get your fine
+flat.”
+
+Mrs. Rosenheim and Yetta, accompanied by Mrs. and Miss Graham, a recent
+and becoming transformation of their old friends, the Grabinskis, went
+apartment hunting. They decided on the Bronx, new and good enough for
+any manufacturer’s family. They had friends there and there were lots
+of stores. It was a nice neighbourhood, Yetta thought, with lots of
+young people who wore good clothes. She could have a fine time.
+
+No longer were the Rosenheims satisfied with the first apartment shown
+them. Yetta and her mother had grown critical. Yetta’s ambitions had
+limitations, of course. She didn’t aspire to an elevator apartment or
+anything like that—but she didn’t want a tenement. She wanted a big
+living-room, for she was approaching the beau age and already was going
+to the theatre with MacDougal Abrams and Milton Cohn. They visited
+dozens of apartments, examining the kitchens and halls, exclaiming over
+the plumbing. Grandma wanted a big kitchen and she ought to have it,
+as long as she did most of the cooking. And they had been crowded for
+years—Yetta didn’t want any one sleeping in the front room, nor even in
+the dining-room. Young girls do get such notions! Mrs. Rosenheim wanted
+grand decorations in the lower hall.
+
+After much step-climbing they found their apartment. It was on the
+fourth floor, rear, of a walk-up apartment, but the rent was forty
+dollars a month and they dared not pay more. Rosenheim looked dour when
+the news was broken to him, but, with sad headshaking and remarks about
+business being bad, he said they might take it.
+
+The entrance hall of the apartment-house was of marble. The
+letter-boxes were of brass and shining. The stairs leading to the
+apartment were carpeted. The apartment itself had seven rooms. A few
+years before the Rosenheims wouldn’t have believed an apartment could
+be so large. Now they all accepted it rather indifferently. Wasn’t
+Rosenheim a factory owner? Didn’t some of their friends live just as
+grandly? The woodwork was shining oak. The floors glittered blondly.
+Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheim had a bedroom all alone, Grandma shared a tiny
+cubicle with Dorothy. Yetta and Carrie had their room and there was a
+room for the boys. All the rooms had new beds of white enamelled iron,
+fantastically twisted and with big brass knobs.
+
+The Rosenheims got rid of most of their old things at a sale before
+they left East Seventy-seventh Street. Then Mrs. Rosenheim and Yetta
+bought things suitable for the grandeur of their new home at an
+instalment house in Sixth Avenue. There was a three-piece parlour set
+stained to a red imitation of mahogany. The round table had come with
+them, as had the vases. The dining-room boasted a new “set,” a round
+table that pulled apart and had four extra leaves and sat on a huge
+pedestal, and eight chairs—two with arms, making one for each of them.
+There were brand-new rugs, one for each room, most of them in patterns
+of birds and beasts and flowers in bright colourings, though the front
+room displayed a gay and exciting “Oriental pattern.”
+
+One of the startling changes of the new régime was the name above the
+letter-box. A simple and chaste A. G. Rosen was announced in Irving’s
+most careful writing. Rosenheim explained that, at the factory, every
+one called him Rosen for short and it might make it confusing to keep
+the old name. The family hailed Rosen joyfully. Surely they were real
+Americans, now.
+
+
+VII
+
+They were settled only a few months when Yetta begged and got—a piano.
+Shiningly red, it matched the rest of the living-room furniture. It was
+an upright, of course, and Yetta draped a pale silk scarf embroidered
+in gold threads over it, with a vase at either end to hold it in place.
+Soon she and Carrie were taking lessons from a Mme. Roset of the
+neighbourhood, making half-hours horrible with scales and five-finger
+exercises.
+
+There were now other forms of art in the household, too. For his
+birthday the children gave their father enlargements of the photographs
+of him and their mother. These were “hand-made crayons” in grey, with
+touches of colour on lips and cheeks and framed in wide carved oak,
+trimmed with gold. They were placed side by side above the piano,
+which stood slightly diagonally in one corner.
+
+The children were growing up. Yetta felt herself quite a young lady
+and didn’t go to school. There was no use going any more—she wasn’t
+going to be a teacher, was she? She had a lovely handwriting, with fine
+loops at the ends of the “y’s” and “g’s.” It seemed a shame to spend
+her days in school when there were so many things to do outside. No
+one tried to persuade her to keep on going. Her father was slightly of
+the opinion that too much learning wasn’t good for a girl anyhow. Men
+didn’t like “smart” girls and Yetta was growing up. If she had wanted
+to go to school he might have consented, but she didn’t. She preferred
+putting on her best clothes, her hat an exaggerated copy of something
+she had seen in Broadway and had had made after her description at a
+neighbourhood shop, a cheap fur around her neck, high-heeled shoes.
+Thus attired, she went walking.
+
+In the morning she had to help a little with the bedmaking, dusting and
+ironing. But in the afternoons she was free. She’d meet some of “the
+girls” or “the boys” and drink soda, laughing and giggling over things.
+She used the latest slang and talked rather loudly. At night there
+were dances or the crowd would go, in pairs or groups, to the theatre,
+sitting in the gallery, usually, and laughing heartily over the jokes.
+They were fondest of vaudeville. Yetta was awfully happy when she had
+enough spending money and a new dress—a bit more exaggerated in style
+than any of her friends. She couldn’t imagine anything finer than the
+new neighbourhood and the new apartment.
+
+Grandma was just a trifle bewildered in the Bronx. She didn’t seem to
+fit in. The children, growing up, were developing unexpected opinions
+of their own that didn’t agree with her ideas. They called her
+old-fashioned and giggled at her advice. There was plenty to do and
+Grandma liked housework. But sixty-five isn’t young and Grandma had
+worked hard in her day. Four flights of stairs aren’t easy, either,
+so Grandma didn’t go out often. Occasionally, she walked around the
+neighbourhood, not knowing just what to do. Mrs. Rosen did all her own
+marketing or telephoned for things—there was a telephone in the new
+apartment. There were a few old friends to go to see, foreign-born
+women, like herself, and with these she would talk in comfortable
+Yiddish. But each one lived several blocks away. You didn’t talk to
+strangers in this neighbourhood, it seemed, and you could go for weeks
+and not see any one you knew. A funny place, America.
+
+Still, there were pleasant things for Grandma—good food and the fun
+of preparing it, a comfortable home. Mrs. Rosen didn’t like to work
+as well as she used to, so finally she hired a woman who came in, one
+day a week, to do the washing in the morning and the scrubbing of
+kitchen and bath in the afternoon. Grandma was quite excited over this
+innovation. For the first time in her life she could fold her gnarled
+old hands and watch some one do the work for her.
+
+“They should hear about this back home,” she would say. “Abe with a
+factory and us with seven rooms and a washwoman and all. We’ve got it
+lucky, ain’t it, Minnie?”
+
+Mrs. Rosen, though annoyed at her mother’s simplicity, agreed. Already
+Mrs. Rosen was planning bigger things. It didn’t seem at all impossible
+to her that some day they might even have a regular servant girl.
+
+Mrs. Rosen was well satisfied, generally. Occasionally she, too,
+regretted some of the pleasant things that Seventy-seventh Street
+had meant for her. She had liked the friendly chatter of the
+neighbourhood. Here in the Bronx you had to be “dressed” all the time.
+In Seventy-seventh Street you could go out in the morning in your
+housedress, with a basket, and spend a pleasant hour or so bargaining
+with the shop-keepers and talking with friends, always meeting little
+groups you knew. On the steps, in the evening you could call back and
+forth. Money was good; she was glad she had it. A servant girl would be
+fine; it was a lot of work for her and Grandma, cleaning up after five
+children. But this neighbourhood was stylish enough. You knew some of
+your neighbours here, even if they weren’t so friendly. Maybe, after
+you got better acquainted....
+
+It was nice, having a lot of rooms and new clothes and all that. Mrs.
+Rosen finally met new acquaintances and liked them. She played cards
+in the afternoons now and a few months later joined a euchre club
+which met every Tuesday afternoon at the homes of its members in turn.
+There were “refreshments” after the game, cold meat and potato salad,
+usually, and the prizes were hand-painted china and “honiton lace”
+centrepieces. Mrs. Rosen won quite an assortment as the months passed.
+
+Irving was getting to be a big boy. He looked a little like his
+father, thin, a trifle sallow, with a slightly aquiline nose—but much
+handsomer, his mother thought. His eyes were not strong and quite early
+he had to wear glasses. He adopted nose-glasses and before he quite got
+used to them he had formed the habit of tilting his head up, to keep
+them from falling off. He had rather a sharp chin and wore his black
+hair straight back and sleek.
+
+When the family moved to the Bronx he was fourteen, had on a first pair
+of long trousers, and was in the first year of the high school. He was
+quick in his studies and would argue with his teachers about anything
+under discussion. He still liked long dissertations at home and had
+about decided to be a lawyer. In the years that followed he read quite
+a little, not so much for the love of reading—he had little of that—but
+from a desire “to keep up with things,” so he could discuss and dissect
+and argue. He liked the theatre as he grew older, but preferred serious
+dramas.
+
+Carrie was quieter than either Yetta or Irving, but she observed a
+great deal. She liked to spend money, begging it from her parents.
+“We’re rich, why can’t I have more things?” she would say, buying
+unnecessarily expensive ribbons and purses. She liked to correct the
+family, too, and, when her mother grew vocal and her voice took on the
+sing-song of her native tongue, Carrie would say, “Don’t talk so loud,
+Mother. We aren’t deaf, you know,” or “This is America. We try to speak
+English here.” Mrs. Rosen would check herself rather shamefacedly,
+instead of “calling the child down,” as she felt she should have done.
+Carrie liked expensive clothes and she liked putting them on and taking
+long walks with just one girl friend, talking quietly. She thought
+Yetta’s crowd awfully loud. Mannie and Dorothy were good-looking
+little children, still coaxers of pennies and both rather spoiled.
+
+The Acme Pants Company grew, but in spite of its growth none of
+the family dared suggest any extravagant changes. Rosen spoke too
+much about hard times for that. And he did worry, too, for with the
+enlarging of the business came the borrowing of money and notes to
+meet. He worked at night for weeks at a time and grew thinner. Outside
+of his usual solemnity he never complained. He enjoyed the business as
+much for its own sake as for the things he was able to give his family.
+It was far more interesting and absorbing to him than they were. Even
+at home his mind was filled with business detail and in the midst of
+a meal or a friendly discussion his eyes would grow vacant, he would
+fumble for a pencil and write something down on an envelope. Spare
+evenings, he played cards with Abrams or Moss or Hammer or fell asleep
+over his newspaper—an English one, nearly always, now. He still took
+off his coat in the house and sometimes his collar and tie. It was
+Carrie who said to him, “Papa, why do you start undressing as soon as
+you get home?” He always kept on his shoes and sometimes his collar and
+tie after that.
+
+He never took much part in the family life. Irving bored him. He was
+not interested in “women’s doings,” and could ignore whole evenings
+of conversation about people and clothes. His business was the one
+thing he cared to talk about—his family knew nothing about business.
+What was there left? None of them knew or cared anything about world
+affairs. It isn’t likely Rosen would have been interested if they had.
+So, unconsciously, he drew apart more and more. He paid bills, with a
+little grumbling. He handed out money when necessary. He greeted all
+luxuries with something about “hard times.” He accepted all innovations
+with apparent disregard. He was never cross or disagreeable. Every one
+was a little quieter when he was at home. Otherwise it was as if he
+were not there at all.
+
+
+VIII
+
+A year later, when she was eighteen, Yetta became, suddenly, Yvette.
+The crowd she was going with thought Yetta an awful name, old-fashioned
+and foreign. And certainly there was nothing foreign about her. She had
+seen Yvette in a book—and, with the right initial and all—Yvette Rosen
+sounded fine. After that she frowned at any one, even old Grandma, if
+the old name crept in.
+
+The family became more extravagant as the days passed, though not
+extraordinarily so. But why not? Even Rosen had to admit, grudgingly,
+that the factory was growing. Little things—Mrs. Rosen had a fine
+black silk dress, with revers of green satin, lace covered. She
+bought Grandma a black silk, too, for days when company came in. And
+Yvette—how that girl did wear out clothes, to parties nearly every
+night! And Irving wanted “his own money” and was put on an allowance,
+though he always begged his mother for more before the month was half
+over. Books cost a lot, it seemed, and you can’t be a tightwad with
+a bunch of fellows. And Carrie had a notion that the family was very
+rich—when she got new things she wanted the best. Even Mannie and
+Dorothy needed new things frequently.
+
+In 1906 Irving was graduated, at 18, from the high school. It was a
+big event for the family. All of them, even Grandma, who didn’t go out
+much, attended the graduation exercises. At the hall they chatted about
+how fine and smart Irving was until Carrie, who could be very petulant
+at fifteen, “shushed” them all into silence.
+
+On the way home Mrs. Rosen couldn’t help calling her husband’s
+attention to his family—weren’t they something to be proud of? To think
+that only a few years before....
+
+It was Irving who first spoke dissatisfaction with the Bronx apartment.
+Irving was to enter Columbia University in the fall and he wanted to be
+a little nearer his school.
+
+“You don’t know how it is,” he said, one night at dinner. “Every one
+laughs at the Bronx. I went to a vaudeville show with Yvette last week,
+though Heavens knows why she goes to it, and at the mention of the
+Bronx every one laughed. It isn’t only that. Here we are in a walk-up
+apartment, when we could have something better. I’m starting—to—to make
+friends. I’ve got to make a place for myself. I’m eighteen. When we
+were younger it didn’t make much difference, now we ought to get out of
+here.”
+
+Carrie agreed with him.
+
+“It certainly is terrible here,” she said. “I don’t like this high
+school, either. I want to go to a private school. There are several
+good ones in Harlem and a real fine one on Riverside Drive that I’ve
+heard about. Irving is right. You’d think we were poor, the way we
+live here—no servants or anything. When I meet new girls I’m ashamed to
+bring them home. Ada is going to private school, and Beatrice has moved
+to Long Island. I don’t know any one around here—but trash and poor
+people.”
+
+Even Mannie, at thirteen, was tired of the Bronx and Dorothy, at nine,
+was ready for any change.
+
+The Bronx suited Yvette. She had her crowd here. Still, there was
+something in what the others were saying. Harlem sounded more stylish
+certainly. She had friends there, too, and could get acquainted easily
+enough.
+
+Mrs. Rosen didn’t know. She felt, with Yvette, that things were very
+nice as they were. The old friendliness of East Seventy-seventh Street
+would never come back, and she, too, had acquaintances in Harlem. It
+would cost more to live—but didn’t they have the money? There could be
+a servant and new furniture—the children had been hard on the things
+that had been so shining four years ago. After all, they were rich
+people, and the children had to have advantages.
+
+Gradually Rosen, grumblingly, was won over. Couldn’t he see how
+terrible it was—all their money, and still living in the Bronx?
+How could people know he was a success? Their apartment was
+old-fashioned—that funny tub and only one bathroom for the whole
+family. And Grandma ought to have a room for herself—with five children
+there ought to be a servant girl—what was the use of having money if
+you couldn’t get things with it?
+
+Again there was a series of house-huntings. This time Irving
+accompanied his mother and Yvette. Irving was very critical. Things
+others pronounced “grand” he didn’t like at all. At eighteen he
+considered himself quite a man. As a coming lawyer he felt that his
+surroundings should reflect his own glory. What did his folks know
+about things? Didn’t he go to homes they never entered, the Wissels’
+and the Durham-Levi’s? Irving wanted a home with style to it. He
+hadn’t definite ideas about decoration, but it must look fine and big
+as you came in. He thought they ought to inquire a little about the
+neighbours—find out if they were just the sort one would want to live
+near. Their present neighbours certainly were awful.
+
+The new apartment was in West 116th street. The building was large
+and red, with white stone ornaments. The lower halls were grandly
+ornamental and a great velvet curtain hung toward the rear. There was
+an elevator, rather uncertain, with iron grille work in front. That
+would make it nice for Grandma—she could get out more. The living room
+had a gas grate and the woodwork was stylishly mission finished.
+
+Followed the usual buying orgy and this, too, Irving consented to
+attend. The piano came with them, but there was a new parlour set,
+great heavy pieces of mission, square and dark, with leather cushions.
+A huge mission davenport was the pièce de résistance. The dining-room
+had a brand-new “set”—there might be company to dinner—a big table,
+twelve chairs and a sideboard with a mirrored back. In the bedrooms
+there were great brass beds, the posts three inches across, and large
+mahogany dressers with “swell fronts,” curved generously outward.
+
+In the living room, too, there were fine rugs, “real Orientals” this
+time, about six small ones, oases of red and blue on the light inlaid
+floor. The family admired the lighting fixtures—a cluster of fourteen
+lights in the living-room, to which they added a fancy lamp with a
+shade composed of bits of coloured glass in a floral pattern; in the
+dining-room a great dome of multi-coloured glass hung directly over the
+table.
+
+Then Mrs. Rosen hired their first maid, though the family referred to
+her as “the girl.” Her name was Marie and she didn’t have a very easy
+life of it. At first Mrs. Rosen and Grandma helped her, but Mrs. Rosen
+disliked housework increasingly and she didn’t want Grandma to work if
+she didn’t. Grandma had always done all the cooking, but as “the girl”
+learned to prepare the dishes liked by the Rosen family she gradually
+took over the cooking, too. Then, when “the girl” complained about
+working too hard a woman was hired for two days each week to do the
+washing and heavy cleaning.
+
+Grandma wasn’t quite as content as she had been, most likely because
+she wasn’t so busy. Grandma couldn’t read English at all and Yiddish
+very little, even if the children would have allowed a Yiddish paper in
+the house, now, which is doubtful. Grandma had never had the reading
+habit, nor, for that matter, any habits of leisure. She had thought
+that life meant service and now there was nothing to do. It was harder
+for her to go out because she walked very slowly. There were fewer
+places to go, fewer friends, fewer Yiddish shops. People would stare,
+embarrassingly, at Grandma’s _sheitel_ and Grandma hadn’t learned to
+speak English very well. Mrs. Rosen spoke with an accent, but that was
+different; people could hardly understand Grandma.
+
+There was always lots of company in the house and Grandma liked young
+people, but there was so little to say to them. Unless she knew them
+awfully well they couldn’t understand her, or Yvette or Irving would
+frown at her attempts at conversation. Every one smiled at Grandma
+and shook hands, but that was all—it was more comfortable to stay in
+her room, usually. There seemed to be fewer old people than there had
+been. Fewer seemed to live in Harlem, anyhow. In MacDougal Street and
+even in East 77th Street and the Bronx, Grandma had met old ladies,
+occasionally, people from her own village, and had had long talks
+with them, interrupted with nods and shakes of the head and tongue
+cluckings. Here it was different. She loved her family, of course, but
+she didn’t seem to fit in. Darning stockings wasn’t enough. Of course,
+Grandma was glad the family was doing so nicely—a fine big apartment
+with an elevator and a servant girl—and she had two new bonnets and
+her old one not nearly worn out yet—where did she go to wear it?—and
+her own room and everything she wanted. And Irving bringing her home
+candy she liked and Yvette singing for her—Grandma knew she ought to be
+awfully happy. Yet there seemed to be something—missing—
+
+Mrs. Rosen grew to like the new apartment, though at first it had
+overawed her a little. But before long she belonged to two card
+clubs—she had known members of both of them when she lived in the
+Bronx. She even tried to persuade Rosen to learn euchre or bridge so
+that he could join a club that played in the evening. But Rosen didn’t
+like “ladies’ games.”
+
+There were some things about the new neighbourhood Mrs. Rosen didn’t
+like at all. The neighbours seemed so cold and distant. As if she
+wanted to know them! Wasn’t her husband the owner of a factory—with
+more money than any of them, more than likely? Yet they minced by her,
+as if they thought so much of themselves. Well, she could put on airs,
+too!
+
+That winter Mrs. Rosen went to a beauty parlour for the first time.
+The women of her set were going, it seemed. It made your hair thicker
+to have it shampooed and waved, especially when it was starting to get
+grey. Though it did hurt a little, she grew used to manicures, too,
+after a while. Mrs. Rosen even considered dieting. But, after a few
+attempts she gave it up. Just the things she shouldn’t eat were the
+ones she liked best. After all, she was forty-four, though she knew no
+one would ever guess it, and if at that age you are a little plump who
+is there to say anything against it? She bought a fur coat that winter,
+seal, of course, with a great sweep to it and a hat to match, with a
+curved feather. Now, let one of her neighbours say something! She knew
+she looked mighty fine—as good as any one in her crowd. Why shouldn’t
+she? Wasn’t her husband a well-known manufacturer?
+
+Rosen wasn’t quite as busy as he had been, though the Acme Pants
+Company was getting along splendidly. But with things in good condition
+there was time to spare. He could have spent more time with his family
+had he cared to but it seemed tiresome when he did. Irving annoyed him
+more than ever with his debates and arguments. In the evening he fell
+asleep over his paper—he didn’t care for other literature except an
+occasional trade magazine. He still played cards with a few old friends
+he had made when he first came to America, and who, like himself, had
+prospered. He kept his coat on in the evenings now, or wore the smoking
+jacket Carrie had given him. What if their friends came in—he had to
+look nice for their sakes, didn’t he? There was a little room, off the
+living room, which the family spoke of as “Papa’s den.” There was a
+couch here, brought over from the Bronx, and a desk. Under pretence of
+being busy, Rosen would read in there, until he fell asleep.
+
+
+IX
+
+The next year there was a great change in the Acme Pants Company.
+An opportunity came almost over night and he and Abrams, after long
+discussions—at the factory this time—joined the Rex Pants Company,
+McKensey and Hamberg, partners, and the four formed the Rex Suit
+Company, Gentlemen’s Ready-Tailored Suits. Ready-tailored suits, it
+seemed, were more in demand every day. The four had capital enough to
+swing something good and to introduce a new name. Until then, most
+ready-made suits were mere trade goods. But a few firms had learned
+the value of a trade name and advertising, and Rosen and Abrams agreed
+with McKensey and Hamberg that there was room for one more and great
+possibilities in the idea. They rented an immense loft building and
+were soon making and selling a line of ready-made suits under the
+name of the King Brand. They hired an advertising man, giving him an
+absurdly high salary, an office of his own, with a stenographer and all
+of that, and agreed to pay exorbitant rates to magazines just for the
+privilege of a half or a quarter of a page of blank space on which to
+advertise their wares. A few months later, tall, exquisite young men,
+in graceful poses, accompanied by impossibly thin young women or sporty
+dogs looked at you from the magazines under such captivating captions
+as “King’s Suits for the Kings of America” or “Every Inch a King in a
+King Brand Suit.”
+
+Rosen was interested again. Here, expenses were mounting, though
+profits might mount, too. Now he could figure again, and plan and
+talk things over with Abrams. Abrams, however, was Abrams no longer.
+He was Adams, now. He had signed himself Adams when the new firm was
+organized. Even Rosen’s name had changed—he dropped one more letter.
+The indefinite Abraham G. had been altered and he blossomed forth as
+Abraham Lincoln Rose, to the delight of his children.
+
+Irving was going to Columbia. He had joined a debating club and even
+his mother had to admit that, at this time, he was pretty much of a
+bore. He even called his father “Governor” on occasions and twirled a
+cane on holidays. He was “getting in with fine people” and dined at
+the homes of new friends, bringing back stories of families who didn’t
+interrupt when you were talking and who had servants who knew how to
+serve meals. He felt he was going to be quite important and he wanted
+his family to live up to him.
+
+Carrie was going to a private school—the only kind of school suitable
+for rich girls. It was in Riverside Drive, and she met some mighty
+fine girls there. Like Irving, she brought home stories showing the
+heights of other and the degradation of her own family. “—We are such
+rich people and still we never have anything.”
+
+Carrie objected to her name, too, it seemed. “Carrie” was such a cheap
+name. Nobody would know you were rich with a name like that. She was
+going to be Carolyn after this. Carolyn Rose was a pretty name, wasn’t
+it?
+
+Carolyn loved to spend money. She had decided that the family was
+really wealthy, that it was all bluff about hard times and saving. She
+wanted a gold mesh bag and got it before Yvette even knew there were
+gold bags in the world. Carolyn had a fur coat as expensive as her
+mother’s, but with a smarter, more girlish cut. She disregarded the
+stupid idea, made up by some one who didn’t have the money, probably,
+that diamonds were for older people, and persuaded her parents to give
+her a big diamond ring, set in platinum, for her seventeenth birthday.
+
+Yvette’s clothes were always a bit loud, too extreme, even cheap
+looking. Although she paid big prices for them they were still tawdry.
+Carolyn’s tastes were not quiet, but she managed to look “expensive.”
+Her hair was black and sleek and she knew she had “style.” She liked
+collars a bit higher than any one else wore, when they wore high, a bit
+lower when low collars came in. She was no slavish follower of fashion,
+like Yvette. She added a bit of “elegance” to whatever fashion had
+dared to ask for. She liked smooth broadcloth suits, much tailored,
+for day wear, and elaborate chiffon evening gowns. She talked with
+an “accent” but not the kind her mother had. She said “cahn’t” when
+she could remember it, and thought one ought to have “tone.” She had
+languid airs.
+
+Mannie was growing into a nice child. He was quiet and he started to
+read when he was just a little fellow. Now you could find him, any
+time, curled up with a book he’d brought home from school. He didn’t
+care much for out-of-door games. He was the first of the family to have
+literary leanings, though Dorothy read, too, when she couldn’t find
+anything that pleased her better.
+
+Dorothy was petted and spoiled by the whole family. She got things
+even before she could think to ask for them. Because there was never
+anything for her to be cross about the family said she had “a wonderful
+disposition” though she had a pouting mouth and did not smile very much.
+
+Dorothy was “a little beauty.” Although the family kept always with
+their own race and declared, on all possible occasions, their great
+pride in it and their aversion to associating with those of other
+faiths, the thing that delighted them most about Dorothy was, for some
+unexplainable reason, that every one said “she looked like a Gentile.”
+Mrs. Rose would repeat to her friends that people had said, “you’d
+never guess it—just like a Gentile that child looks.” Her friends
+agreed and there was nothing in their minds but cordial congratulation
+over the fact. Dorothy had lighter hair than the others and grey eyes.
+She was a slender little thing, quiet, determined, impatient.
+
+“We ought to have an automobile,” she said, one day. That was in 1909,
+before cars had become as much of a necessity as they are now, and
+Dorothy was only twelve. Two weeks later, after many hugs, her father
+bought a car, a red one that would hold any five of them. Irving soon
+learned to drive it and later Carolyn and Dorothy learned, too. Grandma
+could never be persuaded to enter the car—it didn’t look safe to her.
+Mrs. Rose rode, but it was always sitting stiffly erect with unrelaxed
+muscles. Rose asked Irving to drive him places, occasionally, when he
+was in a hurry. He never liked the automobile except as a convenience.
+
+That year Grandma died. She was sick only a few days and didn’t
+complain even then. The doctor came and fussed over her and finally
+a nurse came, but Grandma persuaded her daughter to send the nurse
+away. Grandma seemed quite content to die, and though the family was
+fond of her, her going did not cause any undue emotion. Mrs. Rose wept
+loudly at the funeral and Rose looked unusually solemn in the weeks
+that followed. He had been very fond of Grandma and had appreciated the
+little things she always loved doing for him. But, after all, as Mrs.
+Rose would say to her husband, “it ain’t as if she was a baby at 72.
+It ain’t as though Mamma ain’t had everything money could buy these
+last years. A grand life she’s had, nothing to do and her own room and
+all. Many times she spoke of it. It’s good we was able to give it to
+her. She was a good woman but now she’s gone and I can say I ain’t got
+nothing to reproach myself for.”
+
+
+X
+
+In 1910, when Yvette was twenty-four, she became engaged to marry
+MacDougal Adams. Already MacDougal was sales manager for the Rex Suit
+Company, and he was doing well. He had grown into a handsome fellow
+who would be quite fat, one day, if he didn’t diet carefully. He was
+crisply black-haired, ruddy-faced. He made friends easily and was
+jovial most of the time. He had no subtleties, but Yvette was not the
+one to notice. She considered him very modern, and liked the way he
+“caught on to things.” Her friends—and the announcement Yvette mailed
+to the newspapers—spoke of the affair as “a childhood romance,” as
+indeed it was. It pleased the Roses and the Adams, too. They gave a
+reception at a hall on 125th Street to celebrate the occasion, each
+of the families inviting special friends, with Dorothy and little
+Helen Nacker to pass flowers to the guests. There was a band behind
+artificial palms, and waiters in white aprons passed refreshments.
+Yvette wore a dress of pink and Carolyn wore yellow. Carolyn didn’t
+think the party fine enough, and Mannie and Dorothy didn’t like it
+much, either. The rest of the family thought it a successful affair.
+
+Mrs. Rose, Yvette and Carolyn spent the following weeks shopping.
+Yvette had to have a complete trousseau, starting with table
+linens and ending with silk stockings. Three months later Yvette
+and MacDougal were married at the Waldorf with Carolyn and Maurice
+Adams as attendants. Only the most intimate friends were invited
+to the elaborate banquet which followed, though later there was
+an “informal reception” with much wine. MacDougal had just bought
+an automobile—black, though Yvette would have preferred a gayer
+colour—and, after a short Atlantic City honeymoon the young couple
+took a new and elaborate apartment in Central Park West and settled
+down, with two maids, to domesticity.
+
+“Ain’t it grand, Papa?” Mrs. Rose had said to her husband after their
+first call on the young couple. And even Rose had to agree that Yvette
+was getting all that could be expected.
+
+Carolyn was “the young lady of the family,” now. She was not as easily
+satisfied as Yvette had been. She called Yvette’s crowd “loudly
+vulgar,” though she was a trifle loud, herself, at times. She raised
+eyebrows and drew away when fate included her in her sister’s parties.
+She was glad when her sister married—now she could entertain her loud
+friends in her own home. Maybe Yvette would even tone down a little;
+she laughed too loudly, and her terrible taste in clothes! Her mother
+talked loudly, too, except when she tried very hard to remember—and
+it was terrible the way she shrieked and sing-songed when she grew
+excited—but at least you could remonstrate with her.
+
+The Harlem apartment didn’t suit Carolyn at all. Here she was, out of
+school, nearly twenty—and living in—Harlem. She had gone to a series
+of morning lectures at one of the hotels and one of the lectures had
+been on furniture—it seemed all of the things in the Harlem apartment
+were entirely wrong. Carolyn knew this was true, too. Hadn’t she been
+to other homes, where people knew things? They were rich and had one
+maid—and she didn’t know how to wait on the table—and the family
+treated her as if she were one of them. And Irving talked back to his
+father, rather impudently, even when company was there, and the car was
+a sight—she was ashamed to use it. The least they could have was a new
+car and a chauffeur.
+
+Irving agreed with all of Carolyn’s criticisms, excepting those
+which concerned himself. He was twenty-three, why shouldn’t he have
+things nicer? Dorothy, going on fourteen, also found the Harlem house
+distasteful.
+
+“A terrible neighbourhood,” said Dorothy, who became Dorothea, that
+year. “It’s too far from school and we do need a new car. I’m ashamed
+to tell any one where I live. I want a big room and my own bath, so I
+can ask girls to stay all night, if I want to.”
+
+Rose sighed, said the family would break him and times were hard.
+Mrs. Rose sighed, too. Still, Harlem wasn’t such a friendly
+neighbourhood—the other couldn’t be worse. And with only one girl there
+was too much for her to do. If they had a man to drive the car and a
+cook, maybe—
+
+Carolyn went house-hunting alone. She said she’d take the others with
+her “when she found something.” Two weeks later she took her mother and
+Dorothea to see the new apartment. It was a foregone conclusion with
+Carolyn that they would take it—just the formality of mailing the lease
+for her father’s signature.
+
+The apartment was on Riverside Drive, in a huge building of
+cream-coloured brick. At the door was a negro uniformed in dark green,
+and another similarly clad attended the mirrored elevator. The halls
+had Oriental rugs and were lit and draped with an expensiveness that
+suited even Carolyn. Of course it was pretty far out on the Drive—but
+it looked rich—and living on the Drive was rather grand, at that. Mrs.
+Rose was speechless at first, but later the apartment seemed quite
+satisfying. She liked the ornateness, the grandeur—it was even finer
+than Yvette’s, than any of her friends. Why shouldn’t it be, with Abe a
+partner in a big factory and all—?
+
+The woodwork of the apartment was white enamel. There were little
+panels in the living room, waiting to be papered, and the dining-room
+had a white enamelled plate rail. The lighting fixtures were of the
+new “inverted” style, on heavy brass chains ending with carved brass
+holders of white frosted globes. There were French doors of mahogany
+leading into the living-room and dining-room, a huge butler’s pantry
+with numerous shelves, a kitchen with a big hooded range and immense
+white sink, large bedrooms, four baths.
+
+“If—if your Papa will pay for it,” Mrs. Rose admitted weakly.
+
+“Oh, he’ll pay,” said Carolyn, “why shouldn’t he—a rich man like him?”
+
+When the men of the family came to see the apartment Irving pronounced
+it “immense.” Mr. Rose looked at the apartment, saw the library that
+he could have for his own, the big bedroom and bath—and gave in with
+unexpectedly little persuasion. After all—his friends were living
+well—why shouldn’t he? He was making money—the family might as well
+spend it. Didn’t the way you live show how well you were doing? Not
+that he was making so much, of course, but, with Yvette married—if
+Carolyn wanted the apartment.
+
+Mannie and Dorothea were rather indifferent. Still, Mannie was in prep
+school and cared most about books—even writing a poem occasionally. He
+was eighteen. At fourteen, Dorothea didn’t care about details as long
+as they were moving. Her new room was nice and big. Still, they ought
+to have a new car—Dorothea was quite pouty over the old one.
+
+Carolyn took charge of the furnishings of the new apartment. Mrs.
+Rose, with uplifted hands, declared her ignorance of periods “and such
+nonsense,” but begged her daughter not to spend too much money. “You
+know your Papa. There is a limit even with him.”
+
+Irving gave a long-winded dissertation about what to get and told about
+a fine apartment he had visited, farther down on the drive—two girls he
+knew, their father was a criminal lawyer. Carolyn didn’t listen very
+closely. She knew what she wanted.
+
+Accompanied by her most intimate friend, Eloise Morton, daughter
+of S. G. Morton, the box people (both of Eloise’s parents had been
+born in America), Carolyn visited a number of shops. She called the
+stores where Yvette traded “middle class,” but she was afraid of the
+decorating shops and called the things in the window “junk.”
+
+“You might like that old stuff,” she said to Eloise, “but I can’t see
+anything to it. Old chairs, stiff and funny—a hundred dollars apiece
+and then a fake, probably. A whole room full of that doesn’t look like
+anything. I like things that show their full value, that you can tell
+cost a lot of money.”
+
+Eloise agreed that her friend had the right idea.
+
+Carolyn didn’t allow any mere furniture clerk to suggest or dictate
+to her. Hadn’t she seen a lot of fine homes? Didn’t she go to every
+new show in town and look especially at the stage settings? Hadn’t she
+heard a furniture lecture? Who could advise her?
+
+She didn’t want her mother with her, she’d “simply spoil things if she
+started to talk.” Carolyn and Eloise, alone, could give an impression
+of taste, elegance and riches.
+
+Carolyn decided on Adam furniture for the living room. If the ghosts
+of the brothers Adam groaned a bit Carolyn was too busy to hear. She
+liked “sets” for the living rooms—didn’t every one have them?—so she
+chose a great davenport of mahogany with cane sides and back, motifs
+slightly after some of the Adam designs scattered over the woodwork.
+The upholstery was rose velour. There were two huge chairs of similar
+design, one a rocking chair. Other chairs were of cane and mahogany,
+one a Venetian, one a fireside. There was a great oblong table, too,
+that Carolyn knew showed good judgment, for it was of “dull antique
+mahogany.” It, too, bore motifs of the house of Adam. There was a floor
+lamp with a rose shade and two table lamps to match and several pieces
+of “stylish” painted furniture, factory made. Carolyn looked with scorn
+on the little rugs that had seemed so fine a few years ago. She chose
+now an immense Oriental in rose and tan for the living room and a
+Chinese rug in dark blue to combine with the intricately carved Queen
+Anne furniture of the dining-room.
+
+There were elaborately patterned filet lace curtains throughout the
+house. Before this Mrs. Rose had always hemmed and hung the curtains.
+Now Carolyn gave orders for them. The over-drapes and portières were
+of rose velour, heavily lined, and above the windows were elaborate
+valances, edged with fringe and wide gold braid. There were blue velour
+curtains in the dining-room.
+
+In the bedrooms Carolyn’s imagination had full play. Her parents’ room
+was in mahogany with twin poster beds. Her own room was in ivory, cane
+inset. Dorothea’s was white enamelled, painted with blue scenes.
+
+For the walls of the living-room, between the panelling, Carolyn chose
+a scenic paper in grey. On this were to be hung elaborate oil paintings
+in scalloped gold frames: “A Scene at Twilight,” “The Fisherman’s
+Return.” In the dining-room the paper was in tapestry effect, red and
+blue fruit and flowers.
+
+The family moved into the new apartment in October, 1911. The moving
+was simple for the old furniture was to be sold and professional movers
+attended to the packing of ornaments and dishes.
+
+Mrs. Rose and Irving were impressed with the effects wrought by
+Carolyn’s taste and her father’s money, but it did not take the family
+long to settle down to the pleasures of life that Riverside Drive
+opened to them.
+
+
+XI
+
+Moving to the Drive, the Roses made the final change in their name.
+Mannie, usually quiet, was the one to propose it.
+
+“Rose is so—so peculiar,” said Mannie. “Any one could tell it had
+been something else, Rosen or worse. I’m eighteen and go to College
+this fall. I’m not going to have a name so—so ordinary. Let’s change
+it to Ross. That’s not distinctive but it isn’t queer or foreign.
+I’m changing my first name just a little, too. I’ve never been called
+Emanuel, anyhow. Mannie isn’t a name at all. I’m going to register at
+College as Manning Ross.”
+
+There was no letter-box to announce the change, but the elevator man
+knew the new occupants of Apartment 31—he wrote the names down with
+a blurring stub of a pencil to be sure to remember them—were Mr. and
+Mrs. A. Lincoln Ross, the two Misses Ross and two young men, Irving and
+Manning.
+
+The family had liked Rose—but there might be something in what Manning
+said. But no more changes. Mr. Ross put his foot down, this time. He
+was meeting important men in business, Gentiles, and he didn’t want any
+more monkey-business about names. Ross was all right and Ross it would
+have to stay. And it did.
+
+Mrs. Ross took great delight in getting her new servants. It made her
+feel superior and important, driving up to an employment agent and
+interviewing prospective retainers. She took Carolyn along for advice
+and counsel—Carolyn went out a lot and knew about such things.
+
+Carolyn would have liked a retinue, but Ross rebelled—expenses were
+awful and each servant was another mouth to feed. The old “girl” had
+got married so they finally chose a cook who was not above helping with
+other things, a waitress who could combine housework with waiting, and
+a chauffeur. Besides, the washerwoman would still come for two days
+each week.
+
+Soon after the family was settled, Mr. Ross bought a big limousine,
+American made, but one that Carolyn thought looked really expensive.
+The chauffeur was in uniform, of course. He happened to be a young
+Irish boy and it seemed to Carolyn, sometimes, that he smiled a bit
+sarcastically and annoyingly as he held the door open for them,
+especially after her mother had spoken with an accent or her old
+sing-song.
+
+Mr. Ross didn’t object to the new luxuries. It was much more
+comfortable driving to the office in the limousine than waiting for
+Irving or one of the girls to take him or depending on less comfortable
+modes of transportation. He had more room to himself, too. He liked
+the way the new cook prepared things—he was getting indigestion and
+had to be careful about what he ate—though he still remembered with
+real emotion the pot-roasts and fish and stuffed goose that Grandma
+had delighted to prepare. These new dishes—salads and things like
+that—everything served separately—you could get used to it—it didn’t
+make much difference—here he was, used to a maid in cap and apron,
+waiting on table—and Minnie used to it, too, excepting when she forgot
+and talked to her or reached across the table for things. Still, Minnie
+meant well, a good woman, rather fat these last years, but a good woman
+who loved her family—none of this new foolishness some of the women
+had, he’d noticed—
+
+Mr. Ross didn’t pay much attention to women. He never had. He saw what
+fine girls his daughters were, that was about all. He couldn’t have
+recognized half a dozen of their best friends, whom he saw constantly
+at his home, if he had passed them on the street.
+
+His business—that was something. Still, even that didn’t keep him busy,
+the way it used to. This new arrangement, the offices and the factory
+separated—of course it was for the best. He could always go over to
+the factory when he wanted to, though there wasn’t much need—machinery
+he didn’t understand, everything in such order—with a head for every
+little department, not to mention the big ones. And, with three
+partners you couldn’t say things as if it were your own business. Mr.
+Ross was fifty-three, but it hadn’t been an easy fifty-three years and
+things had gone along rather rapidly for a while. Not that he was an
+old man—far from it. Still, things that had passed seemed pleasanter
+than they had seemed in the passing—and things to come lacked lustre.
+
+This wasn’t age,—certainly not—he felt as well as he had twenty years
+ago, practically. Give him some real work to do, you’d find out. But
+there was so little to do, now. You’d go down to the office about ten
+and dictate a few letters and potter around with things. You’d examine
+“swatches” and find that an expert had already given them a chemical
+analysis. You’d go to luncheon and be careful about what you ate. After
+luncheon, a little sleepily, you’d dictate more letters, if there were
+any more and see a few men on business, young upstarts, most likely,
+or Gentiles who wanted something for nothing—or consult with your
+partners. Then, you’d drive home after a while and read the paper or
+listen to Carolyn play on the new player piano or talk with Dorothea,
+though there wasn’t much to talk about. Dinner then, and a game with
+Adams, though he had rheumatism these last years and wasn’t the man
+he had been. Or Moss would drive over. There was a club, even, if you
+cared to go to it—a lot of strange men who didn’t care anything about
+you—a club—at least they were of your own race—Dorothea was always
+asking questions about why the family didn’t mix with other people—such
+notions a child gets—
+
+The Rex Suit Company was still progressing. The great factories were
+outside New York, but the business offices occupied a whole floor of an
+office building, each partner with his own mahogany furnished office,
+with its rows of bells and its private stenographers. There was an
+expert to decide each thing. MacDougal was in the sales department
+and Maurice, the younger Adams boy, was advertising manager—a big
+advertising agent had charge of all of the advertising, of course.
+And what advertising the firm did, too! Double pages in the popular
+weeklies at thousands of dollars a page. Every one was familiar with
+the “Kingly Men.” Girls cut them out and mounted them for their
+rooms. “America’s Kings in Kingly Suits” had been familiar enough to
+get applause at a musical comedy when it was used to introduce two
+juveniles. “Every Inch a King for the Kings of Creation” and other
+well-known slogans ran in letters four feet high above the artist’s
+conception of the “Kingly Man” on the billboards.
+
+Each year there was an ornate catalogue of the styles, “for the Prep
+Youth,” “for the College Man,” “for the Younger Set,” “for the Older
+Fellow.” Hundreds of merchants all over the country displayed King
+Brand signs and carried King Brand suits. The Rex Company had invented
+half sizes, adjustable models and the giving with each suit of an extra
+bit of the goods and two extra buttons for mending. There wasn’t much
+you could plan about for the Rex Company. Likely as not, some one else
+would have thought of it first, anyway.
+
+Mr. Ross was accustomed to meeting men, now. He liked to meet them,
+in business. He would listen, weigh what they said, learn from them.
+He never talked much. He always retained his look of severity. He was
+known as “a crackerjack of a business man,” “a man you couldn’t put
+anything over on,” but the other partners were good business men, too.
+There was nothing for Mr. Ross to work for.
+
+Outside of business he had little. His family still seemed apart, yet
+he would have done anything to have saved them trouble or pain. He
+liked Yvette because she was frank and lively, but these last years he
+liked Dorothea, too, though there was nothing against Carolyn, a fine
+girl, if she did like to spend money. Minnie was all right—the boys
+would be, too, when they got a little older and settled down.
+
+Mr. Ross didn’t mind listening to the mechanical piano or the Victrola
+at home, but he did not care for other kinds of music. Concerts made
+him miserable and fidgety. He saw nothing in them and after several
+for charity and one visit to the opera he refused to partake of music
+outside of the home. He had never learned to like reading. He was still
+content with the daily papers and glanced, occasionally, at a weekly
+devoted to current events. He knew nothing about art and said so. He
+didn’t want to be bothered with “such notions.” Drama of all kinds
+bored him and even musical comedies entertained him only for a little
+while. Usually he got to thinking of business in the midst of things
+and lost all consciousness of what was going on.
+
+Mr. Ross had no social ambitions, so, with no business worries and no
+outside interests, his days began to drag unpleasantly. He thought
+often of other days, of “the other side”; when he had been planning
+to come to America—he was glad that was over—of MacDougal Street,
+the hard work he had done there, the long hours, the over-time, the
+little economies so both ends would meet, then the newer tenement, with
+things a little easier, the beginnings of the factory—those had been
+real days—staying awake planning to meet bills, figuring to the dollar
+how to get money to pay the “help” and have enough left for living
+expenses, then Harlem and now Riverside. It was good to have planned
+and worked. Still, now he was used to his comforts. He liked space and
+quiet and the car—but, with nothing to do—
+
+Mrs. Ross had long since relaxed her anxiety over her husband. He
+had never talked business and he seemed just like always, willing to
+listen to her stories of how she had spent the day. Mrs. Ross was quite
+content with the Drive. The aloofness of the neighbours, that had been
+disagreeable to her in Harlem, became one of her own characteristics
+now. She became more and more aware of her own importance. She had
+disliked the way “outsiders” and Gentiles had treated her, years
+before. Now, her last vestige of humbleness gone, she felt herself more
+than “as good as any one.” Wasn’t she Mrs. A. Lincoln Ross, wife of
+Ross of the Rex Suit Company, a real figure in New York? Didn’t she get
+her picture in the paper when she gave money to charity? Didn’t people
+treat her with respect as soon as they found out who she was? She was
+frankly fat, but she didn’t mind. She had expensive dressmakers and
+tailors and she thought the results of her toilet satisfactory. After
+all, she was nearly fifty.
+
+Her voice had toned down, during the years, as had Yvette’s. When
+talking with those she considered important, she even tried to put
+an elegant swing into her sentences. Usually, though, her voice was
+accented, ordinary, uninteresting. She still made errors and sometimes
+quite a lot of sing-song crept in.
+
+In the morning Mrs. Ross attended to her household affairs, giving
+directions to the servants, ordering her own provisions over the
+telephone, even planning meals. She looked into the ice-box to see what
+provisions remained, rubbed fingers across furniture for dust, examined
+linens. She was a good housekeeper. In the afternoon, with Yvette, whom
+she found most congenial, or an acquaintance, she went for a drive or
+shopped. She dropped most of her old friends who had not progressed and
+she had no sentimental regrets concerning them. A few earlier friends
+she kept up with, asking them for luncheon or for a drive, with a hint
+of patronage. Through her daughters she met other women of her own age
+and circumstances. To these she tried to be pleasant, using her best
+language and manners. She had no intimacies with these women.
+
+During the second year of the family’s residence on the Drive, Mrs.
+Ross was asked to belong to several committees of important charitable
+organizations. She joined these gladly and gave generous sums. She
+liked the society of her own race. She did not feel at home with
+“outsiders” nor know what to say to them—she felt that they were
+constantly criticizing her. She had decided social ambitions, however,
+and wanted Mr. Ross to join a well-known club composed of members of
+his people. She was proud to know women who, a few years ago, or even
+now, were she less wealthy, would have ignored her. To the arts she was
+as indifferent as her husband.
+
+
+XII
+
+Irving was a lawyer now. He had a nice office in one of the newer
+buildings devoted to professional men, but not much practice. His
+father found it just as convenient to give him some of the smaller
+business of the firm as to increase his allowance. When anything
+important came up Mr. Ross agreed with his partners that it was best to
+let a better-established lawyer handle the case.
+
+Irving—who became Irwin about this time—could have joined a large
+firm as a junior member, but he preferred independence. He didn’t
+like to work hard or long and he had heard of the tasks performed by
+the younger members of big firms. He liked to waste time, browsing
+around book-stores, walking through the lobbies of hotels, calling on
+friends. He had a large acquaintance with women and had as many dinner
+invitations as he could accept. Wasn’t he a great catch, a young lawyer
+with a rich father? And good company.
+
+At twenty-five, Irwin still loved an argument. Although never a great
+reader, he liked to pose as one, quoting well-known authorities,
+reading and talking about authors unknown to his hearers. His hair was
+always immaculately sleeked, though it had just a perceptible wave. He
+had his favourite manicurist at one of the larger hotels. He smoked an
+expensive brand of cigarettes, carrying them in an elaborate silver
+and gold case and fitting each one carefully into an extremely long
+amber cigarette holder before smoking it. He used affected gestures,
+pounding on a table to emphasize a point he was making. He still wore
+nose-glasses, now large lensed and tortoise rimmed, and from habit he
+held his head too high.
+
+Irwin was proud of his acquaintance with half a dozen actresses of
+minor importance. These he took to teas, dinners and suppers, talking
+later as if the engagement had had special significance. He was careful
+about his acquaintance with other women, choosing those that were,
+to him, of social importance. He had the same distrust his parents
+had for those outside of his own race. He never attended services at
+a synagogue, but to him religion and race were intermingled and he
+did not attempt to differentiate between them. Since boyhood he had
+suffered from prejudice far more than his sisters. He was proud to
+associate with “outsiders,” liked to think he looked and spoke and
+acted like one of them. But he would never have married a Gentile.
+
+Carolyn was now the liveliest member of the Riverside Drive household.
+She didn’t think much of race and creed. She envied other women in some
+things, but she thought herself all that was desirable and attractive.
+She liked best the people of her own race, but she preferred them
+with American or English accents, appearance and accomplishments. She
+liked to associate only with people of great wealth. Always gowned a
+bit ahead of fashion, perfectly groomed, silky, smooth, crisp, she went
+to the theatre, evenings and matinées, to luncheons and to parties,
+giggling and laughing, quite moderately, of course, and had a gay time.
+She loved musical comedy and after-theatre suppers. She didn’t care for
+the opera, but even the most serious drama could give her something to
+giggle about afterwards. Her hair and eyes were dark with something
+of the Orient about them, but her skin was fairer and clearer than
+her mother’s or Yvette’s, her round little nose was always white with
+powder and her eyebrows narrow and smooth, her lips and cheeks pinkly
+attractive.
+
+You could see Carolyn almost any fair afternoon on the Avenue with
+Eloise or Helen or Mary Louise, stopping in at one little shop for
+a bit of lingerie, at another for flowers. They spent money with no
+thought of its value. Most of them could not remember poverty. Those
+who could found spending the best method of forgetting. Occasionally
+they met several of “the boys” for tea. When they didn’t they bought
+tea for themselves at Maillard’s, usually, or the Plaza. There was
+always a car waiting and they wore low pumps or slippers and the
+thinnest of stockings even when the snow was on the ground.
+
+Carolyn “went with” Jack Morton, Eloise’s brother. She had met Eloise
+at the Riverside Drive School. Jack was at Harvard, then, but he was
+graduated a year later and was “catching on” nicely in his father’s box
+factory. The Mortons thought the Rosses a step below them socially,
+for the Mortons were a little farther removed from “the old country.”
+Outside of that, they liked Carolyn. So no one was surprised, when, in
+1914, when Carolyn was twenty-three, she announced her engagement to
+Jack. The Rosses thought Carolyn had “done well,” as indeed she had,
+for Jack Morton was a likeable fellow, full of practical jokes and fond
+of poker playing, but on the whole quite a desirable husband.
+
+Ross gave his daughter a diamond lavalliere for an engagement present,
+and as Carolyn picked it out herself it was quite glittering. He
+promised her the furniture for her new apartment as a wedding present.
+The Mortons gave Carolyn a small car, green, with cushions to match,
+which she pronounced “a young wonder.” They had an engagement “at home”
+and were married a few months later at one of the newer hotels. Carolyn
+hoped that it was quite evident to the friends of both families that
+they were both very wealthy.
+
+The young couple took a three weeks’ trip to Florida—Jack couldn’t stay
+away from the business longer than that. Then they went to the Astor,
+but Carolyn wanted to entertain her friends and a hotel does keep you
+cooped up so. She and Jack finally decided on a small apartment in a
+high-priced new building in Park Avenue. They had only one maid to
+start with for they both preferred eating at restaurants. With the car
+you could eat at a different place and go to a show or some place every
+night.
+
+Without Carolyn the Riverside Drive apartment seemed quiet. Manning
+went to Harvard for a year, dissatisfied with the unexclusiveness of
+Columbia.
+
+Dorothea liked school, too, and was now taking a few harmless courses
+which gave her something to do, though they didn’t satisfy her. Nothing
+quite pleased Dorothea. She hadn’t been satisfied with Carolyn’s
+school—girls of only one creed went there, so narrow. Dorothea said
+that school was a joke. She had chosen a more expensive school,
+patronized by daughters of rich men generally. Her new study courses
+were at Columbia and with private teachers. Mr. Ross didn’t like them.
+
+“It isn’t as if she had to be a teacher,” he said. “A girl can have too
+much book-learning.”
+
+But Dorothea went. She had always been different. Her clothes,
+for one thing. Couldn’t she have had anything she wanted? Look at
+Carolyn—always dressed like a picture—the family had to admit that,
+themselves. Even Yvette, though she liked bright colours, was a good
+dresser. It wasn’t as if Dorothea was economical. She spent as much
+as Carolyn did. Carolyn wore things that “looked expensive,” rich
+broadcloth, elaborate furs—Dorothea preferred rough tweeds. She paid
+extraordinary sums for little suits that Mrs. Ross thought looked as
+if she’d got them for twenty dollars in Third Avenue. They were of
+mixed weaves, in grey or tan, and she wore big tailored collars over
+her coats, not mannish looking or freakish, just plain. She paid fifty
+dollars for her little round velour hats. She wore heavy gloves and
+shoes, even when she went out with Carolyn, sleek in white gloves, thin
+pumps and furs. Dorothea paid huge prices for plain little evening
+frocks which she bought at exclusive little places. Even then she was
+not satisfied.
+
+Dorothea wore a perpetual little pout—something had always just gone
+wrong. She spent her time wondering what to do, dipping in “courses”
+on a variety of subjects, at settlement work, “going with people
+she didn’t have to associate with,” her mother thought. Clad in a
+trim-fitting habit she rode whole mornings in Central Park. She
+exhibited funny little Belgian Griffins at shows. She went to benefits
+and tournaments. Yet she was always a trifle “put out,” a bit bored.
+Things weren’t ever good enough, or quite what she had expected.
+
+For her twentieth birthday Dorothea asked for and received a new car, a
+good-looking foreign-made roadster. About time the family had more than
+one car! She didn’t want a chauffeur. Hadn’t she been driving as long
+as she could remember, learning on the old red one? She liked driving
+the car best of all.
+
+The family, the family’s friends, what any one said or did—all
+displeased Dorothea. She made sport of Irwin’s pet affectations to his
+face, to her mother’s horror. She called Yvette’s things “impossible”
+and made fun of Carolyn’s diamonds. She treated her mother as a person
+of no consequence, never asking her opinion about things. Although she
+had nothing in common with her father, she made a great fuss over him
+and he grew to like her better than any other member of his family.
+She took him out in her car, though he didn’t quite enjoy the rides,
+expecting to be tipped over at every corner. Dorothea drove perfectly,
+with the recklessness of a racer.
+
+Dorothea went with “outsiders.” She seemed as much at home with members
+of other races as with her own. She’d bring in unexpected guests,
+making the family feel ill at ease. While guests were there she’d bring
+up bits of family history the rest were trying their hardest to keep
+out of sight.
+
+“Dad,” she’d say, “here’s some one that wants to meet you. He’s heard a
+lot about you.... Can you believe that less than twenty-five years ago
+Dad came to America with no money at all?” then, with a little gesture
+and a smile, “and now look at him.” She’d throw an arm around her
+father, who, ill at ease, would greet the stranger.
+
+If Mr. Ross had been unsuccessful, he would have looked like any of a
+thousand of his race whom you can see leaving the shops any evening
+at the closing hour. But his wealth haloed him. It was impossible to
+separate him from his money. Thin, stoop-shouldered, solemn, quiet and
+accented of speech, he stood for success. To Dorothea her father was
+immensely important. She was the first who had ever made much of him.
+It embarrassed him—he was a simple old fellow in many ways—but he liked
+it.
+
+Mrs. Ross thought Dorothea didn’t appreciate her.
+
+“It’s always her Dad, her Dad,” she’d say, “never a word about how
+I worked when she was small or all I do for her—just Dad this, Dad
+that—and Irwin don’t like it—that you’re always bringing up old
+times, about Papa being a cutter. The other night when that fine Miss
+Tannenheim was here, you said it, when you was talking to that big
+blond fellow you brought in....”
+
+“You’re a dear, Mother,” Dorothea would give her mother the tiniest
+touch of a kiss on her broad cheek, “but Irv’s a mess and he knows it.
+The Tannenheim person is a cheap old thing with a mean eye and she’ll
+marry him some day, if he isn’t watching.”
+
+“Dad,” said Dorothea, one day, “let’s move. You can’t guess how sick I
+am of Riverside Drive.”
+
+“What’s the matter? Haven’t you got things nice here?”
+
+“Nice—on the Drive?”
+
+“We’re always moving, it seems. Only four years ago....”
+
+“I know, Dad. That’s just it. A man of your position ought to have
+a home. Apartments are nothing. This one is simply awful. Riverside
+Drive is fearfully ordinary, vulgar—don’t you think so? Such a cheap
+collection of the newly rich. Dad, you ought to have your own home in
+town, anyhow, and something permanent in the country.”
+
+
+XIII
+
+The idea of a home appealed to Mr. Ross. He felt, now, that he had
+always wanted a real home. Dorothea called for him in the car and they
+explored the streets east of Fifth Avenue. Finally, without consulting
+the rest of the family, Ross bought a five-story house in East
+Sixty-fifth Street, just off Fifth Avenue.
+
+“Mother will think this is terrible,” Dorothea said as she kissed him,
+“but you and I like it, don’t we? I know it cost an awful lot, Dad,
+but you can see it’s really an investment. After it’s made over a bit
+inside it will do for a family home for years. Imagine you—after all
+you’ve done—not having a family home.”
+
+Ross really liked the house. It seemed almost—home-like. The rest of
+the family were not pleased. The married daughters—of course it was
+not their affair—but, they wondered if it was just the right thing. Of
+course nice people lived in houses, but none of their friends.
+
+“That’s why we bought it,” said Dorothea.
+
+Irwin “guessed it was all right.” Manning was indifferent.
+
+Mrs. Ross held up bejewelled hands and wailed.
+
+“Oh, Dorothea, just as I’m beginning to get into things and can ask
+people here to a fine apartment on the Drive—an address I can be proud
+of—and here you buy an old house—I thought a young girl like you would
+want things swell—here we’ve got servants and all—”
+
+“Don’t you worry,” said Dorothea, “it will be ‘swell’ enough—awful
+word. And as for servants—”
+
+The family moved to the East Sixty-fifth Street house a few months
+later. Dorothea didn’t run around after furniture as those of her
+family who had chosen furniture before her had done. She turned the
+whole house over to Miss Lessing, in Madison Avenue. Miss Lessing’s
+corps of exquisitely minded young men came in, looked around, made
+sketches, brought drapery material and wood finishes, all of which
+Dorothea examined critically.
+
+“At last we’ll have some place we can ask our friends,” she said.
+
+The house in East Sixty-fifth Street was rather nice. It was done in
+English things, mostly, painted walls and rather soft taffetas. There
+were some big easy chairs that could be pulled around, comfortably, in
+front of the fireplace. Perhaps because of its seeming simplicity and
+the plainness of the walls and carpets Mr. Ross liked it more than any
+home he had ever had. He felt it belonged to him. Mrs. Ross never liked
+it.
+
+“It’s too plain,” she said, “nothing to it. No one would believe how
+much it cost you, Papa. Mrs. Sinsheimer has got an apartment on Park
+Avenue, just a block from Carolyn. Fourteen rooms. She had a decorator,
+too, but he got different things than this—gold furniture. It looks
+like something. We had a fine place on Riverside Drive and Dorothea
+drags us here, where there ain’t even lights enough to see by, at
+night.”
+
+Still, Mrs. Ross found out, from what people said, that there must be
+something desirable about the new home. She even acquired a bit of
+the patter Dorothea used, pointing, with something like pride, to “a
+real Chippendale escritoire, one of the nicest examples in America,”
+and “some Wedgewood plaques, three, from an original set of four, you
+know,” and “of course, we are getting old and it’s nice we can have a
+home where we can gather the sort of things we like, as a background.”
+
+Irwin didn’t “think much of the place, myself,” but it was a good
+idea, the old folks having a home ... he was glad he didn’t have to
+be ashamed of it, though, for his part ... now, that country place
+Dorothea was talking about....
+
+Yes, Dorothea had been talking about a country place. After they were
+settled in the new home, she continued to talk. They had five servants
+now—they wouldn’t even need two sets—Dad could see how it took that
+many to run any kind of a house—and they could just shut up the town
+house in Spring and open it in Fall. All the family could be there,
+too, Yvette and the new baby, and Carolyn and their husbands ... “a
+real family together. Dad, a permanent family like ours ought to have a
+decent country place.”
+
+The country place was on Long Island, finally. Dorothea picked it out
+and put the decorations in the hands of the same firm of decorators,
+who did rather startling things with coloured wicker, chintz and tiled
+floors.
+
+It was near a famous country club and Dorothea knew, as did the rest
+of them, that none of the men of her family could ever be admitted.
+It didn’t seem fair to her, of course, and yet ... Dad was a great
+one—there oughtn’t to be any place Dad couldn’t get into. But Dad
+didn’t care. Though, from things he said, Dorothea knew he had felt
+things ... expected them. He hadn’t even hoped this much of life.
+Irwin didn’t like being left out of things ... and yet, Dorothea,
+looking at Irwin, hearing him argue in his rather nasal tone, gesturing
+with his long amber cigarette holder, couldn’t blame members of the
+club, exactly.... It wasn’t because of Irwin’s race ... maybe the
+members, themselves, weren’t so wonderful ... and yet there were her
+two brothers-in-law, one rather fat, both slow-minded, card-playing,
+a bit loud and blatant, always bringing money into the conversation
+... Yvette, loud, laughing, so heavy, mentally, Carolyn, with her
+cheap talk of money and spending ... her mother ... it wasn’t fair to
+criticize her, her mother’d had a hard time of it when she was young,
+and yet....
+
+Dorothea knew that, somehow, the men she liked didn’t belong to her
+race. Hamilton Fournier, now ... of course, if she’d marry him, there
+would be an awful talk, lots of crying and going on about religion ...
+that sort of thing. She could hear her mother ... she remembered when
+Freda Moss married,—“He’ll throw it up to you.” Yet, if you are proud
+of your race ... doesn’t that ... can you have a thing “thrown up to
+you” that you are proud of? It was a big problem, too big for Dorothea.
+She felt that she’d always had everything she wanted ... she could keep
+on having....
+
+The family settled down comfortably in the new home, Manning with them.
+He was going to school in town, now.
+
+Mrs. Ross was getting to like the new home better ... it wasn’t
+Riverside Drive, of course, but people didn’t look down on her here.
+She was even getting in with Mrs. Rosenblatt—now that she lived near
+her. That crowd—she didn’t have their education, but what of it, she
+was richer than most of them. Who were they, to be so exclusive? Maybe,
+by next year, if she donated to their Orphans’ Nursery Fund....
+
+Mr. Ross’s indigestion seemed a little worse. The doctor came to see
+him several times each week and he had to be more careful with his
+diet. There seemed to be less to do at the office. He could retire, of
+course, but that would take away the only interesting thing he had—the
+few hours at the office. He even tried outdoor exercise, but after one
+attempt, he gave up golf as impossible. He gave to organized charities
+rather liberally and was even appointed on a committee which he never
+attended—he knew it was his money they wanted. He would sit, as he had
+always sat in the evening, falling asleep over his paper, or, bundled
+up beyond the necessity of the weather, he would climb into the car and
+spend a few hours with an old friend, or some one would come to see
+him, playing cards, as always. But a few of the old friends had died,
+another had moved away ... there had never been many of them. He was
+just an old man, and lonesome, with nothing interesting to do or think
+about....
+
+
+XIV
+
+Manning stopped school the year after the family moved into their new
+home. He had had a year at Harvard and a year or so at art school.
+Now, at twenty-two, he felt that he was a sculptor. His father was
+disappointed—Manning had started out a nice boy—it did seem that one of
+the boys....
+
+But Manning shrugged sensitive shoulders at anything as crude as the
+clothing business, even wholesale. His soul was not in such things. And
+Mr. Ross had to admit that the position of model was about the only one
+in the establishment that Manning could have filled. Manning went in,
+rather heavily, for the arts that the rest of the family had neglected.
+Of course Dorothea read, but Manning thought she skimmed too lightly
+over real literature. And Irwin—an impossible, material fellow.
+
+Manning wore his hair a trifle long. He talked knowingly of Byzantine
+enamels and the School of Troyes. He knew Della Robbia and the
+Della-Cruscans. There was nothing he didn’t know about French ivories.
+He knew how champlevé enamelling differed from other methods ... there
+were few mysteries for Manning. His personal contributions to Wanty
+consisted of fantastic heads, influenced slightly by the French of the
+Fourteenth Century, in bas-relief—very flat relief, of course.
+
+Manning’s friends felt they formed a real part of New York’s “new
+serious Bohemia.” They ate in “unexploited” Greenwich Village
+restaurants, never complaining about the poorly cooked food, sitting
+for hours at the bare, painted tables, talking eagerly in the dim
+candle or lamp light. They expressed disgust when “uptowners”
+discovered their retreats and sometimes moved elsewhere. You could find
+them every Saturday and Sunday night in parties of from four to ten,
+at the Brevoort, sometimes with pretty girls who didn’t listen to what
+they were saying, sometimes with homely little “artistic” ones, hung
+with soiled embroidered smocks, who listened too eagerly, talking of
+life and art, revolution and undiscovered genius.
+
+There was no question that Manning’s father should continue his
+allowance—there is no money in sincere art these days. Manning knew
+that even his father must recognize that. Manning spent his summer with
+the family on Long Island—it was hot in town. But, when one’s family is
+of the bourgeoisie, it does draw one’s energy so. In the autumn Manning
+decided he must have a real studio, some place he could work and
+expand, going to “the town house” for week-ends. Having one’s family
+uptown was quite all right, of course—but you couldn’t expect an artist
+to live with them.
+
+Mr. Ross agreed to the studio. He was getting accustomed to Dorothea’s
+friends, unbelievers though they were. He found he could not accept the
+artistic friends that Manning thought so delightful.
+
+Manning found his studio, finally. The rent was terrific, of course,
+but the building had been rebuilt at great expense and was absolutely
+desirable in location, construction, everything. He furnished it
+himself in Italian and Spanish Renaissance things. Rather nice! When
+it was furnished—though they probably couldn’t “get it” he’d let the
+family see it.
+
+One Sunday, after a family reunion dinner, Manning announced that his
+studio was done. If the family liked they might all run down that
+way—a sort of informal reception ... of course, they probably couldn’t
+understand it all....
+
+It was in the Village, of course, but not “of” it. Did they think the
+Village was slumming? Uptown people did. But that’s where you’d find
+real thought, people who accomplished things....
+
+“Why, my new studio has real atmosphere”—Manning ran his fingers
+through his hair as he spoke. “It’s in a wonderful old building,
+magnificent lines and the architect left them all—it’s just inside he’s
+remodelled. I’ve the third floor front, two magnificent rooms, a huge
+fireplace, some lovely Italian things ... and the view from the window
+is so quaint and artistic ... of course you may not understand it ...
+this family ... it’s just a block from Washington Square.”
+
+“Why, that’s where....” began Mrs. Ross.
+
+Irwin silenced her.
+
+“Don’t begin old times, Mamma. Most of us haven’t as long memories as
+you,” he said.
+
+“Come on, now that we’re all here, let’s go down,” Manning went on, “I
+want you to see something really artistic. A friend of mine, DuBroil—I
+think you’ve met him—did me a stunning name plate in copper, just my
+name, Manning Cuyler Ross. I’m so glad I took Cuyler for a middle name
+last year. And there is just the single word, ‘masks.’ I thought it
+was—rather good. And I’ve a stunning bit of tapestry on the south wall.
+Come on—you’ve got your cars here, we’d better get started—”
+
+It was a pleasant drive. The three cars drew up, almost at once, in
+front of Manning’s studio, as he, in the front car, pointed it out to
+them.
+
+They made quite a party as they turned out in front of the building—a
+prosperous American family—Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Ross, well-dressed,
+commanding, in their fifties, which isn’t old, these days; MacDougal
+Adams, plump, pompous; Yvette Ross Adams, in handsome furs and silks;
+Jack Morton, sleek, black-haired; his always exquisitely gowned wife,
+Carolyn Ross Morton; Irwin Ross, in a well-fitting cutaway, eyebrows
+raised inquiringly, chatting alertly; Dorothea Ross, attractive and
+girlish in rough tan homespun, and Manning Cuyler Ross, their host,
+pleasantly artistic.
+
+“Here’s the place,” said Manning. “No elevator, real Bohemia, three
+flights up, uncarpeted stairs. Come on, Mother.”
+
+Mrs. Ross was strangely pale, and on the faces of Yvette and Irwin and
+MacDougal Adams there were curious shadows. The rest, save for Mr.
+Ross, were too young to remember. As for him he broke, for the first
+time in years, into a broad smile. Manning went rattling on.
+
+“This,” he proclaimed, “is the way to live! None of your middle-class
+fripperies. Plain living, high thinking—this is the life!”
+
+They came to the studio at last, and all stood about in silence while
+Manning explained its charms—the clear light, the plain old woodwork,
+the lovely view of the square, the remote, old-world atmosphere. In
+the midst of his oratory Mr. Ross sidled up to Mamma Ross and reached
+stealthily for her hand.
+
+“Do you remember, Minnie,” he whispered, “this room—this old
+place—those old days—”
+
+“Hush,” said Mamma Ross, “the children will hear you.”
+
+
+
+
+AMY’S STORY
+
+
+I
+
+When Amy Martin was thirteen years old she read, in a book she had
+borrowed from the Fortnightly Library, something that interested her a
+great deal. She liked the thought so much that she accepted it quite
+thoroughly and kept it with her as a delightful secret. It was to the
+effect that each person’s life is an interesting plot and that, if
+written out, it would make a fascinating story.
+
+To Amy the idea opened up infinite avenues of adventure. Until then she
+had taken for granted her life in Belleville. Now, other things seemed
+just about to happen to her.
+
+Amy was one of two children. Her brother Clarence was two years
+younger, a slow, shy, blond boy. Her father was a fat, soft fellow,
+with bushy reddish hair which stood up in a stiff halo from an always
+slightly red forehead. He had no chin at all, but he did have rather
+a thick neck, so that below his mouth his chin and throat formed a
+sagging, uneven line. He carried his head a bit high, and his prominent
+nostrils seemed as peering as his eyes.
+
+Mrs. Martin was a neat, dark-haired woman, a trifle sleek and oily
+as to complexion and hair. She liked to spend her time mixing not
+particularly good cakes or talking with her neighbours, taking hours
+to elaborate over trifles. She liked to give the impression of being
+always busy, though she kept one servant and did not do much of
+anything.
+
+Mr. Martin was in the retail hardware business. On the front of his
+store and on his letterheads he used the picture of an ax, in red, with
+the irrelevant motto: “It Pays to Trade at Martin’s.” There was only
+one other hardware store in Belleville, so he had quite a good trade.
+
+The Martins lived in Myrtle Street, one of the nicest streets in
+Belleville. The house was of clapboards, painted a cheerful yellow
+with white trimmings, and had a wide porch with a scroll-work railing.
+The yard had several nice fruit trees and a variety of bushes placed
+without regard to landscaping. The house was cut up into small and not
+particularly attractive rooms.
+
+At thirteen Amy was a freshman in High School and already a recognized
+member of Belleville’s “younger set,” with dancing school Saturday
+afternoons, parties on Friday nights and many Christmas-week
+activities. After she read that every life is an interesting story, Amy
+began to visualize herself as the heroine of a definite romance, still
+without a plot, but alluring and pleasant. The thought became personal,
+immediately. She forgot that every other life in Belleville contained a
+plot for a story, too. The thought seemed to belong only to her. Life
+stretched out, fragrant with possibilities of living.
+
+Crossing the street on an errand—to borrow a cup of sugar from Mrs.
+Oglesthorn—Amy noticed the shadow of a tree on the dusty street. She
+made up sentences:
+
+“As Amy crossed the street, the sunshine and shade cast contrasting
+shadows on her—”
+
+“Amy ran across the street, enjoying the warm sunlight—”
+
+She made up frequent sentences. Why not? Wasn’t she a person in a
+story? Wasn’t anything liable to happen to her at any time? Often,
+after that, she thought of herself in the third person.
+
+Amy’s first year in High School was pleasant enough. She envied Luetta
+Corman when, in the Christmas cantata, Luetta was chosen Queen of the
+Good Fairies and wore white tarlatan and spangles, while Amy, as one of
+the Pleasant Dreams, had to be content with a silver-starred wand and
+pink cheesecloth. What did that matter? Later, she was going to live,
+to have important things happen to her. She could laugh at these little
+disappointments in Belleville.
+
+The next year Amy had a real ambition. Because several people had
+praised her singing, she decided she had a good voice and should become
+a singer. The Martins had an upright and rather tinny piano, a symbol
+of small-town gentility, and Amy had had three years of piano lessons.
+
+She had no talent or real love for music, and she hated to practise.
+She felt that learning to sing would be more pleasant than learning
+to play. She was rather a pretty girl, with light brown hair and
+indefinite blue-grey eyes. In her imagination she saw herself on the
+concert stage and in opera even, costumed in any of the rôles she could
+think of. On the stage she would find real romance.
+
+Her vocal teacher came to her house for two half-hour lessons a week.
+She was not an inspired teacher, but Amy needed nothing better than
+Miss Patten could give. She hated scales and breathing exercises.
+But she sang, eagerly enough, sentimental songs. Those by Carrie
+Jacobs-Bond were her favourites. After six months of lessons she sang
+“Spring Rain” in a thin, uneven voice, noticeably weak in the lower
+register, at a pupils’ recital. Her parents were quite proud of her.
+
+Two months later she sang at a concert given for a local charity.
+On the program was a fairly well-known visiting soprano. This woman
+listened to Amy’s singing, and when Amy eagerly asked her opinion about
+“keeping on with lessons,” told her truthfully, though brutally, that
+she could never learn to sing.
+
+Amy gave up her singing quite willingly. She had really lost interest,
+anyhow. She was becoming interested in boys. She had a chum now, Lulu
+Brown, a dark-haired, bright-eyed girl with rather boisterous manners,
+and they were reaching the giggling stage. They put themselves in the
+way of masculine attentions, invitations to play tennis or go walking,
+with a soda at the Central Drug Store as an objective.
+
+Lulu was more attractive and vivacious than Amy, but her family was
+not as high socially. Lulu’s father was a bookkeeper. In Belleville
+the “society set” was composed of the families of professional men
+and those who owned businesses. Lulu went with the same crowd as Amy,
+though her parents did not go into society. Amy was fond of her, but
+sometimes she was ashamed of her on the street, and she was always
+afraid that Lulu would do something unconventional. If it had not
+been that boys sought Lulu’s company and that Amy received many of
+her invitations through her chum, it is possible that she would have
+dropped her altogether.
+
+The next summer Amy decided to be an artist. Three times a week, during
+vacation, she went to Miss Matson’s “studio,” the second-floor front
+room of the Matson home.
+
+Miss Matson had had several years of study in New York. On the wall of
+her living-room there was a picture in oils that, it was said, had been
+done at the Art Students’ League. Amy did not know just what this was,
+but she was impressed because of the name and because her teacher had
+studied in New York.
+
+Miss Matson’s students could do two kinds of work, copying pictures
+or still-life. If they chose copying, they made meticulous replicas
+of fancy heads, usually in water-colour, imitating every curve and
+shadow, putting on daubs of red where the originator had put daubs of
+red, unquestioning. The homes in Belleville were filled with these
+pictures in elaborate gold frames, the work of Miss Matson’s pupils.
+The “still-life” studies were groups of fruit or vegetables, a yellow
+mixing bowl, a red tomato and a green pepper, or, perhaps, a pitcher,
+two lemons and a slice of cake.
+
+Amy copied pictures all summer. Then some one told her that this was
+not art, so she joined the still-life group.
+
+So—she was going to be an artist. She tried to see colour in everything
+that year. She read the lives of the painters. She knew that years of
+hard work lay before her, but she felt she wouldn’t mind that. She knew
+she would do something remarkable. Life was seizing her—going to make
+an artist out of her—to think that her romance, her story—was coming
+out this way.
+
+The next winter she went to High School and spent three afternoons a
+week, after school, with Miss Matson. At the end of the year she could
+do a “still-life study” of a couple of eggs, a mixing bowl and a bunch
+of radishes with fair skill. She went to parties and enjoyed them. She
+giggled with Lulu over the boys. But she felt that life stretched out
+beyond Belleville.
+
+That summer she persuaded her father to let her go to a near-by city
+and take a summer course at an art school. She was only sixteen, but
+there were cousins with whom she could stay. Her mother and Clarence
+wanted to go to Benton Springs, near Belleville, where her father could
+go for week-ends.
+
+Her father laughed condescendingly and told her that she could study,
+that he thought it would be very nice to have an artist as a daughter.
+
+The art students were older than Amy and greatly in earnest. Amy lived
+near the school and worked hard. All summer she didn’t pay attention to
+anything else. She always felt embarrassed when she met a model from
+the life-classes, wrapped in a bathrobe, waiting to pose. Amy was not
+in the life-class, but knew that drawing from the nude was all right
+“for art’s sake.” She even peeked into a life-class and pretended that
+she didn’t mind, though she really felt that she was doing something
+wrong.
+
+She attended a series of lectures and learned something about anatomy
+and the history of art. She even learned a little of colour and
+composition.
+
+She found art a serious thing. She met men and women who had been
+working for five or six years—and still were doing charcoal drawings.
+She hated charcoal as a medium. Others spoke knowingly of schools of
+art and new interpretations, and these things annoyed and puzzled her.
+
+At the end of the term she had done half a dozen drawings from casts,
+three compositions and a few outdoor sketches. She had thought of art
+as a way to produce pretty pictures quickly. She saw how inadequate she
+was for such a big subject and that she lacked ability and ambition.
+She was glad to be back in Belleville for the opening of High School.
+After all, life offered many things beside music and art.
+
+
+II
+
+Amy had a good time during her junior year in High School. She and Lulu
+were invited to all of the Friday night parties. She was not as good a
+dancer as Lulu, but she always had all of her dances taken. On Sunday
+she and Lulu and two of the boys would go for a walk, calling at the
+post-office for any possible mail and then stopping for sodas.
+
+But that wasn’t life. Amy wanted something above Belleville and High
+School parties and a father with a hardware store with red axes on its
+windows. She read a great deal of fiction that year—everything in the
+Fortnightly Library that had large print and wide margins. While she
+read she remembered that, to her, too, romance would come, that her
+life would be an interesting story.
+
+She fell in love with Reed Maddon when she was seventeen. He was a
+tall, black-haired boy. His father kept a leather and harness store. He
+played on the Belleville High School football team and was rather shy.
+He didn’t pay much attention to Amy, at first. It was pleasant, being
+in love with him. He sat back of her in the High School study hall, so
+she kept a little pocket-mirror in her desk and could find his face in
+it whenever she wanted to.
+
+She tried to make Reed be nice to her. Lulu saw through her little
+tricks and laughed. Lulu, at seventeen, was already making eyes at
+grown-up men.
+
+Amy dreamed of Reed, thought of him all day. Being in love seemed a
+beautiful prelude to living, to the story that was going to happen. She
+pursued Reed so patiently that finally he did pay a little attention to
+her. He took her to a couple of dances. One night, on the way home, he
+put his arm around her and, in the shadow of the climbing rose on the
+side porch, he kissed her.
+
+His kiss lifted her into an ecstasy. She lay awake nearly all night
+thinking about it, about his hair, the curve of his cheek, the feel of
+his lips. She whispered “Reed, Reed, Reed,” over and over. Only once
+more did Reed make love to her. That was a week later, when he came
+to tell her that he was going to St. Louis to work for his uncle. He
+put his arm around her as they sat in the hammock on the porch. Amy
+trembled delightedly. She never remembered what they said.
+
+She thought of Reed all summer. He wrote her a couple of letters with
+no particular charm and sent her a poorly-taken picture post-card of
+himself, which she cut to fit her locket.
+
+Amy went to the state university when she was graduated from High
+School. Lulu Brown went, too. Because of Lulu’s inferior social
+position and a tendency to make amorous eyes at the boys, she was
+not asked to join a sorority. Amy was, and she gloried in her social
+supremacy, treating Lulu with great condescension, though they shared
+letters from home and frequently spent a night together. Lulu was more
+popular than Amy, but Amy thought some of the boys Lulu went with were
+“fast.” She no longer regarded her as a rival and did not feel as
+jealous of Lulu as she had in High School.
+
+Amy watched, eagerly, for something to happen. At first, she was in
+love with Reed, but the activities of the university made her a bit
+dulled toward him. A letter from him, around Christmas of her first
+year away at school, gave her only the smallest thrill. She could
+think of his mouth and his eyes with great calm. She rather missed not
+thinking about him.
+
+Amy did not fall in love at the university, and no one fell in love
+with her. She went to dances and the other entertainments, treated the
+boys with the usual half-comrade, half-coy attitude of the other girls,
+and was fairly popular.
+
+But this was not life, really. It was just waiting for things to
+happen. Things _must_ happen. She felt that. She was going to have a
+real story happen to her—would probably have exciting adventures and
+meet a wonderful man and fall in love with him.
+
+In the evenings, at dusk, she would sometimes get away from the other
+girls and take long walks by herself.
+
+She would get so restless and eager for something to happen that
+she wanted to cry out for it. Every new face might bring romance.
+She almost trembled when she passed any one or when she made a new
+acquaintance. She often woke up early, and, after trying to read, would
+lie in bed, half-awake, and imagine things that might happen.
+
+Life—what did it mean? Would she fall in love again? Being in love
+with Reed had just been puppy love, of course. Was the real man only
+a little way off? Was she destined for great happiness or great
+unhappiness? Even that—
+
+She learned little things about men, was even humble enough to
+profit by Lulu’s wisdom, even while she disapproved of Lulu’s
+unconventionality. Lulu seemed to know, instinctively, things that she
+had to learn.
+
+Two years at the university, a smattering of history and French and
+German and literature, and Amy was home, ready for “society.” She felt
+another ripple of triumph—Lulu’s social position would not warrant
+formal social entrance—the Martins planned to introduce Amy with a
+party at the Elks’ Club.
+
+The party was quite a success. Mr. Martin, his chin and neck a bit more
+indistinguishable, Mrs. Martin, smooth and sleek, buttery almost, stood
+in the “receiving line,” together with several “socially prominent”
+friends. Amy wore a white organdie that came from Chicago. There
+was Robinson’s Orchestra and dancing. For supper, the local caterer
+had sent to the city for fresh lobster, a delicacy unobtainable in
+Belleville. The party was not surpassed by the other four débutante
+parties of the season.
+
+Amy went to innumerable social affairs that winter. When a theatrical
+company came to Belleville she was always one of a box party, composed
+usually of the débutantes and four of Belleville’s most desirable young
+men, all in evening clothes, the girls in dresses bought at the New
+York Store or made by Madame Jackson, Belleville’s one modiste, the men
+in rather wrinkled suits, but unmistakably their own.
+
+Something was missing, Amy felt that. Reed came back to Belleville, but
+he was not attractive any more. He went with Claudine Harper, and Amy
+did not care. Nothing thrilled her at all.
+
+Sometimes, at a dance, an especially good dance with a good partner
+would awaken her just a little. A chapter from a popular novel could
+be mooned over half a day. A play sometimes had a moment which lifted
+her above things. She read poetry, and soothing rhythms pleased her.
+Sometimes she tried to write, but never achieved anything beyond a
+vague scribbling about longings and life and love. This was not living.
+She wanted to scream out, to batter down something which seemed to
+stand between her and the story that ought to be happening.
+
+
+III
+
+Amy went with her father and mother and Clarence on a trip to Niagara
+Falls, Buffalo and New York City. She pretended a great wonder over the
+falls, but in reality she did not care for the scenery.
+
+In New York she felt something of the same emotion she had felt when,
+at the University, she had taken long walks by herself. She wanted to
+thrust herself into the city, yet, she remained apart, aloof, watching
+it. Her father, who had been to New York before, took the family on
+tours of inspection, pointing with his cane—to Amy’s embarrassment—the
+things of interest. Amy saw the tallest buildings, rode in the subway
+and busses and taxicabs, visited the museums and Chinatown. In Fifth
+Avenue she bought some frocks and hats for twice as much as she had
+ever paid in Belleville. In the lobby of their hotel, a commercial
+hotel of tremendous size, Amy glanced eagerly at the men who stood
+there, and thought she recognized famous faces, actors or writers
+or politicians. Once she even smiled at a man who seemed unusually
+handsome. He started to walk toward her and she became frightened and
+took the elevator to her room. On the street she wanted to know people,
+any of the busy, well-dressed crowd. There were men who looked as if
+they might be just the sort she liked to read about, clever, cultured.
+She did not meet any of them.
+
+Back in Belleville, she took up her usual activities, telling of the
+theatres and show places she had seen in New York. Things seemed duller
+than ever. Men in Belleville were so definitely unattractive. She
+wished she lived in New York. But, even as she wished it, a fear of the
+city came over her. She realized how dreadfully lonely she would feel
+if she were there alone, how inadequate she was to fit into any of the
+groups she had seen.
+
+That winter, by putting her mind to it, she became rather a good bridge
+player. She was made a member of the Hospital Board League and spent
+afternoons planning how to raise money for various hospital needs.
+
+Lulu Brown married a man whom she had “picked up” in front of the
+Belleville House. It happened that he was a New York business man, in
+Belleville about the new cracker factory, and quite wealthy.
+
+Amy went to the wedding in the small Brown cottage. She gave Lulu a
+small travelling set of imitation ivory. She envied Lulu in her blue
+going-away suit more than she had ever envied her before. The man
+Lulu married was named Fredericks and was a striking-looking fellow.
+Fredericks told about a New York apartment that he had taken for the
+winter. Lulu was married and going to live in New York. She—why she was
+richer and better-bred than Lulu and she had to stay in Belleville, and
+nothing happened to her.
+
+Two months later Amy went to another wedding. Reed Maddon married
+Claudine Harper. Amy went with the crowd to the station to see them
+leave for Chicago on a wedding trip. She was surprised to find how
+little she cared. Outside of a breathless moment of jealousy she didn’t
+really feel it at all. Yet Reed was the only man she had ever cared
+about. But, of course, that had been when she was a little girl. She
+would fall in love soon and life would begin.
+
+Amy spent the next two winters in Belleville. She and her mother went
+to Benton Springs for the summers, and her father and Clarence, who
+was now a partner with his father, came up for alternate week-ends.
+Her father was more condescending than ever now, because she had not
+married. He was fatter than ever, and Amy did not like to look at his
+profile.
+
+At Benton Springs Amy flirted with the men at the hotel, colourless,
+small-town men who were trying hard to get pleasure out of an
+inexpensive holiday. She did not find them very entertaining. She
+attended the hotel dances on Saturday nights and went to another hotel
+for Wednesday evening festivities. She played tennis and golf.
+
+She had a mild love affair with a young lawyer from Texas, and he
+kissed her one night as they were walking toward the hotel.
+
+After she had gone to bed she thought about him. He was not the sort
+of man she had planned to marry at all. He did not attract her, but
+the masculine smell of his coat had been pleasant and he was not
+bad-looking. Amy decided that, if he asked her to marry him, she would
+accept him. He did not propose. He left the hotel three days later.
+With the exception of a picture post-card, she never heard from him
+again.
+
+Something like a panic seized Amy the next winter. The girls in her
+set were getting married one after another and new débutantes were
+appearing each season. Great adventures did not come to her. Even
+little things did not happen. She felt almost trapped. What if she were
+wrong about life, about the story?
+
+She visited, with new clothes as aids, her mother’s cousin in Harperton
+and her Aunt Ella in Demont. She had good times. Girls gave bridge
+parties for her. Men took her to parties. She did not have a love
+affair nor any other adventures. She felt she was just as attractive
+as other girls. They found beaux. Still, to others, she might seem
+popular, too. She got candy and flowers and invitations. It was just
+that nothing really came close enough, love or marriage or any sort of
+happening. She still felt as if she were not really living, as if life
+were waiting for her, outside of some gate. She was bound to find it,
+if she waited.
+
+She returned to Belleville in January, and the next month Millard
+Kenton came to Belleville on business. His cousins lived there, so he
+was included in the town’s social affairs. Amy met him, as she always
+met visitors.
+
+Kenton was attentive to her immediately. She disliked him at first. He
+was small and had brown hair which was getting thin at twenty-eight.
+There was nothing forceful or vital about him. His strongest opinions
+seemed to have no importance. Nothing he could do ever could have any
+significance, Amy felt.
+
+Yet, because he liked her, Amy ignored Kenton’s colourlessness and made
+herself as attractive as she could. She was slender and had nice eyes
+and hair and wore pretty, small-town, fluffy dresses.
+
+When Kenton called, they sat in the living-room and talked or played
+bridge with other couples or went to the theatre.
+
+Sometimes, when she was alone with Kenton, Amy looked at his
+indefinite, uninteresting face and wondered how she could keep on
+talking with him. What a bore he was! She liked him a little better,
+but felt that he was more insignificant than a man ought to be.
+
+Kenton’s home was in Minota, Oklahoma, where he was with an oil
+company. He went back to Minota and wrote to Amy on his business
+stationery in a small, slanting handwriting. His letters were
+colourless, too.
+
+Kenton came back to Belleville in April and asked Amy to marry him.
+She had encouraged him in little ways, listening with flattering
+attention to his opinions, answering his letters with half-finished
+sentences that were meant to show that she liked him.
+
+Amy had never had a real proposal of marriage. She felt that the great
+romance, as she had dreamed it, would never come to her. But all the
+other girls were marrying. Being married would open new avenues. Maybe,
+after marriage, she would have adventures. If things did happen—she
+could leave Kenton any time she wanted to—
+
+
+IV
+
+They had a church wedding. Amy wore a very elaborate wedding gown and
+veil, and six of her best friends were bridesmaids, in pale green. Amy
+showed her artistic training by designing huge fans for the girls to
+carry, instead of the usual flowers.
+
+Amy and Kenton went to housekeeping in an apartment in Minota,
+Oklahoma, which they furnished with huge overstuffed chairs and
+mahogany furniture.
+
+Amy did not like Minota. It was an oil town and the smell of the oil
+permeated everything. Minota was a little smaller than Belleville and
+definitely newer and flimsier. She knew several former Belleville
+people there, so, after a first loneliness, a feeling of not belonging
+to any place, she settled down comfortably enough. Soon she was one of
+the set of “younger matrons” and went to bridge games and parties quite
+as she had done at home.
+
+She missed Belleville. After six months she went home on a visit. When
+she got there she was at once restless and dissatisfied and didn’t
+know what to do. After she had seen her parents and her friends and had
+walked down the familiar streets, she was quite willing to go back to
+Minota again.
+
+She grew to like Kenton a great deal. Now that she could read while he
+was at home or ignore him altogether, he did not bore her. They had so
+many things in common—their home, their friends—that at times he seemed
+almost interesting.
+
+A year after Amy married, Millard, junior, was born. Amy had read and
+thought that motherhood was a thing apart, almost an exalted state. She
+welcomed it, frightened but eager. It left her much the same, without
+the ecstasy she had anticipated.
+
+Two years later Mary-Etta came. Amy was very fond of her children.
+
+When Millard was four Arnold Thompson came to Minota. He was
+good-looking and had the reputation of being popular with women. Amy
+encouraged him to notice her. The Kentons were living in their own
+home, now, a white bungalow, and they had a coloured maid who took
+almost entire charge of the children.
+
+Thompson telephoned and asked to call one afternoon.
+
+Amy sent the maid out with the children and dressed in a great flutter
+of excitement. Thompson came about four. They talked, and Amy listened
+attentively, though to her surprise, Thompson’s conversation was just
+like the other men’s she knew and did not interest her. She played a
+little on the piano. Before she knew it, Thompson had put his arms
+around her, was kissing her. She lay passive in his arms for a moment,
+even kissed him in return. The thrill she had expected was not there.
+She felt cheapened instead. She pushed him away, not angrily, but
+rather with indifference, and told him “You’d better go.”
+
+For weeks after that Amy suffered keenly from remorse. It was the
+deepest emotion she had had in a long time. Kenton was so good—and
+she had let another man kiss her. What must Thompson think of her? If
+Kenton should find out? She was ashamed of herself. She was greatly
+relieved when, a month later, she heard that Thompson had left Minota.
+
+Life in Minota went on pleasantly enough, punctuated with visits to
+Belleville and even a visit to New York, after a successful business
+deal. Kenton was doing well in business. The children were growing
+nicely.
+
+Sometimes Amy felt the old desires, the wanting to live. She would grow
+restless and walk in her room, up and down, and long for something to
+happen. Then would come a reaction, a hope that nothing would take
+place to change her comfortable state as a nice little married woman.
+
+Things did not change until Amy was thirty-six. Then Kenton took cold
+and died of pneumonia after only four days’ illness. Amy grieved
+sincerely. She missed Kenton a great deal and told every one that
+theirs had been an ideal life.
+
+She sold the house, and she and the children went back to Belleville to
+live with her parents.
+
+In Belleville Amy took up, in a quiet way, the activities of the women
+of her age. Kenton had been insured. The hardware store with the red
+axes on the windows was still prosperous. Amy’s father was bald, now,
+and quite fat. Her mother was complacently busy about home and church
+matters. Clarence was married and had a home of his own. Life in the
+Martin home was comfortable, in a quiet, uneventful way.
+
+Lulu Fredericks came through Belleville on her way to California and
+stopped for a visit with relatives. Amy was rather awed and resentful
+at Lulu’s clothes and her grand manner and Eastern accent. Lulu had
+travelled in Europe even. Lulu, who had been of so much less importance
+in Belleville, had had adventures. And she, Amy, hadn’t lived at
+all—nothing had happened.
+
+Amy remembered the book she had read when she was a little girl, that
+had said that each person’s life contains a plot for a story. It made
+her angry to think of it. Her life hadn’t been a story. Nothing had
+happened to her. She was sorry she had read that book. If it hadn’t
+been for that she would never have felt the way she did about life. She
+might have enjoyed things more, one at a time. Now, though she couldn’t
+touch them definitely, she felt that she had missed pleasant things, or
+ignored them, because she had wanted bigger things, instead.
+
+The author of that book had cheated her—life had cheated her. How could
+any one have written such nonsense? Amy knew there was no story in her
+life—in most lives. Yet she knew that there always would be people like
+Lulu to remind her of the fact that there were people whose lives were
+like stories, after all.
+
+After the children were in bed, Amy sat at the window and looked out
+on the little lawn. The trees and the bushes looked badly taken care
+of, neglected. She must see that the yard was fixed up, right away. Her
+life—it was all she had—it did seem too bad that nothing had happened
+to her—school—parties—marriage—babies—widowhood—nothing—no story at all.
+
+
+
+
+CITY FOLKS
+
+
+I
+
+Joe and Mattie Harper lived in Harlem. They lived in a four-room
+apartment in the second of a row of brown, unattractive-looking
+apartment buildings—six of them just alike—in One Hundred and
+Thirty-second Street.
+
+They lived in Apartment 52, which means the fifth floor, and there was
+no elevator. But the rent was reasonable, fifty dollars, and both Joe
+and Mattie said they didn’t mind a “walk-up” at all—you get used to it
+after a while, and Mattie knew it kept her hips down. Then, too, by
+going to the fifth floor, you get a much better view, though why a view
+of the building across the street—another brown barracks of exactly
+the same age and design—is desirable, only Joe and Mattie and other
+similarly situated folks know. The air was cleaner, though, on the
+fifth floor—they felt that any one would know that.
+
+One Hundred and Thirty-second Street, Harlem, lacked all outstanding
+features. If the street signs had suddenly disappeared, there would
+have been nothing to identify it, to pin it to—a bleak street, without
+trees, a fairly clean street, decent and neat looking (after the
+garbage man had passed and the tins had disappeared), wide enough to
+lack misery, narrow enough to lack grandeur.
+
+We are about to have two meals with Joe and Mattie—the most important
+meals of their day, for Joe’s lunch was usually a sandwich and a glass
+of milk at the Automat, or beans or a beef stew in the lunch room
+across from his office; Mattie’s a glass of soda and a sandwich or a
+dish of ice cream, if she were down-town—it is a shame about the new
+price of sodas—a scramble of left overs from last night’s dinner, if
+she spent the day at home.
+
+Breakfast:
+
+The alarm clock had buzzed at six-thirty, as it always did. It was a
+good alarm clock and had cost $1.48 at Liggett’s, two years before.
+
+Mattie’s little dog, who slept in the front hall, had heard the alarm
+and scrambled into their bedroom with his usual yip of pleasure—he was
+rather deaf, but he could make out sounds as definite as the ringing
+of a bell and he listened for the alarm each morning. He was a nice
+fellow, a white poodle, overly fat, with red-rimmed eyes. If you didn’t
+molest him nor try to pet him nor step on him, he wouldn’t snap or try
+to bite you. Mattie and Joe were quite fond of him and took him for
+walks in Central Park on Sundays or around Harlem in the evenings. His
+name had, in turn, been, stylishly, Snowball, Snoodles and Snookums and
+had at last reached Ikkle Floppit, all of which he answered to with
+stolid indifference.
+
+Joe had heard the alarm, had jumped up and turned it off, and had waked
+Mattie, who slept more soundly. Ikkle Floppit had jumped, wheezily,
+upon the bed and licked all visible portions of Mattie’s face. Mattie,
+then, had given up trying to doze again and had stroked the dog’s
+uneven coat with a fond hand.
+
+Toilets followed, rapid plunges into the dwarf-sized white tub with its
+rather insecure shower attachment—Joe talking while he shaved, about
+the office, the men who worked with him, his boss who didn’t appreciate
+him, the weather that was still too warm for comfort, their friends,
+the Taylors, who they both agreed were too stuck up for words since
+Taylor had got his new job.
+
+“His people aren’t anything at all,” Mattie had said, “awfully
+ordinary—and the way they do put on airs, you’d think they amounted to
+something. Why, my cousin Mabel knew his sister in Perryville, where
+they used to live, and she said they weren’t anything at all there. And
+now, how they do go on with a maid and a car. They’ve never even taken
+us for a ride in their old car and they can hold their breath until I’d
+step into it. It beats all—”
+
+And Joe, his face twisted for the razor’s path beyond the possibilities
+of conversation, had grunted assent.
+
+Now Mattie had completed the simple breakfast, six pieces of toast,
+buttered unevenly and a bit burned on the edges, as always, a halved
+orange for each of them, some coffee and some bought preserves with a
+slight strawberry-like flavour. She and Joe faced each other over the
+almost clean tablecloth—it had been clean on Sunday and this was just
+Tuesday morning.
+
+The dining-room was small, lighted vaguely with two court windows. Even
+now, at seven-thirty, the electric light had been turned on in the red
+and green glass electrolier.
+
+Mattie knew the electrolier was out of fashion, she would have
+preferred a more modern “inverted bowl,” but this one was included with
+the apartment, so there seemed nothing to do about it. She would also
+have preferred mahogany to the fumed oak dining-room set, bought eight
+years before—she had bought the mahogany tea wagon with her last year’s
+Christmas money from Joe, looking forward to the time when they could
+buy a whole new mahogany set.
+
+Mattie was not at all a bad-looking breakfast companion, seated there
+in her half-clean pink gingham bungalow apron—she wore these aprons
+constantly in the house to save her other clothes. She was a slender,
+brown-haired woman of about thirty, with clear brown eyes, a nose
+that turned slightly upward, a mouth inclined to be a little large,
+rather uneven but white teeth—indefinite features, a pleasant, usual,
+hard-to-place face.
+
+And Joe, across from her, was equally pleasing, with a straight nose
+and rather a weak chin, dark hair starting to recede just a little at
+thirty-three, sloping shoulders inclined a bit to the roundness of the
+office man.
+
+“What’s in the paper, Joe?” asked Mattie, already nibbling toast.
+
+Joe, deep in the morning _World_, threw out interesting items—the
+progress of a murder trial, news of an airplane flight.
+
+They talked about little things, a friend Joe had passed on the street
+the day before, the choice of a show for Friday or Saturday night—they
+tried to attend the theatre once each week, during the winter.
+
+The door bell rang, three short rings. Ikkle Floppit gave three
+asthmatic yips. Mattie threw down her napkin, sprang to her feet.
+
+“I’ll go,” she said, as she usually said it, “you go on eating or
+you’ll be late again. I bet it’s nothing but a bill, anyhow.”
+
+She returned in a moment with a thick letter in her hand.
+
+“From your mother, Joe,” she said.
+
+She knew the printed address in the corner of the envelope, “The
+Banner Store, General Merchandise, E. J. Harper, Prop., Burton Center,
+Missouri,” the neat, old-fashioned handwriting, the post-mark.
+
+Mattie and Joe had come from Burton Center, Mattie eight years and Joe
+nine years before. They had grown up together in Burton Center, one
+of the jolly crowd who attended the High School, went to Friday night
+dances, later were graduated into the older crowd, which meant a few
+more dances, went to the Opera House when a show came to town, had
+happy love affairs.
+
+Joe and Mattie became engaged three years after Joe left High School,
+which was the year after Mattie graduated. Joe went to work at the
+Banner Store, under his father. But youth and ambition knew not Burton
+Center, so, a little later, Joe had come to New York in search of
+fortune.
+
+He had not obeyed the usual law of fiction and forgotten Mattie, nor
+had Mattie changed while she waited. No, though Joe found neither
+fame nor fortune, he did get an office job that looked as if it might
+support two in comfort, if Mattie and Joe were the two concerned,
+took a vacation, went back to Burton Center, found Mattie even more
+alluring and dimpled and giggling than he had remembered her—how much
+prettier Burton Center girls looked than those in New York!—and they
+were married.
+
+Eight years, then, of New York, of subway rides, of the weekly theatre,
+the weekly restaurant dinner, of apartment hunting about every second
+October, of infrequent clothes buying, of occasional calls on stray
+acquaintances, of little quarrels and little peace-makings, weekly
+letters from home—little lives going on—
+
+Joe tore open the letter.
+
+“Gee, it’s a thick one,” he said.
+
+Then:
+
+“Well, I guess they are all well or ma wouldn’t have written so much.
+Listen, Mattie.”
+
+Joe read the letter, a folksy letter—Mrs. Harper, senior, was well and
+so was “your father,” as all mothers speak of their husbands to their
+children, in letters. She had seen Millie’s mother a few days before
+and she was looking well and hoping to see them soon in Burton Center.
+The youngest Rosemond girl was engaged to a Mr. Secor from St. Louis,
+who was in the lumber business.
+
+Then there followed, long and unparagraphed, something that made Joe
+and Mattie look at each other, hard and seriously, across the table.
+For Joe’s mother had written something that they had always thought
+might be suggested to them but they had never discussed, even with each
+other:
+
+  “Your father isn’t as well as he once was, nor as young, you know,
+  and, though you need not worry about him, he is eating and sleeping
+  fine, even in hot weather, I think it would be better if you and
+  Mattie came here to live. You could step right into the store and
+  take charge of things as soon as you wanted to. It is not a big store
+  as you know, but your father has always made a nice living from it
+  and Burton Center is growing right along. The Millers have put up
+  some new bungalows out on Crescent Hill, you’d be surprised to see
+  how it has grown up out there, all of the young people are moving
+  out there and with the new Thirteenth Street car line it is very
+  convenient. The cottages are all taken but two, both white with green
+  blinds and room back of them for garages and we could get you one of
+  them if you wanted us to. The George Hendricks are living there and
+  Mr. and Mrs. Tucker and the Williams boy, Phillip, I think that’s
+  his name, you used to go with. The new country club isn’t far from
+  there and you could play tennis after work, which would be good for
+  you. I wish you could make up your mind at once, so you could get
+  here before long or your father will have to get a man to help him,
+  for he really ought to have more time to himself and take a nap after
+  dinner, now that the season’s trade is starting. Talk this over with
+  Mattie and let us know as soon as you can. I hope you are keeping
+  well in this changeable weather. Your father sends love to both and
+  so do I.
+
+    “Affectionately, your Mother.”
+
+Mattie and Joe looked at each other, looked and looked and forgot their
+toast and coffee. But they saw each other not at all. Nor did they
+visualize One Hundred and Thirty-second Street, New York, drab and
+bare, nor even Fifth Avenue nor Broadway.
+
+They saw a little town, with rows of old trees along its quiet streets,
+little white houses on little squares of green, each house with its
+hedge or its garden or its hammocked lawn, peace, and the smell of
+growing things after a rain—
+
+“What say, Mattie?” asked Joe. “Sound pretty good? Of course, you’ve
+always said you loved New York and I don’t want to persuade you against
+your will. Perhaps you wouldn’t care to move—still, Burton Center,
+we’ve got some good friends there—it’d be sort of fun, seeing the
+old crowd, belong to a country club, tennis, things like that, even
+managing the business. But, of course, if you wouldn’t want to leave
+the city—”
+
+Mattie, mentally, had far outdistanced him.
+
+She clapped her hands, pleasantly excited.
+
+“Joe can’t you just see that little house—I bet it’s awfully cute. Last
+summer, when we were out in the country, I certainly did envy people
+living in little houses—I get so tired of New York, sometimes. But I
+never wanted to say anything, knowing how much you liked it here. But
+that little house—we could sell all of our furniture except the tea
+wagon and the table in the living-room and my new dressing-table—it
+really would be cheaper to buy new things than to pay for shipping. And
+we could find out how many windows there are and I could get some new
+cretonne here—sort of set the styles in Burton Center. It sure would
+be funny, living back there and knowing everybody. Here I never see a
+soul I know in weeks, or talk to anybody. Honest, sometimes I get just
+hungry for—for people. The trouble is, we haven’t really got anything
+here.”
+
+“I know,” Joe nodded. “New York’s all right for some people—if you’ve
+got money. It’s a great city all right, but we don’t get anything
+out of it. I get so sick of being squeezed into subways night and
+morning—hardly standing room all the way home—and no place to go
+Sundays or evenings but a movie or a show or to see people who live
+miles away and don’t care anything about you anyhow and who you see
+about twice a year. Burton Center will look awfully good—folks take an
+interest in you, there.”
+
+“You bet they do.”
+
+“And it isn’t as if I’ve failed here. I haven’t. I’m due for another
+raise pretty soon—but we aren’t putting anything aside, getting any
+place. It isn’t as if we were terribly poor. You look awfully well in
+your clothes on the street, but we are always having to skimp and do
+without things—we never have the best of anything, always cheap seats
+at shows or cheap meals in second-class restaurants, a cheap street to
+live on—it gets on a person’s nerves.”
+
+“Why, I didn’t know you felt that way, Joe. I thought you liked New
+York. Why, it makes me so jealous, going down Fifth Avenue, seeing all
+those people in limousines, not a bit better nor better looking than I
+am, all dressed up, lolling back so—so superior, with nasty little dogs
+not near so nice as Floppit—and with chauffeurs and everything. Why,
+in Burton Center we’d be somebody, as good as any one. We could fix up
+that house awfully nice—and have a little garden and all that. But you
+said you hated the Banner Store so—now don’t go and make up your mind—”
+
+“You needn’t worry about me. The Banner Store is all right—I think
+differently about things than I did years ago. I thought the city was
+just going to fall apart in my hand—but I found someone else got here
+first. I’m not complaining, you know. It isn’t that I’ve failed—why,
+in Burton Center they’ll look at us as a success, we’ll be city folks,
+don’t you see. They know I haven’t failed. I didn’t come sneaking back
+the year I left, the way Ray Wulberg did. No, sir, when folks came to
+New York to visit, we showed them a good time, took ’em to restaurants
+and shows—they think we got along fine here—that we’re all right—”
+
+“You bet they do, Joe. But I just can hardly wait to see that
+cottage—and everybody. I bet Crescent Hill is awfully pretty. To-night,
+you write to your mother—don’t make it too sudden, you know, or too
+anxious—for you know how she is—she means fine, but she’ll like to
+spread the news about us coming back. You just say that, under the
+circumstances, as long as your father is getting old and needs you, you
+feel it’s your duty to go there and as soon as you can arrange your
+affairs and resign your position and train one of your assistants so
+that he can take care of your work—”
+
+“You leave that to me. I can fix that part up all right.”
+
+The buzzer of the dumb-waiter zinged into their talk.
+
+“Joe, there’s the janitor. It’s late. You’d better hurry. You know the
+call-down you got last week for being late.”
+
+Mattie and Joe arose simultaneously, Joe grabbed his paper, folded it
+conveniently, hurried to the door, Mattie after him.
+
+“Going down-town to-day?” he asked.
+
+“Thought I would, when I get the house straightened up. I want to look
+at a new waist. My good one is starting to tear at the back.”
+
+“All right. I’ll be home early, about six-thirty—won’t have to stay
+over-time. In a few months, I’ll be my own boss, no hurrying off in the
+morning or rushing home in subways—we’ll fix that letter up to-night.”
+
+He brushed off his mouth with his hand and gave Mattie the usual and
+rather hearty good-bye kiss and, closing the door behind him, Joe and
+Mattie parted for the day with visions of little houses nestling in
+green gardens uppermost in their minds.
+
+
+II
+
+Dinner:
+
+Dinner times with the Harpers varied slightly according to the way
+Mattie had spent the afternoon, the amount of work at Joe’s office and
+where the Harpers were dining. They usually dined at home, but, once a
+week, usually Saturday, when they followed the feast with a visit to
+the theatre, they ate at one of the table d’hote restaurants some place
+within ten blocks of Broadway and Forty-second Street.
+
+They thought themselves quite cosmopolitan because they had been to
+Italian, Greek, French, Chinese, Russian and Armenian restaurants,
+choosing in each the dish prepared for the curious—and eating it
+according to American table customs as they practised them.
+
+This particular Tuesday they were dining at home.
+
+Joe reached the apartment exactly at six-thirty, the trip home taking
+nearly an hour. Joe had been watching the clock for the last twenty
+minutes of his business day so as to escape at the first possible
+opportunity.
+
+Mattie, in the kitchen, heard his key in the lock and hurried to greet
+him. They kissed quite as fondly as they had in the morning, Floppit
+gave a little yip of welcome and received a pat on the head in reply.
+
+Dinner was nearly ready, Mattie informed Joe, table set and all.
+
+Joe hurried with his ablutions and reached the dining-room, accompanied
+by his newspaper, the _Journal_ this time, at a quarter of seven. He
+divided the paper so that Mattie might have the last page, where are
+shown the strips of comics—he had read them hanging to a strap in the
+subway. Then he helped Mattie to bring in the hot dishes from the
+kitchen.
+
+There was a small platter of five chops, fried quite brown, two for
+each one of them and one—to be cut into bits later—for Ikkle Floppit.
+Mattie always fried chops or steaks the days she went down-town, and
+sometimes other days besides.
+
+There were potatoes, in their jackets to save her the trouble of
+peeling them, a dish of canned corn. There was a neat square of butter,
+too, and some thinly sliced bread on a silver-plated bread plate—a last
+year’s Christmas present from one of Mattie’s aunts—and a small dish of
+highly-spiced pickles.
+
+Besides this, on the new tea wagon stood two pieces of bakery pastry,
+of a peculiarly yellow colour that had aimed at but far surpassed the
+result of eggs in the batter.
+
+They sat down. Joe served the chops, Mattie the potatoes and corn.
+Mattie had put on her bungalow apron as soon as she returned
+home—so as to save her suit from the spots and wear incidental to
+dinner-getting. Joe looked just as he had in the morning, plus a small
+amount of beard and minus his coat and vest.
+
+Yet, as the morning’s conversation had been spontaneous and
+enthusiastic and happy, this evening’s meal had a curious cloud of
+restraint over it.
+
+“Good dinner,” said Joe, after his first mouthful.
+
+“Yes, it does taste good,” agreed Mattie.
+
+“Go down-town?”
+
+“Uh-huh, I went down about eleven. Just got home an hour ago. I looked
+at the waists, but didn’t get any—they seemed awfully high. I may go
+down and get one to-morrow or Thursday. Any news in the paper?”
+
+“Not much doing,” Joe rustled his own sheets.
+
+He never really read at dinner but he liked to have the paper near him.
+
+“Look at Floppit, Joe. Isn’t he cute, standing up that way? I’ve just
+got to give him a bite. It won’t make him too-fat, not what I give him.
+Come here, Missus’ lamb.”
+
+Silence, then, save for the sound of knife against plate, a curious
+silence, a silence of avoidance. Then meaningless sentences, bits about
+anything, a struggle to appear happy, indifferent.
+
+Joe, then,
+
+“See any one down-town you know? Where’d you have lunch? Thought maybe
+you’d call up and have lunch with me.”
+
+“I did think of it, but I didn’t come down your way. I stopped at
+Loft’s and had chocolate cake and a cherry sundae. No—I didn’t see any
+one I knew—exactly.... Anything happen at the office?”
+
+“Well, nothing much. We got that Detroit order.”
+
+“Did you, Joe? I’m sure glad of that.”
+
+A silence. Then, Joe, suddenly, enthusiastically, as if some barrier
+had broken, as if he could no longer stay repressed, upon the path he
+had set for himself.
+
+“Say, Mattie, guess what happened this afternoon! You know Ferguson,
+the fellow who used to be in our office, whose brother is in the
+show business? Well, he came in and gave me a couple of seats to see
+‘Squaring the Triangle’ for Friday night. They say it’s a good show and
+in for a long run, but they want to keep the house filled while the
+show is new, till it gets a start.”
+
+“Did he, honestly? Say, that’s great, isn’t it? Where are they,
+downstairs?”
+
+“Sure. You don’t think he’d give away balcony seats, or at least offer
+them to me, do you? Remember, he gave us some last Spring. That makes
+three times this year we’ve been to shows on passes. Pretty good, eh,
+Mattie?”
+
+“Well, I guess yes. We’re some people, knowing relatives of managers. I
+tell you, I think—”
+
+A pause, then.
+
+Mattie’s face lost its sudden smile and resumed its sadness of the
+earlier part of the meal.
+
+“What’s the matter?” asked Joe.
+
+“Nothing the matter with me.”
+
+“Something else happened, too,” Joe went on, enthusiastically, “at
+noon, I’d just left Childs’—and guess who I passed on the street?”
+
+“Some one we know?”
+
+“We don’t know him exactly.”
+
+“Oh, I can’t guess. Tell me.”
+
+“I know you can’t—well, it was—William Gibbs McAdoo! Honest to
+goodness—McAdoo. It sure seemed funny. There he was, walking down the
+street, just like I’ve seen him in the movies half a dozen times. It
+sure gives you a thrill, seeing people like that.”
+
+Why the mention of William G. McAdoo should bring tears to the eyes of
+a woman who had never met him may be inexplicable to some. But tears
+came into the eyes of Mattie Harper. She wiped her eyes on the corner
+of her bungalow apron, sniffed a little, came over to Joe, put her arms
+around him.
+
+“I just—just can’t stand it,” she sobbed. “I’ve been worrying and
+worrying. Your seeing McAdoo seems the strangest thing, after what
+happened to me.”
+
+“What was it, Mattie?”
+
+Quite kindly and understandingly, Joe pushed his chair back from the
+table, gathered his wife on his knee.
+
+“What was it, honey? Come tell Joe.”
+
+“It wasn’t anything—anything to cry about. I—don’t know what’s the
+matter with me. It—it was in Lord & Taylor’s, this afternoon. I was
+looking at gloves—and I looked up—and there, right beside me, not two
+feet away, stood Billie Burke. Honestly! I know it was her. She looked
+exactly like her pictures—and I saw her in ‘The Runaway’ years ago, and
+not long ago in the movies. Yes, sir, Billie Burke. Joe, she’s simply
+beautiful.”
+
+“Well, well, think of seeing Billie Burke!”
+
+“And Joe, when I saw her, the awfulest feeling came over me. I tried
+not to tell you about it—after the letter this morning. I’d been
+thinking about Burton Center—but seeing Billie Burke just knocked it
+all out. Joe, you know I love you and want to do what you want—but,
+I—I just can’t move to Burton Center—unless you’ve got your heart set
+on it. I’d go then, of course—any place. But I don’t want to be—buried
+alive in that little town. Imagine those people—never seeing or doing
+anything—no new shows or famous people—nor any kind of life. And here I
+went down-town and saw Billie Burke and you—”
+
+Joe’s pats became even fonder. He smoothed her hair with his too-pale
+hand.
+
+“There, there, don’t cry. It’s all right. Nobody’s asking or expecting
+you to go to Burton Center. Funny thing, that. I had the same feeling.
+First, passing McAdoo—and then those theatre tickets. I guess there’s
+something about New York that gets you. They’ve got to forget that
+stuff about Burton Center, I can tell you that.”
+
+Mattie jumped off Joe’s lap, took the used dishes from the table, put
+on the pastry and sat down in her own place, across from Joe.
+
+“This is good,” said Joe, taking a bite; “where’d you get it?”
+
+“At that little new French pastry shop we passed the night the black
+dog tried to bite Floppit.”
+
+“Oh, yes, looked nice and clean in there.”
+
+They ate their pastry slowly. Mattie dried her eyes. Joe spoke to her:
+
+“Say, Mattie, don’t worry for a minute more about that Burton Center
+stuff. After eight years of living in the city, seeing famous people,
+living right in the center of things—didn’t we see all the warships
+and airplanes nearly every day? They can’t expect us to live in a rube
+place like Burton Center. We’re used to more, that’s all there is to
+it.”
+
+“I know,” said Mattie, “I’d just die if I couldn’t walk down Fifth
+Avenue and see what people wore. It’s just weighed on me, terribly. I
+just saw us on the train going out there, and living in an awful little
+house without hot water or steam heat—and seeing Billie Burke just—”
+
+The ’phone burred into the conversation.
+
+Mattie answered it, as usual, assuming a nonchalant, society air.
+
+“Yes, this is the Harpers’ apartment. Yes, this is Mrs. Harper
+speaking. Who? Oh, Mrs. Taylor. How do you do. I haven’t heard your
+voice in ages. We’re fine, thank you.... No, I don’t know much news. A
+friend of Mr. Harper’s, a brother of Ferguson, the theatrical producer,
+invited us to see ‘Squaring the Triangle’ as his guests on Friday. They
+say it’s a wonderful show. We saw ‘The Tattle-tale’ last Saturday. Yes,
+we liked it a great deal.... Saturday afternoon? Wait and I’ll ask Mr.
+Harper if he has an engagement.”
+
+Hand over telephone mouthpiece, then:
+
+“Want to go riding with the Taylors in their new car Saturday afternoon
+and stop at some road house for supper?”
+
+Resuming the polite conversational tone of the telephone:
+
+“Yes, thank you, Mr. Harper and I will be delighted to go. Awfully
+nice of you. At four? Fine. By the way, did I tell you I saw Billie
+Burke to-day? I did. She looked simply beautiful, not a day older than
+she looked last year. Wonderful hair, hasn’t she? And Mr. Harper passed
+William G. McAdoo on the street. Yes, New York is a wonderful city.
+You did? Isn’t that nice! All right, we’ll be ready on Saturday—don’t
+bother coming up, just honk for us, that’s what all our friends do.
+Thanks so much, good-bye.”
+
+Mattie sat down at the table again.
+
+“Well,” she said, “it’s time they asked us—they’ll take us now and be
+through for a year. Still, we may have a nice time. But—what we were
+talking about—you sure you are in earnest about Burton Center?”
+
+“You bet I am. The folks at home had the wrong dope, that’s all. Why,
+I’ve got my position here, too important to give up at any one’s beck
+and call. Didn’t the boss congratulate me to-day on the way I wrote
+those Detroit letters? I bet I get a raise in another three months.”
+
+They folded their napkins into their silver-plated napkin-rings, rose
+from the table, walked together into the living-room, stood looking out
+into the drab bleakness of One Hundred and Thirty-second Street, across
+to the factory-like, monotonous row of apartment houses opposite, where
+innumerable lights twinkled from other little caves, where other little
+families lived, humdrum, unmarked, inconsequential, grey. And from the
+minds of Mattie and Joe faded the visions of little white houses and
+cool, green lanes.
+
+They remembered, instead, the city, their city—Mattie had seen a
+moving picture taken, once, from a Fifth Avenue bus—three years ago
+Joe had been introduced to—actually taken the hand of—William Jennings
+Bryan—they had both seen James Montgomery Flagg draw a picture for the
+Liberty Loan on the Public Library steps—a woman in a store had pointed
+out Lady Duff Gordon to Mattie—they had seen, on the street, a man who
+looked exactly like Charles M. Schwab—it might easily have been....
+
+“I’ll write that letter right away and have it over with,” said Joe, “I
+won’t hurt ma’s feelings—she and Dad mean all right. Living in Burton
+Center all their lives we can’t expect them to understand things. It’s
+ridiculous, of course. I don’t know what came over us for a minute this
+morning. Of course we’ve got the crowded subways, here, and it costs a
+lot to live and—and all that. You can’t expect a place to be perfect.
+But—New Yorkers like us couldn’t stand that dead Burton Center stuff
+for five minutes. Why, we’re, we’re—city folks!”
+
+
+
+
+INDIAN SUMMER
+
+
+I
+
+Evelyn Barron dressed rather mechanically for the evening at the
+Durlands’, quite as she always dressed to go to places. She chatted
+pleasantly with her husband as she arranged her hair. Martin Barron, as
+usual a little ahead of her, paused to smoke a cigarette before putting
+on his collar. Evelyn looked at him. She congratulated herself because
+he was good-looking, awfully nice, in fact. Nothing extraordinary, of
+course, but she had been married ten years and he was pleasant and she
+was used to him. He seemed nearly everything that a husband should be,
+and quite satisfactory when compared with most other husbands she knew.
+
+Evelyn was thirty-five. Even as she looked at herself in the glass, and
+was pleased, she sighingly admitted that they were both—well—getting
+rather settled. She was not wrinkled or anything like that, of course,
+but she had gained ten pounds in the past year. She pulled viciously at
+a grey hair. She was glad that she was not really turning wholly grey,
+the way some women did.
+
+Well, it wasn’t as if she were getting on alone. Martin was aging,
+too. His rather sandy hair was receding from his forehead. His skin,
+always slightly pink, was a bit redder now after meals. He had taken to
+wearing low collars, and with his newest lowest ones his flesh formed
+two rolls over the top. But Martin was awfully good. Evelyn knew that.
+He preferred a man as a private secretary and even at parties he never
+paid much attention to other women. A few years before Evelyn had
+rather hoped that he would look at other women. It would have added
+spice to things. Still, it was of no use to borrow trouble. Good old
+Martin! She liked him the way he was. He gave her everything he could
+afford.
+
+Theirs had been practically a love match—that is, what usually passes
+for a love match. Martin had fallen in love with Evelyn, brown-haired,
+brown eyed and jolly and vivacious, at twenty-four. Evelyn, with no
+other love affair in the immediate foreground, had recognized his
+sterling qualities and his good business position and had fastened her
+rather nebulous affection upon him. She hadn’t made a mistake. She
+knew that. There hadn’t been any one else she had cared for since. She
+had settled down into comfortable domesticity, one-half of a “little
+married couple” in an upper-middle-class New York set. It was not
+especially exciting. Sometimes she longed for thrills, but she had
+longed for them more years before than she did now. She was pretty well
+satisfied with things, now, most of the time. Especially with Martin.
+They had quarrelled a bit, of course. About trifles. But, usually,
+Martin was awfully good.
+
+To-night, even. Here he was, going to the Durlands’ without a word, and
+he hated that sort of thing. Yet he went because Evelyn liked to go.
+Of course he would spend most of his time smoking with the men. But he
+went, anyhow. Evelyn couldn’t go alone. In her set, though they were
+awfully modern about a lot of things—all of the women smoked and you
+could go to teas with men if you liked—it wasn’t quite the thing to go
+to formal parties without your husband. In any case, Evelyn couldn’t
+have gone without _some_ escort, and no other man had ever asked her to
+go any place with him.
+
+She wondered, just for a minute, why she wanted to go to the Durlands.
+Whenever she and Martin were invited she always made quite a point of
+pretending to like it. She wondered if she really did. She always felt
+a bit out of things. But it was different from the affairs she usually
+went to. Maud Durland was a writer, the only writer Evelyn knew well.
+She was one of those serious writers of little things who occasionally
+get into some of the newer literary reviews with half a column, or
+write a two-inch filler for a second-rate all-fiction magazine. These,
+when Maud Durland wrote them, seemed to have a special significance.
+She talked them over with her friends and her friends spoke of them
+when she was not with them.
+
+She wrote exclusively about people she knew. You could pick out whom
+she meant if you knew her crowd. She made no money by her writing,
+of course, but she felt that she was in the midst of a career. Fred
+Durland had some sort of a remunerative, though inartistic, position
+connected with the coal industry, and Maud Durland spoke of it
+slightingly and with a patronizing sneer, though she never encouraged
+Fred to neglect coal for a more artistic employment.
+
+One or two Sundays a month Maud Durland entertained with teas in
+her studio. Why the Durlands had chosen a duplex studio, instead of
+an ordinary apartment, except that it was a better setting for tea
+parties, no one ever knew. But all of Maud’s artistic friends liked
+it. At these Sunday affairs, Maud gathered together as many kindred
+souls as she could find. Usually they were mostly married couples,
+one-half of each couple being a mild devotee of some one of the arts.
+Sometimes, though, couples like the Barrons were asked to fill in and
+appreciate. There were always a few single people, too, yearning young
+women in wrong colours, effeminate young men trying to remember their
+poses, young business men attempting, once a week, anyhow, to dip into
+a higher culture than their routine office work afforded them.
+
+The Durland apartment was removed from the stigma of mere pretence by
+being uptown, a couple of blocks from the park. Sometimes Maud managed
+to get real celebrities, a man or a woman who had had things in the
+big magazines or who had written—and sold—a book, or verse writers who
+filled out the pages when fiction stories ran too short and who turned
+an honest penny by working part time for the advertising agencies.
+
+Evelyn had been to a number of these parties. She liked the atmosphere,
+the being with people who counted. Always, on the way home or the next
+day, she reflected on Martin’s stolidity and wished he “did things”
+instead of being in the wholesale leather business. It always took
+several days to make her feel kindly toward him again.
+
+Evelyn and Maud Durland had known each other about four years. While
+they were not chummy and found little to talk about when they were
+alone, they did manage to have long telephone talks. Like most women,
+they found more to say over the telephone than when they were face
+to face. Occasionally they met at luncheon or tea. Evelyn was always
+awfully pleased to be included in Maud Durland’s parties.
+
+Now, her hair arranged and her face made up—Evelyn used rouge and
+powder, but not with any degree of cleverness—she slipped into her
+dress. It was rather a simple frock of dark blue Georgette crêpe, a
+ready-made, with conventional “smart” lines, the sort of dress hundreds
+of women between twenty-five and fifty were wearing. It was not an
+inexpensive dress, but it lacked personality and effectiveness.
+
+Evelyn pulled Martin’s coat a bit, straightened his tie, kissed him
+carelessly on the cheek. She felt she was really very fond of him.
+
+“All ready, old dear,” she said cheerfully. “And please don’t make
+Jeffry crawl along so. It’s late now. Other people drive faster than a
+mile every two hours without being arrested or having accidents.”
+
+When they arrived at the Durlands’, the guests had assembled—were,
+in fact, already eating and drinking. Guests usually started on the
+refreshments immediately on arriving or as soon afterward as things
+were ready. Evelyn removed her coat in Maud Durland’s room, an exotic
+room, like all of Maud’s things. It was done in peacock blue and
+lavender enamel and was heavy with odd perfume.
+
+Martin was waiting at the studio door, and they went into the studio
+together, nodding to people they knew. In fifteen minutes Martin was
+with a group of business husbands of artistic wives who were smoking
+in one corner. Soon Evelyn was listening to the usual conversation.
+This night there was so much talk of the punch, which was pronounced
+extraordinarily good, that Evelyn drank several glasses of it. She
+joined a group who were discussing the newer lighting for the theatre.
+
+“You see, with this new lighting the foots are merely incidental. Get a
+few thousand watts and a few baby spots for a real moonlight effect—”
+
+Then,
+
+“Here’s the man who knows about things like that—all about the
+theatre—writes for the stage—wrote the lyrics for ‘Here Sat Miss
+Muffet’ and ‘Why Didn’t You Phone Me?’ Hey, Northrup—”
+
+A man turned, smiled, came toward them. Evelyn gasped. He was the
+sort of man she liked—the sort she had fallen in love with, vaguely,
+whenever she fell in love, years ago, before she met Martin. She had
+almost forgotten that there were men of that type. It made her feel
+different, alert, to realize that men still looked that way. Of course,
+he wouldn’t notice her—men didn’t notice her any more—hadn’t ever
+noticed her a great deal.
+
+His name was Franklin Northrup, she learned. She felt, in some way, as
+if she knew quite a lot about him. She was a bit confused as to whether
+lyrics meant the words or the music to songs, but she knew it was one
+of them. But that didn’t matter. Franklin Northrup! He was the sort
+that had liked her, when she was younger. Younger? Well, she wasn’t
+old—Northrup wasn’t so young himself—her age or older. Why, she had
+been asleep, had forgotten what men were! It had been years since she
+had really looked at a man—really noticed—
+
+He was good-looking. He was the type she admired, always. Blonde.
+Martin was blonde, of course, but Martin was blonde in a heavy, red,
+sandy sort of way. Northrup was slender, almost thin. His hair was
+shining and smooth. She wanted rather to put her hand on it, to see
+if it felt as smooth and soft as it looked. What a foolish notion to
+have when you are married and thirty-five! His skin was pale, too pale,
+really, and he had lines around his mouth and rather deep shadows under
+his eyes. Those eyes were dark and sleepy-looking, not bright blue and
+stupid, like Martin’s. She knew that type, cynical and yet sentimental
+and intense. How silly to think of such things! She liked his mouth,
+the upper lip rather thin, the under lip quite full. His nose was a bit
+aquiline. She liked him awfully well.
+
+She wished, then, that she had not worn dark blue. You can’t bring
+yourself out—show who you are—in dark blue. Evelyn felt suddenly that
+it hid her personality. A decent dark blue dress is a sort of a cloak
+of invisibility. Unconsciously she ran her hand through her brown hair,
+loosened it a trifle, pulled it a little farther over her face. She
+was glad she had shampooed it that morning. She was glad, too, that
+her eyes were brown and didn’t need any make-up. She bit her lips,
+moistened them, leaned forward.
+
+The others, chatting on about stage lighting, became suddenly
+unimportant. Every one else became unimportant. Northrup lounged on the
+arm of a chair.
+
+“This new lighting is all right, in a way,” he said; “that is, they’re
+making an effort. But, except in night scenes and things like that, I
+believe in enough light. These new birds really haven’t anything on
+Belasco, though they kid his realism. Half of these new artists don’t
+know what they’re trying to do. Take that show they put on last year—”
+
+His voice, quite deep, drawled pleasantly. Evelyn shivered with
+enjoyment. He was nice. She would force him to notice her. What should
+she do? He knew so much about things. She leaned a trifle closer to him.
+
+Another man came up. Evelyn barely glanced at him. He talked. Evelyn
+lost interest. She caught Northrup’s eye.
+
+“Warm, isn’t it?” he asked. He rose, came up to her chair. “An awful
+crowd here, too.”
+
+“You mean?”
+
+“Oh, these groups amuse me. They talk so much of things they don’t know
+anything about. The theatre, for instance. You interested in stage
+lighting?”
+
+“I’m one of those who don’t know anything about it,” Evelyn laughed.
+
+“I know a little and it bores me a lot,” said Northrup. “What about a
+sandwich and some punch? The old girl put a big stick in it—quite like
+the old days, eh? Maybe she knows that is the only way she can get a
+crowd.”
+
+Evelyn rose. They walked off together. Evelyn felt Northrup’s hand on
+her elbow. She moved a trifle closer to him. His fingers tightened
+around her arm.
+
+They drank several glasses of punch, nibbled at sandwiches. Evelyn was
+not used to drinking.
+
+“Wouldn’t you like to get out of this mob?” Northrup asked. “This
+chatter and near-music—I don’t know why I came to this place. I live
+on the floor below—in one of the little un-studio apartments. Maud
+Durland’s been worrying me for weeks to come to one of her tea fights.
+I didn’t know they could be as mad as this. I usually don’t go in for
+this sort of thing.”
+
+Then,
+
+“Let’s go down to my rooms and get a real drink. What say?”
+
+“Wouldn’t it seem a bit—unusual?”
+
+“Unusual, nothing. There’s been so many women in those rooms that the
+hallboy thinks it’s a girls boarding school. Honest, though, it’s
+better than this racket. And a real drink. We’ll just stay a minute.
+Oh, come on—”
+
+“I’d love to,” said Evelyn.
+
+
+II
+
+They left the studio without any one noticing them. In the hall
+Northrup took Evelyn’s hand and they ran down the one flight of stairs.
+Evelyn felt young and buoyant and carefree.
+
+On the floor below Northrup inserted a key in the door, opened it,
+turned on a light.
+
+It was the usual bachelor apartment, but Evelyn had seen few bachelor
+apartments. Once, when a friend of Martin’s had been ill, she and
+Martin had visited him. Once, with an aunt, she had visited the aunt’s
+brother-in-law’s quarters. This, now, seemed wicked and pleasant and
+mysterious.
+
+There was a little hall, a living-room, and beyond it the dim outlines
+of bedroom things. And she and Northrup were here, all alone! How much
+alone they seemed! There was a divan near the fireplace, Turkish rugs
+in rather bright colours, tables and smoking things on them, lamps with
+red-orange shades. These were lit now. The place was not especially
+artistic. The furniture was modern mahogany of rather uncertain
+Colonial design. But Evelyn thought it delightful.
+
+“This is more like things, isn’t it?” asked Northrup. “The air up
+there, cheap perfumes and vile cigarettes—how do they stand it? You go
+to that sort of thing much?”
+
+“No, I’ve just been there a few times. Maud Durland is an old friend of
+mine and she insisted that I come. It’s rather fun, though, watching
+people.”
+
+“Fun enough. I like this.”
+
+“This—oh, yes.”
+
+Northrup went into the little kitchenette. He made a great clatter with
+shakers and glasses and returned in a minute or so with two rather warm
+cocktails. Evelyn had to make a face over hers. Then they each had
+another. Evelyn declined a third, but Northrup finished them.
+
+“It’s a good thing,” he said, “that drinking never affects me. I’ve
+been pouring things down all evening. Some miserable high balls Ed
+Benchley had at dinner, then a lot of that awful punch upstairs and now
+these. If I couldn’t stand a lot, now that prohibition is here, I don’t
+know how I’d ever get along—”
+
+Northrup sat near Evelyn on the couch. He touched her hand, caught her
+fingers and smiled.
+
+“We’re going to be friends, aren’t we?” he asked.
+
+Evelyn felt, suddenly, as if all of her youth had come back to her.
+She felt the way she had felt, years before—before she had met Martin.
+A funny little choking feeling, far down in her throat—she had nearly
+forgotten that—not in years—. She felt a sudden lightness, almost an
+ache of happiness. So—she could still care—could thrill—Northrup—how
+handsome he was!
+
+Northrup got up lazily, punched at some logs already laid in the
+fireplace and touched a match to the paper under them. It flared up.
+The logs blazed a moment later. He turned out the orange lights.
+
+“This is what I like,” he said, “just you and I. Somehow, from the
+minute I saw you, you seemed different—the sort of woman who gets
+things—not like most women ... as if I’d known you a long while.”
+
+“I—I felt like that, too,” admitted Evelyn. “There was something about
+you that reminded me, some way, of some one I must have known ages ago.
+I—you’re rather different from most men—you seem....”
+
+“You’ve noticed that, then? It’s only with a few women—just a few, that
+I dare to be myself. Most women are a stupid lot, crude. I shrivel up,
+mentally, when I am near them. But there is something about you—I can
+be myself with you. You have a sympathy....”
+
+“I’m—I’m glad you feel that. I can’t express myself with most people.
+But you....”
+
+Northrup talked about her—Evelyn talked about him. They said
+sentimental, romantic things, the sort Evelyn had almost forgotten.
+A moment later Northrup’s arms were around her. She should have
+resisted, of course. She knew that. But, instead, she hid her head
+in his coat, a nice coat, pleasantly smelling of tobacco. Martin’s
+clothes smelled of tobacco, too, but this was different, more
+masculine—something.
+
+With one hand Northrup raised her head, looked at her. Then he kissed
+her. It was a pleasant kiss. She had forgotten—perhaps had never
+known—that any one could kiss like that. It left her a bit breathless.
+The choking thrill was in her throat again. How nice it was to be
+kissed—like that—and by a man without a moustache! Martin’s kisses
+were so hurried and moustachy and bristly—you couldn’t feel his lips,
+even—and unemotional.
+
+They stood up, then. Northrup went to the piano.
+
+“I shall make up a song for you,” he said, “a song just as dear and
+lovely and sweet as you are, a song that will always remind me of you—”
+
+His fingers struck indefinite chords. Then he played a plaintive,
+sentimentally pretty little air, improvising words in a husky, deep
+voice. Suddenly he stopped with a crash, turned around, caught Evelyn
+in his arms and kissed her again. She loved the roughness of his caress.
+
+“You dear, you dear!” he said, over and over, very softly.
+
+“I must go—I really must,” Evelyn said. “I—I—don’t know why I act this
+way. I don’t do this sort of thing, you know—really. What do you think
+of me? Coming in here at all and now....”
+
+“I think you’re a dear, a darling ... why, child, I love you ... I do,
+really....”
+
+“I must go....”
+
+“Tell me you’re fond of me....”
+
+“Of course....”
+
+He caught her, kissed her again. She went to the door. They were out
+in the hall ... up in the studio again. The lights seemed brighter and
+more glaring, the voices shriller than ever. No one had missed them.
+They joined a group who were discussing plagiarism—how much it was
+possible to take—not steal, of course—from some other writer, without
+really doing anything wrong. Evelyn was surprised at herself when
+she voiced an opinion. The lights were dancing a bit. She felt as if
+she were breathing something much lighter than air. Northrup drawled
+replies. She caught his eye, dropped her own eyes, met his again. A
+delicious secret was between them. These other people—how stupid they
+were—they didn’t know—couldn’t guess what had happened—while they had
+been talking about nothing at all.
+
+Couples began to leave. Evelyn went to the dressing-room, added powder
+to her face, pulled her hair out a little more at the sides than she
+usually wore it, put on her coat. In the hall, as Martin stopped to
+speak to some one, Northrup joined her.
+
+“You’re going to see me?” he asked.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“May I telephone you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Any time you like. Not—not in the evening, though.”
+
+“Oh, no.”
+
+He put a card into her hand.
+
+“Here’s my ’phone number. I’m here most of the time. I do my work here,
+you know. We’ll have tea—some day this week....”
+
+“Lovely....”
+
+Other people separated them. He was gone. Evelyn slipped the card into
+the pocket of her coat.
+
+
+III
+
+On the way home Evelyn scarcely noticed Martin. She was very happy,
+thinking. They must have talked, though, for later she remembered that
+she had answered questions that he had asked her. The ride seemed
+rather bumpy. That’s all she remembered definitely about it.
+
+At home, she undressed slowly, in a sort of a daze, still with the
+lovely, breathless feeling in her throat. In bed she snuggled in the
+pillows, closed her eyes.
+
+It didn’t seem possible—and yet—this had happened to her ...
+Northrup—Franklin Northrup—his hand ... his lips on her lips—kisses—his
+arms about her, roughly tender.
+
+She slept restlessly, waking up for long periods of pleasant thoughts.
+When she awoke in the morning Martin was already splashing in the
+bathroom.
+
+“You don’t mind if I don’t get up for breakfast?” she called. “Marie
+will have things the way you want them. I’ve a headache.”
+
+“Sorry. Don’t bother about me. Lie with your eyes closed—you’ll feel
+better.”
+
+A few minutes later Evelyn heard Martin awkwardly pulling down the
+shades. She was more annoyed that he was there at all than she was
+grateful for this thoughtfulness. He interfered with her thoughts about
+Northrup.
+
+Martin finished dressing and stood beside her bed, put a hand on her
+shoulder.
+
+“Feel better?”
+
+“Yes, a little. I’ll be all right.” She didn’t like the feel of his
+hand, shrugged it away, pulled the covers higher.
+
+He stamped out of the room in an attempt at quiet. She heard him in the
+dining-room, a faint clatter of dishes. Finally he left the house. She
+sighed with relief when she heard the door close.
+
+Northrup ... now she could think comfortably of him again. He seemed
+vague now, but still dear. She knew she should have felt guilty. She
+knew Martin’s theory about things like that. She had heard him express
+it so many times. If a woman has an affair with another man—and this
+was an affair in a way—not only is the woman cheating her husband,
+but the other man knows he is making a fool of the husband, too, and
+thinks of him accordingly. In theory it seemed quite all right. Evelyn
+didn’t want any one to make a fool of Martin—he was her husband. But
+she remembered Northrup, his sleek light hair, his full underlip, his
+half-closed eyes—how dear he had been when he had kissed her. He did
+care, of course. He’d ring her up to-day—this morning. Of course he’d
+telephone, just to talk to her, to assure her she hadn’t imagined
+things....
+
+She bathed slowly, taking as long as possible. She put some of her best
+bath powder in the water. Then she dried briskly and rubbed talcum
+powder into her skin. She examined her body in the long mirror of her
+bathroom. She did have rather nice lines—for thirty-five. Her body
+was straight and white. Of course—that was silly—thinking things—she
+might kiss Northrup again, of course. But nothing further. It would be
+dangerous—more than that. She was quite comfortably settled. She had
+heard often enough that you can keep a man caring for you only as long
+as you don’t yield too definitely to him. A few kisses ... yes. She
+closed her eyes and imagined herself in Northrup’s arms again.
+
+She knew that he would not call, especially this morning, without
+making an appointment. But she put on her best negligée of
+rose-coloured chiffon and braided her hair in a long braid down her
+back. She felt it made her look younger arranged that way.
+
+He would telephone about eleven. Of course he was the sort who rose
+late. Until ten she busied herself with little things, a bit of
+torn lace on another negligée, reading the newspapers and her mail.
+What uninteresting mail—impersonal things from a lot of women—and
+advertising! Why had she ever let herself get so settled?
+
+That was it. Really, she was not old or settled at all. Thirty-five
+isn’t old. Why, summer was barely over. This was a coming back to youth
+again—a sort of Indian summer. Of course. She would be as lovely as she
+had ever been. Lovelier! She had learned things about life, about men,
+that a young girl could never know. After all, ten years of marriage
+ought to have taught her something—how to get along with men, anyhow.
+
+The telephone did not ring at eleven. But Northrup could ring up at any
+time—in the afternoon, even. He’d said something about tea. Maybe he’d
+ask her to-day....
+
+What could she wear, to tea?
+
+She went to her clothes closet, opened it wide, examined her things.
+Suddenly a great truth about clothes seemed to come to her. She knew,
+vaguely, that she had known it before, that some young women knew
+it—some older ones, too—but that she had forgotten it entirely. The
+truth was that there are definitely two kinds of clothes—clothes that
+women wear for men and clothes that women wear for other women. She
+knew now, as she had known, years before, that some women dress just
+for men. She saw them every day. Yes, she had degenerated in clothes,
+if she had ever been different. For her clothes were picked out because
+they were “stylish,” because they were the clothes other women liked.
+
+She took down a black satin dress. Yes—that was it—for women. Seated
+on the edge of her bed, she snipped at the neck. It was too high, of
+course. Lower, a bit of dainty lace. That’s what men like—plain things,
+but striking and dainty and cuddly. Of course, she had known that all
+the time. How could she have let herself go? Yet she had felt that she
+had been keeping up with things. She felt that she knew, instinctively,
+now, the kind of clothes she wanted.
+
+She finished the black dress, altered another gown with a few stitches.
+She’d have a seamstress in the house. She knew what her clothes
+needed—shorter sleeves, lower neck and touches of lace at the throat,
+hats that were little and trim and would show her hair at the sides,
+or big hats, floppy and mysterious. How could she have forgotten? Why
+hadn’t she dressed that way always? She would show Martin that she
+really needed clothes, get him to buy her some.
+
+Martin ... what a stupid, impossible fellow he was! How could she have
+ever thought differently? How stupid to let her put things over him.
+Why, she could put anything over Martin.
+
+Then it came to her that she didn’t want to put things over Martin,
+that she didn’t want to consider him or have to worry about him at all.
+Why, his being around, the necessary thoughts about him, were really
+too stupid, too dreadful. She didn’t want him near her at all, in any
+way.
+
+Martin—how could she have stood him, all these years? How could she
+have liked him—stupid and awkward and dull, with his bristly moustache
+and his unfeeling kisses? She couldn’t stand any more. That was
+certain. If she went away....
+
+She dreamed, then, over her sewing. After all—if she left Martin ...
+could get a divorce ... Martin would be good enough to let her get it
+... then she could marry Northrup. That was it—marry Northrup, be with
+him all the time ... wait for him in the evening, as she waited for
+Martin now.
+
+Martin ... what good was Martin, anyhow? She remembered that Martin
+had increased his life insurance. It was all made out to her. If
+anything happened to Martin ... an automobile accident ... Martin made
+Jeffry drive very carefully, but didn’t accidents happen every day?
+Twenty-five thousand dollars—that was something. Even the interest on
+that, with what Martin had saved ... not so much, but she wouldn’t have
+to go to Northrup penniless, anyhow. She pictured Martin dying of half
+a dozen painless illnesses or accidents, saw herself his devoted nurse,
+saw herself in widow’s weeds, very becoming ones ... afterwards ... a
+few weeks afterwards....
+
+She ate luncheon, hardly noticing what was served to her. It was two
+o’clock. Northrup had not telephoned. Martin telephoned to tell her he
+had got seats for a play she had wanted to see—she was to meet him at
+the hotel where they were to dine at seven. Plays, restaurants ... they
+seemed stupid now, empty, without Northrup—if he could be there—if she
+were with him.
+
+What if he didn’t know her telephone number? She had told him, of
+course, but it was a difficult number to remember. It was not in the
+telephone book. Maybe he didn’t even remember her name. That was
+delicious—and he had kissed her!
+
+She got his card from her dressing-table drawer, where she had put it
+the night before, fingered it, went to the telephone. She would call
+him, say just a word, ring off. He’d want to talk more with her, then.
+She felt that she must hear his voice, low, deep, tender. What lovely
+things he had said to her!
+
+She gave the number to the operator. Her voice broke into a falsetto.
+The line was busy. She drew little idle squares on the fancy telephone
+book cover some woman had given her for Christmas. A minute later she
+rang again. She heard central ringing the number this time. A minute’s
+ring. A masculine voice. Then,
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Is this Mr. Northrup?” Evelyn asked in her softest tones.
+
+“No. It’s Northrup’s apartment.”
+
+“May I speak to him, please?”
+
+A pause, then,
+
+“Who is this, please?”
+
+“Mrs. Barron.”
+
+He was at home, then. She would hear his voice in just a minute. He had
+company—of course that was why he hadn’t telephoned her.
+
+“I’ll see if Mr. Northrup is at home.”
+
+She waited. It wasn’t a servant’s voice. Northrup had said that he had
+a Japanese valet who took rather good care of him, but Evelyn felt
+sure it wasn’t a Japanese who had answered the telephone. How could a
+visitor not know if Northrup was at home?
+
+The same voice,
+
+“I’m sorry, but Mr. Northrup isn’t in. If you’ll leave your number I’ll
+have him call you when he returns.”
+
+Evelyn gave her number, hung up the receiver. What did it mean?
+Northrup not at home—and the other man had to find out—in a two-room
+apartment! The voice had sounded rather amused, but of course that was
+imagination. But, if he weren’t at home, why hadn’t he telephoned to
+her? If he were at home, why didn’t he want to speak to her? Because
+another man was there? It hadn’t been Northrup’s voice, though. Of
+course that wasn’t possible.
+
+She wandered around the apartment. The day had turned from grey to
+a misty rain. It was not nice enough to go out. Evelyn hated rain.
+Anyhow, until seven there really was no place to go. She telephoned the
+garage, so that her car would call for her at half-past six.
+
+She played a little on the piano, but she did not play very well. Then
+she put a roll in it—it was one of the reproducing players that played
+not badly for its kind. She chose several sentimental rolls, and then,
+seated on the couch in quite the same position she had sat the night
+before on Northrup’s couch, she thought of him. She tucked one hand
+under her cheek, the way his hand had been under her cheek. Didn’t he
+care, really?
+
+Her restlessness grew greater. She must talk to some one. She rang up
+two women friends. They were not at home. Then she thought of Maud
+Durland. Of course! Maud could tell her things about Northrup. She
+wouldn’t say much—nor let Maud suspect. Maud was always having affairs
+with other men, but she was the first to talk if any one else had a
+little affair. Maud was at home.
+
+“You had the most wonderful party last night,” Evelyn started in gaily
+enough. “You do have lovely parties.”
+
+“Yes.” Maud’s tone was pleasantly self-congratulatory, “every one
+seemed to have a nice time. Some punch, eh? Rogers and Maxwell and
+Hamilton each brought bottles and I said, ‘Oh, be a sport and dump
+’em all in the punch,’ and they did, and see what happened. Nothing
+exploded, at that, but it did add quite a lot of pep to the party.”
+
+“It certainly did. I didn’t neglect the punch, you bet. By the way,
+tell me about a man I met—rather interesting—Northrup his name was—”
+
+“Franklin Northrup. He lives in my building. Does lyrics. A dear, isn’t
+he?”
+
+“Rather nice.”
+
+“Northrup had a beautiful bun on, did you notice? Still, he’s more fun
+with a bun on than not. Knows how to carry it. He’s rather a dignified,
+retiring fellow when he’s strictly sober, if at all. He—he didn’t by
+any chance make love to you, did he, Evelyn?”
+
+“Why—the idea—why of course not....”
+
+“Yes he did, Evelyn. Naughty, naughty! Don’t tell fibs to mamma! But
+don’t let that worry you. He’s forgotten all about it to-day. Meet him
+to-morrow, sober, and he’ll be a perfect gentleman. Meet him a bit
+stippled and he’ll start in all over again. He’s the lovin’est man any
+one ever saw. No harm, you know—you needn’t feel ‘ruint’ over it or
+anything like that. He’s just sort of soft and sentimental. And Evelyn,
+he’d make love to a post or one of the Hartman girls if he were in the
+mood. When he’s sober he’s in love with Marjorie Blake. He dedicates
+all of his music to her. And did you notice a tall, dark-haired fellow
+named Millard—?”
+
+
+IV
+
+Maud talked on. When she had finished, Evelyn hung up the receiver
+rather limply and sank back into her chair. So—Northrup was just a sort
+of a ... a town lover! He acted that way to every one! And, when he was
+sober, he was in love with Marjorie Blake! And Marjorie Blake was a
+dancer about twenty, slender and blonde and dimpled, a typical ingenue
+with blonde curls and a naughty smile, all pink and white and young ...
+and here she, Evelyn, was thirty-five and she had thought—hoped—that
+Northrup....
+
+Suddenly, she hated Northrup and his love-making. How dared he kiss
+her—because he had been drinking? If she ever saw him again she
+wouldn’t speak to him at all. And he hadn’t even had the decency to
+apologize—or to talk to her when she had called him on the telephone!
+What a fool he must think her. She hated herself—she had been drinking
+a little, too. She hated him worst of all.
+
+It was time to dress for dinner. Evelyn dressed hurriedly, putting
+on the gown she had altered that morning. How cheap it looked—like a
+shop-girl’s with the neck cut so low! It was too late to alter it and
+they were dining too informally for evening clothes. How silly she had
+been this morning about dresses! Why, she dressed very well for her
+position, nice things and conservative. What idiocy to think that men
+like one sort of thing and women another. Northrup—she shuddered.
+
+The telephone rang. Evelyn ran to answer it herself. It was to announce
+that her car was waiting. She put on her hat, tucking her hair in
+neatly at the sides. Why—she was middle-aged ... getting middle-aged!
+Indian summer indeed! She didn’t even know any men except awful friends
+of Martin’s and the husbands of her friends. There wasn’t any one who
+gave her any attention at all. And now—one man, after drinking terrible
+punch and worse cocktails, had put his arms around her—kissed her—and
+it had kept her from sleeping, worried her all day. Even now there were
+dark circles under her eyes.
+
+Martin ... oh, he was all right. She liked him, of course. Their life
+would go on, together, just the same. But now Evelyn knew that in some
+way this dipping into youth or an attempted youth had robbed her of
+something rather important—of really liking Martin—of appreciating
+him. She had looked up to him. But from now on Martin would be just
+a husband—unimportant—getting bald and fat. But then, she was just a
+wife, getting grey and fat, too, without an adventure. Indian summer?
+Evelyn doubted whether there really was such a season.
+
+
+
+
+A LOVE AFFAIR
+
+
+I
+
+When her mother knocked on her door, at half-past seven, as she
+always did, Laura Morgan called a drowsy “All right, Ma, I’ll get up
+in a minute.” Then she lay in bed for twenty minutes, in a pleasant,
+half-asleep state and thought of Howard Bates. He seemed very close to
+her when she was not quite awake, as if she were still with him in the
+dream she had had. The remembrance of the dream, comforting and warm,
+still surrounded her, though she couldn’t remember the details. Not
+that it mattered. Laura didn’t “believe in dreams,” though she had once
+had a paper-covered dream-book, in which she could look up things like
+daggers and handkerchiefs and learn their significance. Half-asleep
+was better than dreaming. She could change the dreams to suit herself,
+could picture Howard more plainly, his soft tumbled hair, his sleepy
+hazel eyes. She and Howard walking together, dancing together, kissing,
+even.
+
+There was no reason for getting up promptly, anyhow. Her mother and
+Maud could get breakfast for her father and Philip, her brother, just
+as well as if she were down. Lying in bed like this was the pleasantest
+part of her day.
+
+It didn’t seem possible to Laura, now, that less than a year ago she
+and Howard had actually gone together. He had come to see her and they
+had sat in the always-rather-stuffy living room and had sung popular
+pieces, their heads close together at the piano, or they had gone out.
+Howard had taken her to Perron’s Drug Store for sodas and sometimes to
+the semi-monthly dances at Stattler’s Hall or to Electric Park. He had
+brought her pound boxes of candy, pink and white bonbons intermingled
+with assorted chocolates in a blue box tied with pink ribbon. They had
+been to nearly every episode in “Her Twenty Dangers” which had run, two
+reels at a time, at the Palace Moving Picture Theatre. Howard had made
+love to her, had held her close as he told her good-night, had kissed
+her. And now Howard was going with Mary Price.
+
+Laura never knew just how it had started—Howard going with Mary. She
+and Howard had some sort of an argument about nothing at all. Then
+Howard hadn’t asked her to go to a dance at Stattler’s Hall. Not
+wanting to stay at home, she had gone with a travelling salesman from
+St. Louis, a fat fellow she didn’t like.
+
+She had watched for Howard all evening. He had come in, alone, about
+ten, and had danced only once with her, spending most of his time
+smoking cigarettes on the fire-escape with some of the other boys or
+dancing with other girls. Mary Price hadn’t been there at all. Mary
+Price wasn’t even popular with the boys—hadn’t been until Howard
+started going with her.
+
+Somehow, then, Howard had lost interest in Laura. All of her little
+tricks hadn’t helped. Mary’s little tricks had. He started going with
+Mary, instead. Laura knew Mary but not awfully well. Mary had only been
+living in Morristown for a couple of years. She was a silly, giggly,
+clinging little thing.
+
+Laura hated Mary. She knew Mary hated her, too. Hated and felt superior
+because she was “cutting her out.” They pretended a great friendliness,
+with the over-cordiality of girls who are a little afraid or jealous.
+But, lately, there had been a peculiarly unpleasant smile on Mary’s
+round face, a mixture of triumph and indifference, when they met. For,
+now, Howard took Mary to all of the places he had taken Laura a year
+before. It was just as natural in the set of which Laura was a part to
+say “Mary and Howard” as it had been to say “Laura and Howard” last
+year.
+
+Of course Laura pretended not to care for Howard nor to care whom he
+went with. She felt she succeeded for no one ever teased her about him.
+Laura went with other men now, travelling salesmen, Morristown boys,
+too. She went with Joe Austin most of all because he spent money on her
+and took her places. But they all seemed alike, stupidly uninteresting,
+with little, annoying mannerisms. Even the nicest of them was nice only
+because of faint echoings of Howard’s manner. Mostly, they were just a
+little better than no one at all. They showed that she could get men to
+be nice to her.
+
+Not that Howard was at all remarkable. Laura knew he wasn’t, knew that
+other girls in Morristown, outside of Mary Price, didn’t seem to think
+much of him. But to Laura he seemed very precious. He had rather a
+deep, slow voice, a way of drawling the last words in sentences, a way
+of caressing words, even, of putting meanings into them that weren’t
+there at all. Little things he had said were always coming back to
+Laura with a new poignancy, now that she didn’t go with him any more.
+
+Why had she let him go? How had she lost him? She hadn’t appreciated
+him. It seemed impossible now—he was so very dear—and yet, a year ago
+he had been nice to her, telephoned her, come to see her, liked her a
+lot, really, didn’t go with other girls at all.
+
+There was no one else for her. The travelling men and the Morristown
+boys were distressingly alike. Joe Austin was her favourite only
+because other girls thought he was a good catch. Laura knew that she
+would probably never get away from Morristown. She had no special
+ambition or ability. The family had just enough money to get along,
+without the girls doing anything useful. No one would ever come to
+Morristown who counted. She was twenty-four and not awfully young
+looking, a thinnish girl with light hair who was already getting lines
+around her mouth and chin.
+
+There were several boys who liked Laura, Fred Ellison and Morgan French
+and Joe. Joe was in love with her, actually. It always surprised Laura
+when she thought of it. For she never did anything to appeal to Joe. Of
+course when he took her places, dances or movies, she was nice to him,
+a sort of reward for his company. Lately, too, she even went through
+the pretence of coquetting with him if Mary or Howard were present,
+just to show them that she was having a good time. She had invented a
+sort of mask of gaiety for them, a rather tremulous, shrill gaiety. She
+wanted them to see that she was always having a good time, that she was
+popular, the centre of things. It was hard, keeping up, when Howard
+wasn’t there. Why did she like Howard? It seemed so silly. Howard! His
+mouth was rather soft and full and he had a way of raising one eyebrow
+with a doubting half-smile ... his hands were the sort you want to
+reach out and touch, if they were near. Howard....
+
+Her mother called to her, annoyed, from downstairs,
+
+“Breakfast is all ready, now, Laura. You’re a great help to me.”
+
+“Coming right away, Ma.”
+
+Laura yawned and stretched and got up, putting her bare feet into the
+pink hand-crocheted bedroom slippers that Julia Austin, Joe’s sister,
+had given her at Christmas, shapeless things, never very pretty,
+like Julia and all the Austins. In the bathroom she bathed her face
+and arms and put on a blue cotton crêpe kimono, embroidered in white
+butterflies, over her pink cotton gown. She inserted a couple of
+hairpins in her hair and went down stairs to breakfast and her family.
+
+Her mother and Maud, who was two years younger, but more pleasantly
+plump, were clad in starchy blue morning dresses, with checked aprons
+over them. They looked agreeably capable as they placed the stewed
+fruit and oatmeal on the table. Her father and her brother, Philip,
+were already seated at the breakfast table.
+
+Laura sat down, smiled a mechanical “good morning” and took her napkin
+from the plated-silver napkin ring with her initials on it. The Morgans
+had clean napkins twice a week.
+
+“Isn’t she the merry little sunshine!” Philip ventured.
+
+“Let me alone,” said Laura, and her voice trembled. “If you’d been
+awake half the night with a headache you’d be grumpy, too.”
+
+Philip subsided.
+
+Her father looked at her over his glasses.
+
+“Been having a lot of headaches lately, it seems to me,” he said.
+“Running around too much to dances. If you get to bed some night before
+twelve, you might wake up in a better humour.”
+
+Laura didn’t answer. She wanted to scream out, to tell them that
+her head didn’t ache at all but that they annoyed her and bored her
+terribly, that she didn’t want to talk to them, that all she wanted was
+Howard Bates, wanted him there, with her now, always.
+
+She finished her breakfast. The two men left. Maud and her mother, in a
+pleasant buzz of conversation, cleared off the table, began pottering
+around the dining-room, putting it in order.
+
+“I’ll dust the living-room,” Laura volunteered. She had to do
+something, she knew. She could be alone, there.
+
+It couldn’t be true—and yet last night at a dance at Miller’s Hall
+there were rumours that Mary and Howard were engaged.
+
+Engaged! If Mary once got him—If the engagement were announced—she had
+lost him, then. She had lost him anyhow. Of course. Lost him. It didn’t
+seem possible. Howard!
+
+In the living-room she threw herself down on the couch, buried her head
+in a cushion. There, on that couch, Howard had first kissed her. She
+stretched out her hand along the back of it. How many times she had
+found his hand there. And Howard was going to marry Mary Price. She
+wanted to scream out, to stop things, some way. She didn’t know what to
+do.
+
+She got up and dusted the living-room. On the upright piano was a pile
+of popular songs with garish covers, torn. Some of those songs Howard
+had sung to her—had brought to her. Howard didn’t have a very good
+voice, just deep and pleasant. She had liked hearing him sing because
+it was him singing. His hair, soft and always mussed looking ... his
+hand.... And now he was going to marry Mary. She had tried hard enough
+... everything she knew.
+
+She didn’t believe much in prayers—nor in God—since she was grown up.
+She had often shocked her family and her friends by declaring her
+unbelief in any God at all. Yet, now, suddenly, she threw herself on
+her knees, in front of the couch, and buried her head in the seat
+cushion.
+
+“Oh, God,” she groaned, “send Howard back to me. Make him love me! I—I
+haven’t asked for much. I haven’t got much. He is all I want. I don’t
+care ... I want him—please, God.”
+
+She got to her feet feeling a little better. Maybe it was just a
+rumour, after all. How would Nettie Sayer know? It was Nettie who had
+told her. Why, even now, Howard might be thinking of her, deciding that
+he loved her and not Mary, after all. How could he love Mary, after all
+the good times they had had together, little things, jokes, his kisses?
+
+Laura finished dusting the living-room with a little flourish, even.
+Why, anything might happen.
+
+Her mother and Maud were in the kitchen. She joined them there,
+listening for half an hour to their conversation, joining in, finally.
+Wasn’t Maud silly? If only there were some one she could talk to about
+things. But Maud—her mother—they didn’t know, couldn’t feel things the
+way she did. Howard!
+
+He might be going to ring her up. Why, yes, maybe he would telephone
+her. For an instant she forgot that she had thought that same thing
+for a long time, months, now. This was different. She had heard of the
+engagement. She had prayed. Things couldn’t go on. Howard worked in his
+father’s store. It was a musty store that dealt mostly in leather and
+saddles but included some hardware. Laura didn’t like it. It was a hard
+store to find excuses for going into. But he could telephone her from
+there, any time. Why, she used to telephone him there, lots of times.
+He got down-town about nine. It was ten, now. He’d been there an hour,
+more than likely.
+
+“I think I’ll go up and dress,” she said. “I promised Myrtle Turner I’d
+attend to those programs for the Ladies’ Aid Benefit and get a proof
+for the meeting to-morrow.”
+
+Her mother and Maud nodded mechanically. What difference did anything
+make to them?
+
+
+II
+
+Laura bathed and dressed rather rapidly, in a sort of a fever,
+listening all the while for the telephone to ring. It did not ring.
+After she had dressed and put on her neat blue coat and tan velvet hat,
+she made a pretence of talking with Maud. If Howard did telephone, she
+didn’t want to miss him. Then she had a feeling, suddenly, of wanting
+to be out of the house.
+
+She hurried down-town, the business street that stretched out from the
+Brick Church to the railroad depot. Just off this street she stopped
+into a grimy little print shop and received smudged copies of the
+Ladies’ Aid Benefit program. That was all her errand consisted of. She
+had nothing else to do down-town.
+
+She must see Howard, of course. She invented half a dozen errands
+that took her past Bates’ Harness and Leather Store, with its hideous
+imitation horse of dappled grey in one window. She did not see Howard,
+though she peered in, eagerly, as she passed. She must see him! Once
+she fancied she did see him. What a dark store it was.
+
+She had bought everything she could think of, down-town. She had
+talked to half a dozen people, making the conversation last as long
+as possible, giggling whenever she could giggle. She had accepted an
+invitation to go to the movies later in the week with Mark Henry, had
+promised to dance with Archie Miller at the next dance, at Stattler’s
+Hall. She couldn’t go home without seeing Howard.
+
+She walked past the store again. Her steps dragged. She looked inside.
+She did not see him. She must go in—find a pretext for going in. What
+could she get? She had thought of everything so many times. She must go
+in.
+
+Her hand was on the door. She was inside the store.
+
+Ray Davenport, the clerk, a sprightly young fellow, came up to her.
+Had she wasted this chance, coming in—and not seeing Howard?
+
+She knew Ray and smiled at him. She couldn’t ask for Howard, now.
+
+“Have you any—any of those new ice-scrapers?” she asked. “Not the kind
+you chop ice with but the kind that scrapes it, you know, with lots of
+teeth, into a sort of little cup.”
+
+“I don’t think so,” Ray hesitated. “You don’t mean this kind?”
+
+He walked back of the counter, took something from a dusty bin and held
+it out to her.
+
+“Oh, no, we’ve got one like that—”
+
+In the back of the store was an office, with partitions just high
+enough so you could see who was there. Inside, now, was Howard!
+
+She hesitated. Then,
+
+“Hello, Howard,” Laura called, prettily.
+
+Howard Bates looked up, came out of the office toward her. As he came
+she grew almost dizzy, held tightly to her black leather purse. How
+lovely he looked—he was dearer than she had thought him. He looked
+tired, a trifle thin, even, and pale. His hair was dishevelled.
+Howard—why—he had gone with her—had been hers—hers to love, once....
+
+She smiled nervously as he came up to her, and held out her hand. She
+wanted to keep his hand in her own, to run her hand over his face, to
+put her fingers through his hair, on his lips, as she once had done.
+She felt that she could have stopped loving him, quite without trouble,
+if his mouth had been different. Or his hair—or his eyes.
+
+“I’m hunting for an ice-shaver,” she told him. “I’ve been making a
+sort of a new drink we’re all awfully fond of—folks say it’s good, but
+they are probably just being polite about it—and the ice has got to be
+shaved. The other night one of the boys nearly broke his finger with
+our ice pick—Jerome Farmer—it’s taken it nearly a week to heal. So I
+thought if I could get another kind—”
+
+Jerome Farmer was the banker’s son—awfully popular. He had called, had
+hurt his finger on an ice pick. She’d let Howard see that she didn’t
+sit at home and wait for him, anyhow.
+
+He was sorry. He didn’t have the ice-shaver she wanted. How was every
+little thing? Going to the dance, Wednesday? He’d see her, then.
+Before, maybe....
+
+What could she say? She had said everything she knew how to say, weeks
+before.
+
+She was out on the street. Howard hadn’t said anything she hoped he
+would.
+
+She walked home slowly. She was angry, now, at herself. Why had she
+gone in the store at all? Wouldn’t he know that she was running after
+him? He hadn’t mentioned Mary, either. Maybe they weren’t engaged,
+after all. Hadn’t she prayed to God?
+
+At home, she took off her serge dress and got into her kimono again.
+Her mother and sister were not at home. Curled up in the biggest
+living-room chair she read all of the stories in her favourite
+magazine. She stopped in between stories to think about Howard.
+Sometimes she read a whole page before she realized that she didn’t
+know a word she had read. Why had she gone to see him? Still, she
+wouldn’t have got to see him at all if she hadn’t gone. What did he
+see in Mary? A little thing like that! Why couldn’t she get him back
+again? She was as pretty as Mary, as clever, as nice in every way.
+Maybe—still—hadn’t she prayed for him?
+
+She read, listening for the telephone.
+
+At five o’clock the telephone rang. A masculine voice asked for her.
+She trembled, though she knew it was not Howard. It was Joe Austin. She
+had an engagement with him for that evening. He telephoned to ask if
+she would prefer going to a vaudeville show to staying at home.
+
+“Let’s stay at home for a change,” she said, and wondered why she said
+it. Usually, she wanted to be going places every minute. “I’ve been
+out late every night for a week. I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll be
+awfully glad to see you, though, Joe. Around eight.”
+
+Half an hour later her mother came home and then Maud. There were meat
+cakes for dinner and she did not like them. She had not had any lunch.
+She went without lunch frequently.
+
+Dinner was the usual meal. The family laughed over the day’s events.
+She laughed, too, even permitted Phillip to tease her when she said
+that Joe Austin was coming to call.
+
+“Why doesn’t he take the spare room?” Philip cried. “He’s here enough.
+Though he isn’t here much for dinner. You got to hand it to Joe. He
+takes you places. He isn’t one of these home comforts and mealers
+like Howard Bates used to be, coming in just before we sat down at the
+table.”
+
+“Is that so?” asked Laura.
+
+Yet she was not angry. She was really happy when, under any
+circumstances, Howard’s name was brought into the conversation.
+
+After dinner she dressed again putting on a cheap pink frock that
+had done duty as a dance dress before it lost its freshness. She did
+her hair over, puffing it out around her ears. Her face was getting
+thin. She must stop worrying about things. Why, she really looked more
+than her age. Little fat things like Mary Price always looked younger
+than they really were—fooled men. She added an extra bit of rouge and
+powder. What did it matter? She wouldn’t see Howard.
+
+At eight, Joe Austin came. Maud was spending the evening with some
+girl friends. The rest of the family always stayed in the dining-room
+when the girls had company so, as usual, Laura had the living-room for
+her young man and herself. He came laden with a large box of candy,
+the chocolate creams already hardened by age. Laura greeted it with
+extravagant praise and made a pretence of feeding him the first piece.
+
+What a tiresome fellow Joe was! She looked at him critically. Stupid.
+He had light hair that was rather uneven, the sort that can’t be
+brushed quite smooth, but it lacked the softness of Howard’s. Already
+it was starting to recede. Worse than that, there was a thin place on
+the back of his head. Yet Joe wasn’t more than twenty-six or so, about
+Howard’s age. He was much richer than Howard. His father owned the
+Austin House, the second best hotel in town, the one frequented by
+commercial travellers and theatrical companies, people like that.
+
+Joe was a sort of manager and clerk, and no doubt would take over
+the hotel when his father died. He was more citified than Howard. He
+went up to Chicago two or three times a year. He wore better fitting
+clothes, with little fancy touches to them in lapels and pockets.
+Howard wore awfully plain things, always in need of pressing, always
+smelling slightly of tobacco—lovely things—
+
+Joe was rather dapper, even. “Good company,” most people called him.
+He knew a lot of vaudeville jokes, and, in a crowd, could always say
+something to get applause. Howard wasn’t much fun in a crowd. Howard!
+
+Joe was telling a long anecdote, now. As Laura looked at him, she
+wondered why she allowed him to call, why he liked her, anyhow. His
+nose was a trifle too short, turned up just a little. His face was a
+little too thin. There were slight lines in his cheeks. Howard was thin
+too,—a different thinness. Joe was so stupid and talky and useless.
+Why, if he died that minute it wouldn’t matter. He had no force, no
+personality. Yet he was more popular, more of a catch than Howard. She
+knew that. Perhaps that, really, was the reason she kept on going with
+him. What a bore he was! Should she keep on letting him call, talking
+to him?
+
+The telephone rang. Almost rudely Laura rushed from the room to answer
+it. The telephone stood on a little table in the hall. She had
+hoped.... The voice was Rosalie Breen’s.
+
+“Have you heard the news?” she wanted to know. After the usual
+hesitation she went on, “I thought maybe you had. You are one of the
+people she was going to call up. Mary Price and Howard Bates. What do
+you think of that? She just ’phoned me. I guess she’ll ’phone you right
+away, too. She’s having us all in to-morrow night, a little party. I
+heard it last night at the dance. Did you? Howard was one of your old
+flames, once, wasn’t he, Laura?”
+
+“Oh, I didn’t mind him hanging around before I—I—had some one else,”
+Laura managed to say. She managed a giggle, too.
+
+
+III
+
+So, Howard was engaged. Well, that was settled. Gone! She might as
+well wipe him off her slate. She knew Howard. She could never get him
+back, now. She could never mean anything at all to him. Ever. Something
+went out. Life was greyer, would always be greyer. Things didn’t seem
+to matter as much. Maybe things had never mattered, anyhow. Of course
+she’d get over it. People got over things like that in years. Years. To
+keep on living.... And she had prayed to God. God!
+
+She told Joe. They talked about that, other things. Howard gone! Joe
+was talking. She giggled over his stories. She found she couldn’t
+giggle any more. She lapsed into silence. What did Joe matter? What
+if she never saw him again? What did anything matter? Joe—well, he
+was the nicest man she knew—now. A better catch than Howard. Mary knew
+that. Why of course. Mary would have been glad to have gone with Joe.
+Why, Mary had made up to Joe. He thought her a stupid little thing. She
+was, too. Joe! After all, why not? It was better than no one at all,
+than letting people ask her about Howard.
+
+She went over and sat next to Joe on the couch. She rested her hand,
+carelessly, near his hand. She leaned toward him just a little. She was
+glad her dress was rather low. She looked rather nice, that way.
+
+“I feel so nervous, Joe,” she said, “I don’t know why. A sort of a
+mood. Why, I believe I’m trembling. Feel my hand.”
+
+She held out one hand to him.
+
+“Not an excuse for me to play hands with you, Laura?”
+
+“You old silly. Don’t you know me better than that?”
+
+“Bet I do. What’s the matter?”
+
+“I don’t know. I just felt sort of—sad. Don’t you get that way,
+sometimes?”
+
+“Not when a girl as nice as you lets me hold her hand. I say, Laura....”
+
+“Now, Joe,” giggled Laura, and pulled her hand away. Holding Joe’s hand
+gave her as much emotion as holding Maud’s hand—or the cat’s paw.
+
+“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said, and sighed.
+
+“Now, now,” said Joe, and gave her shoulder little pats. “Cheer up and
+tell papa what’s wrong.”
+
+She laughed at that and put one hand over his hand as it lay on her
+shoulder.
+
+“You’re a dear little girl,” Joe said, “if I only thought you really
+liked me, Laura....”
+
+Half an hour later he had his arms around her, was telling her he loved
+her, had asked her to marry him.
+
+Engaged to Joe! The years stretched out indefinitely, without colour.
+Why not? She couldn’t be unengaged—unmarried—all her life. She couldn’t
+let Mary laugh at her—or Howard. Now, Howard couldn’t laugh. Why,
+Howard had been jealous of Joe Austin, one time. She’d show them—show
+Howard and Mary. She didn’t need Howard. Howard’s father was stingy.
+Mary wouldn’t have nearly as much as she could have. She could have a
+new house—or stay at the hotel and have no work at all, if she liked
+... clothes, city things, trips ... she’d have a big wedding, too,
+bigger than the Prices could afford.
+
+The telephone rang again.
+
+“Answer it, won’t you, Joe?” she begged, prettily.
+
+Joe answered it, came back in half a minute.
+
+“It’s for you—Mary Price to break the big news,” he said.
+
+“Want to go to her house, to-morrow night?”
+
+“Sure thing.”
+
+“Shall I tell her—about us?”
+
+“Go ahead, spring it. She’s not the only one with news. Good stuff.
+Give ’em something else to think about.”
+
+She was at the telephone.
+
+Mary was pleasantly polite.
+
+“I’m having a few friends in to-morrow night.... Howard and I—”
+
+“Just heard it, dear,” said Laura. “I’m awfully glad. And just for
+that—here’s something for you—you’re the first I’ve told. Joe and I
+have decided the same thing. Must be in the air. Thanks. Yes ... isn’t
+it? Won’t it be fun ... lots of parties and things together. I’m so
+excited. Aren’t you? You’ve got my very, very best wishes. Congratulate
+Howard for me, won’t you? I certainly know how lucky you are, too.
+Howard is a fine fellow—one of the nicest boys I know. You know, I used
+to go with Howard a little ... before—I—I knew Joe. Yes—isn’t he fine?
+Thanks ... we’ll both be delighted. See you to-morrow evening....”
+
+Howard! With a smile on her lips, Laura went back into the living-room
+to her fiancé.
+
+
+
+
+BIRTHDAY
+
+
+I
+
+It was the old lady’s birthday. She was eighty-two years old and well
+preserved. To be sure, she was a trifle deaf, but not so deaf as she
+usually made out. She could hear conversations not intended for her,
+though she had an annoying way of saying “heh?” when she didn’t want to
+hear a thing. Then, after it had been repeated two or three times she
+would pass it off as of no consequence, and few things warrant triple
+repetition.
+
+The old lady was proud of her age. After all, the fact that she had
+lived so many years was the most remarkable thing about her, as it
+usually is the most remarkable thing about people who live long. She
+had outlived her friends, her generation, her welcome.
+
+She was still useful and quite paid her way. She lived with her son,
+Herman Potter, a thin man of over fifty, who had leather skin and a
+bald head, and his wife, Minnie, a too-fat woman of the same age, given
+to useless talk, exclamations and mild hysteria.
+
+There were five children in the family of Herman Potter and one
+grandchild. They all lived at home except Roger, who was married and
+in business in Harrington. Fred, the oldest, nearly thirty, had been
+married but his wife had run away two years before with a soap drummer.
+Lucius and Phillip, the other sons, had never married. Fanny, the
+one daughter, had had marital misfortunes, also. She had married, at
+twenty-four, and a couple of years later her husband had “gone out
+West to try his luck,” and she had never heard from him again. Now she
+had a divorce, granted on grounds of desertion, and was ogling every
+unattached man in Graniteville. She had one child, a peevish, pale
+little boy of four, named Elbert.
+
+The old lady had had three children. The older son, Morris, lived
+in Kansas City, but Morris’ wife absolutely refused to consider her
+husband’s mother as a part of her household. In fact, Morris’ wife felt
+that she had married beneath herself by accepting Morris at all, and
+held herself aloof from Morris’ family. The old lady’s only daughter,
+Martha, was dead. Martha had been her favourite child. Martha’s husband
+had married again. Her only child, Helen, was married and lived in
+Chicago.
+
+The old lady’s life was uneventful enough and not unhappy. She was the
+first one up in the morning because she “didn’t need much sleep.” She
+would dress quietly, so as not to wake any one. If, occasionally, she
+stumbled against a chair, some one would be sure to say, at breakfast,
+“Didje hear Gramma? She woke me up, knocking around before daylight.”
+The old lady was not very steady and had to hold on to things sometimes
+when she walked.
+
+There were always unwashed dishes from the night before. The old lady
+would wash these and then put on the oatmeal for breakfast. There was
+always oatmeal because it was cheap and filling, and the old lady was
+there to attend to it. She herself didn’t like oatmeal, though she
+listened each morning to Herman and Minnie who would say, “Gramma, you
+ought to eat some of this. Fine. Nourishing. Make you grow young.”
+
+The old lady would purse her thin lips and then answer, politely
+enough, “Thank you, but I’m not one that’s much for oatmeal.”
+
+For breakfast the old lady would drink a cup of coffee without sugar,
+but with milk in it. She preferred cream but didn’t dare say so for
+the cream pitcher was small and the men helped themselves to it first.
+After breakfast, if there was any coffee left in the coffee-pot, the
+old lady would drink another cup, standing up in the kitchen, trying
+to force a few drops out of the cream pitcher to put into it. If there
+was fruit for breakfast, the old lady was given the worse piece. She
+contented herself with one piece of toast, sparsely buttered, for she
+always felt Minnie’s eyes on her when she helped herself to butter. The
+old lady didn’t have a very large appetite.
+
+After breakfast she would help her daughter-in-law with the dishes.
+Fanny affected delicacy. She was lazy and housework annoyed her. She
+spent the mornings in her own room reading magazines or running blue
+ribbon through her lingeries or making rather effeminate little suits
+for her son.
+
+The old lady was always afraid of her daughter-in-law. Minnie was fat
+and slow-minded. She was constantly telling the old lady how glad she
+ought to be because they were all so “well fixed.” She liked to spend
+a long time discussing trifles, how Mrs. Fink’s dress hung and didn’t
+Gramma think it was her last year’s dress made over—she had a blue
+dress last year, remember?—and did Gramma think the butcher gave good
+weight—they had just one meal from that pot-roast, and here there was
+hardly enough of it left to slice cold.
+
+The Potters lived in a large, square house. Herman had bought it at
+a forced sale when the children were small. It was painted brown and
+there were big trees around it. It looked gloomy. It had been one of
+Graniteville’s best streets but the business district had been creeping
+close until now a garage stood across the street and a store selling
+cigars and notions just two doors away. There were numerous small
+rooms in the house and this meant housework. Herman always smiled
+patronizingly when “the women folks” spoke of the difficulty of keeping
+the house in order. He was well-to-do in a moderate Graniteville way
+and was considering changing the Ford for a larger car but he didn’t
+see why three women couldn’t keep a house clean without outside help.
+They gave out the washing, didn’t they?
+
+Herman didn’t consider that Fanny did none of the housework and that
+the old lady really was old, that it was almost a task to walk,
+sometimes, and that on damp days when her shoulders ached it was rather
+difficult to try to dust, even.
+
+In the afternoon when the house was in order, the old lady would
+embroider. She did things for all of the family and for the friends of
+Fanny and Minnie and for church bazaars. She did guest towels, making
+them even more annoying by the addition of bright blue “blue-birds
+for happiness” or impossible butterflies; shoe bags with outlines of
+distorted footwear to explain their use; dresser scarfs with scalloped
+outlines which didn’t launder well.
+
+The old lady did the best she could. She made things people liked and
+asked for. The only times she ever received praise were when she gave
+away her finished works of art. She never complained about her eyes,
+though they did hurt after she bent over her sewing for two or three
+hours at a time. She preferred to read, though the family took only the
+cheapest magazines full of sensational stories or articles about motion
+picture actresses. Sometimes the old lady would go to the Carnegie
+Library and bring home novels, favourites of thirty years ago, but the
+family laughed at her when she did that.
+
+In the evening the members of the family would go their various ways
+without bothering much about her. Fanny would persuade one of the boys
+to take her to the movies or she would go with a girl friend, loitering
+on the way home in hopes of being overtaken by masculine admirers. The
+boys would go to the movies or to a vaudeville show or play pool. They
+belonged to a couple of lodges, the kind of lodges that are supposed to
+have international significance—you can give the distress sign to the
+ticket-seller and get a ticket to Europe in a hurry, though none of the
+Potters would probably ever want to go to Europe. They liked the idea.
+A boast of one of the lodges was that none of its members had ever been
+electrocuted and, though none of the boys looked forward to a life of
+crime, they accepted the fact eagerly and repeated it as something
+pretty big for the lodge. The lodge rooms were pleasant places to waste
+evenings. Minnie and Herman patronized the motion picture theatres,
+too, but they cared more for cards than for the drama, even in its
+silent form. Nearly every evening they went to one of the neighbours
+for a game of bridge or poker or had a few guests in. At ten-thirty
+there were refreshments of rye bread and cheese and sardines, known
+as “a little Dutch lunch,” and appreciated each night as if it were a
+novelty.
+
+The old lady didn’t go out much evenings. She walked slowly and
+stumbled a great deal, so no one liked to bother with her. At the
+movies she couldn’t read the captions easily and that meant some one to
+read them aloud to her, and the family didn’t consider that refined.
+She could not quite master the intricacies of bridge even enough to
+fill in when another player was needed, though she tried pitifully
+hard and her hand shook if she held the cards. The old lady would sew
+or read. There were socks and stockings to be darned and clothes to be
+mended, besides the embroidering, so she had enough to do.
+
+About nine she would nod over her sewing, pull herself together,
+ashamed, and look around to see if any one had observed her, when there
+was any one at home to observe, which was seldom enough. She would
+start sewing again, drop off into a doze, start up, finally take her
+sewing and retire to her bedroom.
+
+The old lady had a fine room. Any of the family would have told her
+that. It was above the kitchen and got the winter winds rather badly,
+so that the old lady frequently had sniffy colds, but it was a fine
+room, nevertheless, with two windows in it. The one bathroom was quite
+at the other end of the hall, but, after all, one can’t have everything.
+
+Two of the boys roomed in the attic, so the old lady could feel that
+she was having quite the cream of things to be on the second floor.
+Fanny and her little boy had the front room because Fanny often brought
+home one of “the girls” to spend the night or her women friends would
+run up to her room to take off their hats. Her room was done in
+bird’s-eye maple with pink china silk draperies. Herman and Minnie had
+the next room. They used the furniture they had bought when they first
+went to housekeeping, a high maple bed and an old-fashioned dresser
+to match it. On the walls were enlarged crayon portraits of the old
+lady and of Grandpa Potter, who had died fifteen years before. Didn’t
+having these pictures show what the family thought of the old lady?
+The pictures had hung in the living-room until Art descended on the
+household, a few years before, when they had been removed in favour of
+two Christy heads, a “Reading from Homer,” “The Frieze of the Prophets”
+and “Two’s Company.”
+
+The old lady didn’t have a hard life. She knew that. She was quite
+grateful for everything that was done for her. She liked housework,
+even. Of course, Minnie had rather an annoying way of taking all of the
+pleasure out of it. Minnie did all of the ordering, all of the planning
+of meals, the preparing of the salad, when there was a salad, all of
+the interesting, exciting things connected with the kitchen. But, after
+all, wasn’t it Minnie’s house? Hadn’t she a right? Grandma knew she
+had liked doing things in her own home. She didn’t blame Minnie but
+it made things a bit monotonous. Not that things weren’t nice, though,
+a room all to herself, even if the furniture was rather haphazard,
+lots of time to herself, things to embroider. If Grandpa Potter had
+lived—but, of course, he wasn’t alive, any more than any of the other
+relatives and friends of those other days were alive, the Scotts, the
+Howards—Martha.
+
+
+II
+
+Now it was the old lady’s birthday. She thought of it the first thing
+in the morning when she woke up. She dressed a bit hurriedly as if
+something were going to happen. She put on a clean morning dress of
+black and white percale, stiffly starched and, over this, a blue and
+white checked gingham apron.
+
+She went to the kitchen to straighten things up. There were a lot of
+dishes for Lu and Phil had brought some boys home after the movies and
+Fanny had prepared a rarebit for them, using, as is the way of all
+amateur cooks, quite three times too many dishes.
+
+The old lady had the oatmeal done and the table set, though, when the
+family came down, one at a time, for breakfast, first Minnie, then her
+husband, then the boys. Fanny didn’t often appear at breakfast.
+
+No one congratulated the old lady on her birthday, though she made a
+great point of birthdays and they knew it. However, it is easy enough
+for a family to forget things like that. So, when they were all at the
+table, making sucking noises over their oatmeal—no one spoke much at
+meals at the Potters’—Grandma announced, primly,
+
+“To-day’s my birthday.”
+
+“So it is,” said Herman, and, with an appearance of great gallantry put
+his napkin on the table, arose and went around to the old lady’s place.
+He kissed her with quite a smack.
+
+“Congratulations and good wishes,” he said, which the others echoed.
+Then,
+
+“How old are you, Ma? Over eighty, I know. Quite an age. I’ll never
+live to see eighty.”
+
+“I’m eighty-two,” said the old lady.
+
+“Don’t think for one minute, Ma, that we forgot your birthday,” said
+Minnie. “You know that we ain’t. Only this morning, hurrying about
+breakfast and all, it slipped my mind. I got something for you two
+weeks ago at the Ladies’ Aid Bazaar. You’d rather have it at supper
+time, wouldn’t you?”
+
+The old lady nodded.
+
+“Yes, I would,” she said.
+
+It was the custom of the family to have rather a birthday celebration
+at the evening meal. They were usually together then and gifts were
+heaped up at the celebrator’s plate and there was a cake.
+
+“You’re all going to be home to dinner?” asked Minnie. The men nodded.
+
+When the men left the table, Minnie followed them out into the hall and
+whispered little warnings to them about “not forgetting something for
+Grandma” and answering whispers of “can’t you do it for me, Ma?”
+
+The day passed as the old lady’s days generally passed. In the morning
+she helped Minnie with the birthday cake. It was a chocolate cake, of
+which the old lady was not especially fond, but the boys all liked
+chocolate. There was a white icing on it and they stuck marshmallows
+on that. The old lady hoped not to get a marshmallow—they stick to
+your teeth so when you wear a plate. There were to be ten candles on
+the cake, for ten happened to be the number of candles left over from
+Elbert’s Christmas tree, and you can’t possibly put eighty-two candles
+on a cake, anyhow. The candles were of several colours.
+
+Minnie commented on the beauty of the cake when it was finished. She
+let the old lady see how good the family was to her. It isn’t every old
+lady of eighty-two who has a birthday cake.
+
+About ten o’clock Fanny and Elbert appeared. The old lady brought their
+breakfast into the dining-room. Fanny and Minnie were going calling and
+shopping and were going to take Elbert with them. Usually they left him
+at home with the old lady. He was rather a spoiled child.
+
+Then Fanny and Minnie dressed. The old lady bathed Elbert, who cried
+because she got soap into his eyes. This annoyed Fanny.
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, Gramma, don’t get him cross,” she scolded. “We’re
+going to meet Mrs. Herron and Grace for lunch, and I want him to act
+nice. He’ll be in an awful temper if he starts crying.”
+
+The old lady didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything when Elbert
+pinched her as she was trying to button his suit. She put on his blue
+reefer and the cap like a sailor’s, and buttoned his leggins, though
+she did wish he’d sit still while she did the buttons.
+
+At half-past eleven the others left and the old lady was alone. She
+peeled the potatoes for supper and put them in water, she straightened
+up her room, swept the dining-room, dusted a bit, threw away last
+night’s newspapers.
+
+At half-past twelve she went into the kitchen for a bite to eat. She
+could always “feel when lunch-time came.” Minnie usually said, when she
+went out, “There’s always plenty in the ice-box for lunch,” and the old
+lady never contradicted her, though she always felt rather sure that
+Minnie had made a mistake.
+
+Now, she found a dish of pickles—she did not care for pickles—some eggs
+and some blackberry jam. She was rather fond of eggs but she was afraid
+that if she did eat one or two of them, Minnie might say something
+about “never seem able to keep an egg in the house.” Eggs were high,
+just now. So the old lady buttered two slices of not especially fresh
+bread rather sparingly and spread a little jam on them. She made
+herself a cup of tea and ate her lunch sitting at the oilcloth-covered
+table.
+
+She brushed the crumbs off the table, washed the few dishes, went up
+to her room for a nap. She liked to sleep, when she had a chance,
+afternoons.
+
+She woke up, an hour later. A long afternoon stretched in front of her.
+Still, all of her afternoons were long—mornings—evenings, too. She had
+heard, years before, that time would seem to fly by when you get old.
+It didn’t. Still, there couldn’t be many more days now—eighty-two.
+
+She put on her best dress of black silk, with cuffs and collar of lace
+that Helen had sent years before. Helen—she was some one to think
+about. Helen—Martha’s daughter. Helen was young and lovely and had
+everything. Twice the old lady had gone to visit Helen. She never felt
+at home with Helen at any time. Helen’s maids were trained automatons;
+Helen’s home was full of strange formalities. Helen’s days were full
+of unusual things. Helen herself, perfectly groomed, cool, impersonal,
+looked eighteen, though she’d been married six years, did not seem like
+a human being at all.
+
+It was nice of Helen having her old grandmother visit her, the old
+lady knew that. She never talked much to Helen, never knew what to
+say, yet she loved her with a strange yearning that she never felt
+toward any one else—maybe because the others were so jealous of Helen,
+of everything she did. The old lady didn’t especially like to be at
+Helen’s—she was so afraid of doing the wrong things—yet, though she
+never figured it out, Helen seemed to belong to her, was more a part
+of her than any of the others could be. Maybe because she was Martha’s
+child. Martha had always been so much more to her than any of the
+others.
+
+With fingers that trembled a little, the old lady fastened her dress,
+the dress that was new the last time she visited Helen. She smoothed
+her hair with the old brush one of the boys had given her. She looked
+at the things on her dresser, the cover she had embroidered in
+violets—they were her favourite flower—the daguerreotype of her and
+her husband, taken the year they were married, holding hands unashamed.
+It was coloured, the old lady’s cheeks pink and her brooch shining
+gold. There was a snapshot of Helen on horseback, a stiffly posed
+picture of little Elbert, a picture of Phil in sailor uniform—he had
+gone into the navy just before the draft law was put into effect.
+
+The bell rang. The postman!
+
+With quick little steps, the old lady hurried to the door, smiled at
+the postman as she always did when she took the mail from him and said
+something about “a cold day,” even while she was anxious to close the
+door so that she could look over the mail. A letter for Herman from an
+insurance company—a picture post-card—a letter in a lavender envelope
+for Fanny—a post-card from Roger—a letter from Kansas City—Morris’
+wife’s writing—yes—she trembled a little—a letter from Helen. She
+recognized the pale grey envelope, the deeper grey seal. The women
+Minnie and Fanny went with didn’t use grey sealing wax with a crest
+stamped into it nor grey monogrammed paper—they didn’t live in Chicago
+nor wear lovely pale clothes—didn’t do anything the right way.
+
+The old lady put the mail, excepting her post-card and two letters, on
+the hall table, took hers to her room. Morris meant all right—he and
+his wife—good people in their way—she was glad Morris was doing well—
+
+Helen’s letter! She opened it carefully, tearing off the edge in little
+bits so as not to tear the contents. The old lady got few enough
+letters. She never knew you could take a letter-opener to them. She
+took out the letter. There was an inclosure, but the old lady let that
+lay in her lap while she read Helen’s rather smart writing.
+
+She smiled, read it again, put the letter back into the envelope,
+looked at the bit of paper on her lap—a cheque—twenty-five dollars.
+
+Helen!
+
+
+III
+
+The old lady took her work-bag and went down into the living-room.
+She’d be careful not to get threads around—she knew how Minnie hated
+that. She was working on a centrepiece, in colours, to be sold at the
+March sale of the Church Circle. The old lady was glad she could do
+things like that. Her glasses were of silver and quite bent. The lenses
+had been fitted for her years before and she had to hold the sewing
+quite close. She embroidered until it was too dark to see. Then she
+folded her wrinkled hands in her lap. She didn’t believe in “wasting
+electricity” by turning it on too early.
+
+She sat at the window and thought about things—about Minnie and
+Herman—how mean Minnie was about little things, about Herman’s
+stupidity and blindness about everything excepting himself. Herman—and
+the boys, too—never read anything or saw anything they didn’t apply
+to themselves. They were never interested in a single outside thing.
+All they talked about was what “he said” and how business was going to
+be. Nothing existed outside of Graniteville. They were so conceited,
+satisfied. Fanny was just as bad and she whined, too—but she had
+Elbert. A child is always a little better than nothing. But Helen
+didn’t have any children.
+
+As the old lady grew older the necessity for progeny, so overwhelmingly
+important in her younger life, had diminished. What difference did it
+make, anyhow? Elbert, pale and in the sulks, usually—the only one of a
+fourth generation. Of course the boys might marry and have children.
+What of it? Of course, if it weren’t for Herman, if she hadn’t had
+children, she wouldn’t have had a home, might have had to go to the
+poor-house, maybe. But then, if she hadn’t had children, she might have
+learned a trade and made enough money to get into one of the homes she
+had read about, where you pay a few thousand dollars and have a nice
+room and pictures in the evening and company when you like. Still, of
+course, things couldn’t be changed, were all right—there was Helen’s
+letter—
+
+The twilight deepened. The old lady went into the kitchen, turned on a
+light, put the meat into the oven.
+
+At six Lu came in, then Phil. Then Fanny and Minnie and Elbert. They
+had gone to call on Mrs. Harden and Elbert had fallen asleep and was
+cross, now. Fanny was going upstairs to “make herself comfortable,”
+would Gramma undress Elbert?
+
+Fanny put on a pink cotton kimono and went downstairs. The old lady
+got Elbert to bed, finally. When she got downstairs she saw that Fanny
+and her mother were busy in the dining-room. She heard the crackle of
+paper. Discreetly she stayed in the kitchen. They were preparing her
+birthday presents.
+
+Dinner was ready. Herman had already come home. Herman liked to eat as
+soon as he got into the house.
+
+The old lady went into the dining-room. The boys were already seated
+at the table. Herman sat down. Fanny was putting the potatoes on the
+table. The old lady found a small pile of bundles at her place, the
+birthday cake on the table.
+
+“This is very nice,” she smiled, “I thank you all even before I look.”
+
+She sat down, unassisted. She opened the bundles.
+
+There was a bottle of violet toilet water from Fred. She got that every
+year. It was not her favourite brand—rather a cheaper kind, in fact,
+but she liked almost any kind of violet. A pale pink satin pincushion
+came next. A card was stuck on it with pins. On this was written in
+Fanny’s rather stupid, slanting hand:
+
+“To great-grandmother from her little great-grandson, Elbert Arthur
+Longham, on her 82nd birthday.”
+
+The present from Minnie was a hand-made camisole of rather coarse
+lace—the old lady never wore camisoles, a fact of which Minnie should
+have been faintly aware. Well, she could make Minnie “take it back” and
+wear it herself after a month or so. It was Minnie’s size, undoubtedly.
+There was a pound box of chocolates from Lu. Grandma preferred lemon
+drops or any hard candies that you can suck and make last a long time,
+but the family liked chocolates. A boudoir cap from Fanny—a present
+some one had probably given her for Christmas—and a combination
+drug-store box of soap, dental cream and nail polish from Herman
+completed the gifts. Phil apologized that he’d been busy every minute
+and he’d “get something to-morrow.”
+
+The old lady put the wrapping paper neatly together and put the things
+on the sideboard next to the cut-glass punch bowl. She sat down again.
+Minnie, who served, was filling the plates.
+
+“Thanks, everybody, again,” said the old lady. “Your things are very
+nice and very welcome.”
+
+She looked at the group, the selfish, complacent faces. She smiled.
+
+“I—I got a card from Roger and—and two other presents,” she said, and
+took the card and letters from the front of her waist.
+
+She passed the card around the table and opened a letter.
+
+“It’s from Morris and Ruby,” she explained. “They sent me five dollars.”
+
+“Not much for a rich man to send his mother,” Herman commented. “He
+hasn’t any expenses from you and all he ever does is to send you five
+dollars a month for spending money. I hear he’s doing better every
+month and that’s all—”
+
+“Now, Herman,” soothed Minnie. She wanted to hear the letter. Ruby
+never wrote to her.
+
+The old lady read the letter, about Ruby’s cold and the snow storm and
+Morris’ business success. She folded it and put it on the table.
+
+“This one is from Helen, from Chicago,” she said. She added “from
+Chicago,” purposely. She knew how Fanny longed to live in a big city.
+
+“Dear Gammy,” she read, and added, “Helen always uses that nickname
+just like when she was a baby.”
+
+She knew the family hated nicknames. They thought Gramma a proper
+pronunciation.
+
+“To think that you’re eighty-two,” she continued to read. “Quite out
+of the flapper class, it seems. This is to welcome the New Year and to
+send bushels of love and good wishes from the two of us. I wish you
+were spending your birthday with us, but I know the family do all they
+can to make you happy.”
+
+The old lady glanced at them all. She was glad to see they looked a
+little uncomfortable.
+
+“We’ve been awfully busy as usual,” the old lady read on. “Since
+Jimmy’s been made president of the company he’s getting so conceited
+that he insists on going to horrid business meetings at night
+sometimes, so, in self-defence, I have to go to dinners with some of my
+old beaux.”
+
+The old lady looked at Fanny and smiled.
+
+“Helen has a good time,” she said, “I like to think of a young girl
+enjoying herself.”
+
+Helen was Fanny’s age. Fanny had no “old beaux,” nor any other kind to
+take her to dinner. Fanny was unpopular.
+
+The old lady went on reading:
+
+“But Jim gets an occasional afternoon off and that’s compensation. We
+have heaps of fun driving or just trailing around together. Jim’s as
+devoted as ever—I’ll say that for him. I’m afraid we’ll never quite
+settle down, even if we have been married a long time.”
+
+“Helen’s a great girl,” said the old lady. “She and Jim—I never saw
+a couple like them. She knows how to hold him. I never saw a man so
+devoted.”
+
+The old lady smiled. Fred’s wife had eloped with another man. Fanny’s
+husband had “gone out West” and never returned. This would give them
+something to think about.
+
+“I don’t know that I think her husband ought to stand for her going
+places with other men,” said Fanny. “It don’t sound right to me. When
+Helen came down here to visit, when she was seventeen, she was fresh
+then.”
+
+The old lady looked at her.
+
+“Yes. I guess Helen did seem fresh in Graniteville,” she agreed.
+“But Chicago’s different. And as most of the folks they go with are
+millionaires, each owning two or three cars and having boxes at the
+opera and making a fuss over Helen all the time, I guess her ways are
+all right up there. I don’t blame men wanting to take her places. She’s
+just sweet to every one.”
+
+She went on with the letter:
+
+“I don’t know what to write that would interest you. We saw Mrs.
+Blanchard, Mrs. Crowell’s mother, at the theatre on Tuesday, and she
+wanted to be remembered to you. She looked very well.... I have a new
+mink wrap, good-looking. Jim thought it was a Christmas present, but
+it came the week after so I’m not counting it. It’s the only really
+splurgy thing I’ve had all winter.”
+
+The old lady didn’t have to comment. Fanny was wearing her old coat.
+She’d been begging her brothers and her father for a coat all winter,
+but they complained about “hard times,” as they always did, so she had
+to make her old seal, bare in spots, do for another year.
+
+“I went to a charity fête last week,” the old lady’s quavering voice
+continued, “and wore green chiffon and was symbolic of something or
+other, but had a good time anyhow. We made nearly eight thousand
+dollars for the Children’s Home.”
+
+The old lady knew the church society entertainments in Graniteville.
+Fanny and Minnie were never important enough, socially, to take part in
+them, but had to sell tickets as their share.
+
+“I’m enclosing a birthday remembrance. Buy a warm negligée or something
+else you want. I didn’t know what you needed. Let me know if there is
+anything I can send you. Jim sends a big kiss and a lot of birthday
+wishes. With love from Helen.”
+
+“How much did she send you?” asked Minnie.
+
+The old lady, who was served last, had been handed her plate of food.
+
+“Twenty-five dollars,” she answered.
+
+She took the cheque from Helen and the one from Morris, folded them
+together, made a last gesture.
+
+“Here, you take these, Fanny,” she said, “and buy a dress with them.
+You’ll have to have something to wear if you get a chance to go to the
+Ladies’ Aid Ball. With all the things I got and my birthday presents
+and all, I don’t need anything. Anyhow, Helen said to let her know if I
+did.”
+
+It was said so simply that, if the family suspected the old lady, they
+were silent. Fanny gasped, reached out her hand. She did want a new
+dress.
+
+“Thanks, Gramma,” she said.
+
+
+IV
+
+The old lady smiled as she ate her dinner. She looked around at the
+faces. She felt beautifully superior. She knew that, for a moment,
+their conceit, their satisfaction had been pierced—they had felt
+something—
+
+The birthday cake was cut and the old lady passed the box of chocolates.
+
+The boys left for a game of pool at the club. Georgina Watson came to
+get Fanny to go to the movies. Mr. and Mrs. Potter went across the
+street to play bridge with the Morrises. The old lady promised to go
+upstairs and look at Elbert who might have caught cold during the
+afternoon—he had sneezed a couple of times.
+
+The old lady finished the dishes. She read the evening paper. Then
+she found herself dozing, woke up, dozed again, woke up, put out the
+living-room light, left one light in the hall, went upstairs. She
+stopped in Fanny’s room to glance at Elbert in his crib. His mouth was
+slightly open, as always, and he looked pale, but the old lady saw that
+his condition was not unusual. She went to her room and undressed for
+bed.
+
+In her high-necked flannel night-gown she stood at her dresser
+preparatory to putting out the light. She looked at her birthday
+presents, the cheap violet water, the unwearable camisole and cap, the
+thoughtless gifts of indifferent people. She looked at her pictures—she
+and Grandpa when they were first married, Elbert—Helen. Helen—she knew
+how to write a letter. Why, she couldn’t have written a better one if
+the old lady had told her what to write. The beaux—the car—the mink
+coat—the charity fête—the attentive husband—
+
+Her birthday was over. She was eighty-two. Long days
+ahead—housework—sewing—little quarrels—
+
+She thought of Helen’s letter again and chuckled. For just a moment
+Fanny, Minnie, all of them had looked envious, bitter. Nothing she
+could ever have done or said could have made them as angry as that
+letter—and none of them dared say what they thought about it. That
+letter had opened vistas to them that they could never approach. It had
+lasted only a minute—but even so....
+
+“A pretty good birthday,” the old lady said to herself as she put out
+the light, opened the window, and got into bed.
+
+
+
+
+CORINNA AND HER MAN
+
+
+I
+
+Corinna had always objected to her mother’s attitude toward her
+father—to the attitude of other women she knew toward their husbands.
+She spoke frequently to her mother about it, even when she was a young
+girl.
+
+“Ma,” she had said, “I don’t see why you slave so over Pa. Your whole
+life is made up of worrying over him and about him. He doesn’t pay
+any attention except to sort of expect it and take it for granted.
+You spend hours getting dinner and having it on the table hot, the
+minute he gets home. He never notices, unless something goes wrong. He
+just eats. You’re always picking out things he likes or that are good
+for him, and having those instead of what _you_ like. First thing in
+the morning you scurry around the kitchen and make me help, getting
+breakfast, and you hurry home afternoons to get dinner. You don’t dare
+ask people to the house evenings, like Miss Herron, if he doesn’t
+like them. You treat him so carefully, always trying not to worry him
+or annoy him—always telling me ‘your Pa won’t like that,’ when I do
+things. I wouldn’t live like you, you bet.”
+
+Mrs. Ferguson was a nervous, round little woman, full of quick,
+meaningless little movements. She had a large, rather flat face, full
+of small but not disfiguring wrinkles. She had always smiled patiently,
+at Corinna.
+
+“You don’t know your Pa,” she’d say, “or men. Men have got to be
+waited on, got to be treated right. Wait until you’re grown up and
+married—you’ll find out. Men have got to have their meals on time and
+got to have the house the way they want it, neat if they are neat, full
+of people if they like things lively. You don’t know men.”
+
+“Huh,” Corinna had sneered, “you bet I’ll never make a slave of myself
+for any man. If I ever marry, the man’ll do what _I_ want. I shan’t be
+always worrying for fear I’m doing the wrong thing.”
+
+Yet, looking among her mother’s acquaintances and at the parents of her
+own friends, she noticed the existence of this same state of affairs
+that so annoyed her in her own family. The man was always being catered
+to. When he was at home, if at no other time, the house had to move
+along with an outward smoothness. Little unpleasant things were hidden
+away. All of the plans of the household were for amusing, entertaining,
+the man. If he liked to play cards, the cards were brought out
+immediately after dinner and one game followed another. The man could
+quarrel with the plays of the others, if he wanted to, grumble at his
+own ill-luck, at the playing of his partners—it was all accepted with
+an assumed merriment as part of life. If the man liked to read, his
+chair, the most comfortable in the house, was drawn up before the best
+light, and the children, when there were children, had to talk quietly
+so as not to disturb him.
+
+“The man, the man, always the man,” thought Corinna. “Just because he
+brings home the money. The women pretend to joke about being home on
+time, about slaving for him, but they do it just the same. You bet
+when I’m married things won’t be like that. This is a newer generation.
+It’s about time to quit worshipping the man, making such a fuss over
+him, slaving for him.”
+
+Corinna, who was, in her way, thoughtful, somewhat of a philosopher,
+worried a little over it. She didn’t like to think that, in each
+household, one person—the male head of the house—should govern things
+so thoroughly, blindly. She didn’t believe especially in woman’s
+suffrage, she wasn’t interested in voting, she knew women couldn’t
+invent things—at least she knew _she_ couldn’t; she wasn’t interested
+in science or art, things like that. She just didn’t like the idea of
+being subservient to—cowed by—a man. Why—she knew men.
+
+In spite of her mother, she realized that men weren’t superior people,
+after all. They were rather more stupid than women, on the whole, a bit
+heavy, with a thick sense of humour. Men were ashamed to show emotions,
+easy victims to flattery. Of course they were all right to marry. A
+girl ought to marry. An old maid sort of admits that she can’t get a
+man. Being married gives one a sense of being somebody. Marriage was
+all right—only married women ought to learn—oughtn’t to be such fools,
+making themselves servants and slaves and an admiring audience, all in
+one. She wouldn’t.
+
+
+II
+
+Because Corinna’s parents were poor, when she finished high school at
+eighteen, she knew she had to do something to support herself until
+such time as marriage should relieve her of the necessity of buying
+her own clothes and helping at home. She felt that school-teaching
+required too much training—would be tiresome—and, besides, most
+teachers became old maids in the end. She didn’t want to go into a
+store. She had no special talent or ambition. So she went to a business
+college and, after eight months—she was not very clever or quick
+in learning word-signs—she was able to take a business letter with
+fair rapidity and transcribe it with some degree of accuracy on the
+typewriter.
+
+She liked the profession of stenographer. It was decent, dressy. She
+even looked ahead to becoming some one’s private secretary, wearing
+good clothes and sweeping in, half an hour later than the other
+stenographers, to an office marked “private,” being consulted on
+numerous business problems—saving the firm money by her wisdom—and
+maybe marrying the boss in the end.
+
+Her first position lasted two months, her next three. Then she got with
+a wholesale hardware concern and took dictation a bit more rapidly from
+the stove buyer, a married man who had four children and who was always
+worrying about catching cold. She settled down, fairly comfortably,
+making enough money to wear nice clothes, arriving at the office always
+a bit late in the morning, always anxious to leave a little before five
+at night, wasting too much time at noon or in the cloak-room gossiping
+with the other girls, but, on the whole, as good as the firm expected
+of her.
+
+Corinna’s evenings were spent at dances or the theatre or going to
+bed at seven to make up for lost sleep. She accepted invitations from
+any one who asked her—men she met at the office or through girls, old
+school acquaintances. She didn’t care particularly for any of them,
+but wanted to be with men, especially those who wore good clothes and
+knew how to treat a girl. She was lively and vivacious, rather a pretty
+girl in a light, indistinct way, with a nice mouth and a pretty little
+nose.
+
+This smoothness of days at the office, and of evenings having a good
+time, continued until Corinna was twenty. Then she fell in love.
+
+She had been waiting, poised, to fall in love for a long time. She
+had been eagerly looking for love, watching every man she met with
+a kind of painful eagerness, ready to yield affection at the first
+opportunity. She met the fellow at a semi-public dance, where she was
+taken by a boy she had met at business college. The man she fell in
+love with was named Rodney Cantwell and her escort had known him and
+had introduced them.
+
+All night, after that first meeting, the name “Rodney, Rodney,” went
+through her mind. Rodney Cantwell! He was quite wonderful, all that a
+man one loved ought to be. He was tall, with light, rather rough hair,
+which he brushed back from his forehead in an uneven sweep. His eyes
+seemed a mysterious blue-grey. He held them half-closed, squinting when
+he laughed. He danced better than any one Corinna had ever danced with.
+He asked her to go to a dance with him the following week.
+
+All week Corinna lived in a sort of delirium. She borrowed money from
+her mother and bought a new evening dress of flimsy pink silk, with no
+wearing qualities—Corinna usually was rather careful to get durable
+things. She thought of nothing but Rodney, to the detriment of her
+dictation and the stove-buyer’s temper.
+
+On Saturday night, when Rodney called, she met him with a delicious
+lump of expectancy in her throat. She learned, suddenly, without
+experience, a new coquetry. Before this, she had been, with the boys
+and young men she knew, more or less natural, as natural, that is, as
+girls ever are with men. There had been a sort of decent companionship.
+Suddenly, this was changed.
+
+On the way to the dance she found herself talking with a new piquancy,
+hinting at adventures she had never had, admirers she had never known,
+a life that was non-existent. She tried to make herself valuable,
+desirable. She became playful, indifferent. At the dance the music
+seemed especially fascinating. She hardly spoke to the few people
+she knew there, preferring to dance every dance with Rodney, letting
+herself lie, hardly conscious, in his arms as she danced.
+
+At the door of her apartment, as he took her home, he put his arms
+around her and kissed her. Other men had kissed her, but only after
+much playful fencing, long acquaintanceship. Now, she yielded to
+Rodney’s kisses in a way she had never done. After he had left her, she
+lay awake most of the night and spent the rest of it and all of Sunday
+morning, dreaming of him.
+
+
+III
+
+Married to Rodney! That would be life! Not the slavery of her mother.
+Married to Rodney, life would have, constantly, a new meaning. She
+could coquette with life, play with life—living became suddenly
+sparkling, many coloured.
+
+Before this, she had not asked for romance. She had never dreamed of
+even this much romance. She had just asked that she become not like
+her mother, a slave to a man who cared nothing for her, for whom she
+cared nothing. Her mother did not love her father. Other women she knew
+did not love their husbands. She saw that, now. They tolerated them,
+because they were being supported. They slaved for them because men
+wanted slaves. Married to Rodney—love, a full flowering of love—
+
+Rodney did not telephone her for two weeks. She thought of him every
+day, more than she had ever thought of one person—one thing—in all of
+her life before. Rodney—she saw his light, thick, rather rough hair,
+felt his cheek against hers. She thought of him every night after she
+had got into bed, picturing him in the dark, imagining herself kissing
+him and being kissed over and over again.
+
+Then, just as she was bewilderingly accepting the fact that perhaps,
+after all, he did not care for her, Rodney telephoned her and asked
+her to go to another dance with him—no excuse, no discussion of his
+two weeks of silence. She accepted him eagerly—and bought another new
+dress, a thin white one, this time. She must look charming.
+
+The second dance was like the first. Her heart sang when she was with
+him. She was astonished at herself, at her emotions. She had not
+thought herself capable of such things. She sneered at her mother even
+as she felt sorry for her. What did her mother—the other women she
+knew—know about such feelings—about men like Rodney? They had never
+even met men like Rodney.
+
+For three weeks, then, Rodney took her to a dance every Saturday night.
+On a Wednesday he took her to the theatre. And, after each outing there
+were kisses in the front hall of the apartment. Finally he asked her
+something—but it was not to marry him.
+
+Corinna was surprised. Then she was furious at Rodney for
+misunderstanding her, at herself for not being able to yield to him.
+She went over all of the old platitudes of respectability—what kind
+of a girl did he think she was? had she led him to think, by word or
+action, that she would dream of such a thing—how dared he talk to
+her—even think of her like that?
+
+And Rodney, with a stubborn sort of persistency went over his list
+of platitudes, too. After all—what harm was there? He liked her all
+right—would take care of her—she knew that—he would marry her if he
+could—surely she knew—had known from the first—that he wasn’t the
+marrying kind. She had kissed him, hadn’t she—encouraged him—led him
+on? Other girls....
+
+Corinna did not see Rodney any more. He never telephoned her again. She
+knew where she could reach him, knew where he was employed. But what
+was there to say to him? She was properly bound with all of the virtues
+of her class. Kisses were all right. Coquetries were all right. Why,
+she had even definitely decided to marry Rodney. Of course, her low-cut
+evening dresses, her little tricks—pressing against him with her bare
+shoulder, of kissing him, of touching his face with her fingers—these
+were proper as long as they were baits to matrimony. They were decent
+then, legitimate. But Rodney had “insulted” her. He had misunderstood
+her.
+
+As time passed, she definitely decided that she had been mistaken in
+him, that Rodney had, from the first, been unprincipled, unworthy of
+her company, that he had led her on—tried to get the best of her, but
+that, at the first hint of his true feelings toward her, she had sent
+him from her in great and righteous wrath. She had had a lucky escape.
+
+For months, then, she longed to see Rodney, but she knew what seeing
+him would mean. She wanted only matrimony. It was respectable, decent,
+the right thing—to be married.... But now it was unthinkable that she
+should even consider Rodney.
+
+Life became dull-coloured, tinted only by the thought of what she had
+been through, of her escape—a fascinating, secret thing. She went to
+dances with the men she had known before, tried to look especially
+nice, in case Rodney should see her. She carried with her, though, from
+that time, some of the coquetry that being in love with Rodney had
+given her. She found that, even though it was artificial now, it added
+to her popularity.
+
+
+IV
+
+A year later she fell in love again, a faint echo of what she had felt
+for Rodney. He was blond, too, but in a faded way, just as her love for
+him was faded. There were some visits to the theatre—Fred didn’t care
+for dancing—a few parties, his salary was small. Then she found that
+Fred, too, had definite ideas against matrimony—would not marry until
+his income was almost twice its present size.
+
+Corinna knew the type—you go with them and go with them for years
+and years, and become middle-aged; finally, after every one you know
+is settled, you either separate and remain single or lapse almost
+unconsciously into matrimony. Not if she knew herself.
+
+Of course she wouldn’t be Fred’s slave if she married him. She knew
+that. But—waiting years and years and then maybe his changing his mind
+or his salary never growing after all—It was not what you’d call a real
+opportunity. Corinna’s pale love for Fred faded out altogether. She
+broke an engagement or two, failed to keep a telephone appointment—was
+surprised to find how little she missed him.
+
+Matrimonial chances did not come in great numbers to Corinna. In
+fact, during the next two years she did not have a single proposal
+of marriage nor any chance that might have been twisted into a
+proposal. Men took her to the theatre or to dances—she was an
+excellent dancer—told her their troubles, allowed her to be pleasantly
+entertaining. She coquetted and flirted and giggled—talked to the girls
+she knew about what a wonderful time she was having and how popular
+she was. One at a time the other girls she knew married and went to
+housekeeping in little apartments. She was twenty-four. It worried her,
+definitely, now, not being married.
+
+Then Arthur Slossen came to work at the woollen factory where Corinna
+was now employed—she had left the hardware concern several years before
+and took dictation now from a grandfatherly old fellow who suffered
+with asthma. Arthur Slossen was not handsome. Corinna had no illusions
+about that. He was insignificant-looking, rather retiring and had a
+slight accent, showing unmistakably that he was foreign-born, a stigma
+in the set in which Corinna moved.
+
+But, because he was a man and new, Corinna smiled at him and coquetted.
+She was not surprised when he asked her, three weeks after he entered
+the office, to go to the theatre with him. He was as unattractive as
+any man Corinna had ever known. He lacked, alike, all vices and virtues
+that would have made for interest. He was gentle, even gentlemanly.
+He was fairly well educated, but, outside of reading the newspapers
+morning and evening, he had no interest in the printed world. From
+his evening newspaper he cut out the sermons written by a well-known
+minister and read from them aloud occasionally. He was kindly and meant
+well by every one. Altogether, Corinna found him as boring as possible.
+
+But, because he was a man and an escort, Corinna smiled at him, made
+eyes at him, went through her whole repertoire of tricks. Almost
+mechanically, she led him on, as she had tried to lead on other men
+before him.
+
+One night, after she had “gone with” him for about six months, he
+asked her to marry him. The proposal came almost as a surprise to
+Corinna. Of course she had definitely played for a proposal—yet she
+had always played for proposals and had never received them. And here
+was Arthur Slossen—less of a catch than any man she had ever known—and
+he had asked her to marry him. To be sure there was really nothing
+definitely the matter with him. He was fairly nice-looking. He was a
+little stoop-shouldered, a little indefinite. He had a foreign accent
+and rather an embarrassed, humble way. But he was really quite all
+right. As attractive as her father must have been, or her Uncle Will.
+After all—a husband.... She could stop work in the office—she had never
+become a real private secretary, after all, and her bosses were always
+married and paid no attention to her. If she hadn’t any chances until
+now, she wasn’t likely to have any after twenty-five—twenty-five is
+getting on—her complexion wasn’t as good as it used to be, her face was
+becoming broader, flatter, like her mother’s.
+
+
+V
+
+Corinna and Arthur were married in June, and Corinna’s friends spoke
+sentimentally about “the month of brides” and gave her a kitchen
+shower. The couple went to housekeeping in a four-room apartment and
+Corinna started in to learn how to cook—she’d never paid much attention
+to kitchen arts before, being in school, first, and later busy all day
+in the office.
+
+Corinna now had more time to notice Arthur. And when she looked at
+him—and looked at the husbands of the other girls she knew—he seemed
+as desirable as any of them. He had a foreign accent and round
+shoulders and no sparkle of style—but what were those others? They
+had other faults just as glaring. But Corinna was glad that at least
+her generation did not become slaves of their husbands. And, as she
+rejoiced in this, she presently made a new discovery; she found that
+she actually despised Arthur. And, despising him, she watched her girl
+friends, talked with them, and found that all of the other young
+married women she knew despised their husbands, too.
+
+She knew, too, why she despised Arthur. It was because of his meekness
+and his stupidity, his lack of life and excitement—because, in marrying
+him, she had definitely killed any chances of a romantic marriage
+that might, some day, have come to her. But, more than that. Corinna
+knew that she despised him—and that other women despised _their_
+husbands—_because she had been able to marry him_. All other men she
+had known—Rodney and Fred and the others, a man named Phillips and one
+named Billy Freer and Jim Henderson—they had, in one way or another,
+managed to escape her. They had been cleverer than she—and avoided
+matrimony altogether, or at least with her. It had been a duel, her
+wits and tricks against theirs—and they had won. Only Arthur had lost,
+simple Arthur, too stupid to get away. So she despised him because he
+had allowed himself to be caught—and to be caught by her tricks—old
+tricks, worn-out tricks, tricks at twenty-five, tricks that had failed
+to ensnare the others.
+
+Life settled down, monotonously. Because she despised Arthur, Corinna
+was able to disregard him almost entirely. She would spend whole days,
+slovenly, in a soiled negligée, washing her face carelessly half an
+hour before he came home, or allowing it to remain daubed with cold
+cream, serving delicatessen dinners or cold meats and beans. She had no
+scruples about cheating him. She was true to him because no pleasant
+opportunities presented themselves.
+
+Finally, bored at staying home so much, she met men she knew down-town
+and had luncheon with them or went to the matinée. She even flirted
+with good-looking men on the street or in hotel lobbies and then
+had tea. The men were not very interesting nor were the flirtations
+very exciting—the most desirable men wouldn’t notice her and those
+who did got awfully “fresh”—but it was better than nothing. What if
+Arthur _did_ find out? What could he do? Kick her out? She’d like to
+see him. What if he did? She hadn’t done anything actually bad. She
+was a married woman, had “Mrs.” in front of her name. It wasn’t as
+if she were a poor worm, like her mother had been. She was a good
+stenographer, could get a position any day, she knew that. Of course
+it was easier, spending her days in negligée reading magazines or
+eating candy, or down-town shopping or flirting. It was a lot better,
+more comfortable, than working. But, if the worst came to the worst,
+it wouldn’t be so awfully bad if she left Arthur. It wasn’t as if she
+couldn’t get along. Poor old Arthur—he ought to be glad he had her—who
+was he to be considered, anyhow?
+
+She thought of Rodney. His proposal no longer seemed insulting now. She
+remembered Rodney—his wonderful rough blond hair, his narrow grey eyes,
+his kisses. She was no longer a young girl with a necessary virtue.
+She was a married woman now, a woman of the world, not a silly little
+working girl. If she wanted a little affair....
+
+She tried to reach Rodney over the telephone. He had left that position
+years before. No one there knew where he was. She sent a note to him,
+addressed to his former home. It was returned to her. Of course, she’d
+meet him on the street some day. In the meantime....
+
+She spent as much money as she could on clothes, as little as possible
+on the household. Arthur was pretty good about money. He was getting
+ahead, too. He had two raises the first year of their marriage.
+Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, after all, he made good? She had never
+thought of that possibility, of his making money. He had been a pitiful
+way out—a way out of working and the stigma of being unmarried. What if
+he became something—improved?
+
+
+VI
+
+When they had been married a year and a half Arthur was promoted
+to assistant buyer in his department with quite a definite raise
+in salary. Then, suddenly, for the first time since her marriage,
+Corinna stopped despising him. He became almost important, some one to
+notice, to pay attention to. He could and did give her small luxuries
+far beyond those she would have been able to earn had she still been
+employed.
+
+Almost unconsciously he took up more of her time. They could not
+afford a servant, although they were living in a more pretentious
+apartment—and Arthur, after a long day in the office, often came home
+tired, out of sorts. He needed cheering up, entertaining. His digestion
+was not good and he complained of “delicatessen slops,” so that Corinna
+was forced to cook a regular dinner in the evening. She did it a bit
+grudgingly, but she was a little afraid of Arthur when he complained or
+when he quarrelled with her. After all, it was his money that was used
+to run the house—he deserved a little something from it....
+
+A few months later Corinna’s father died and her mother gave up her
+own small apartment and came to live with Corinna. Arthur liked
+his mother-in-law, in an indefinite sort of way, and agreed to the
+arrangement without a word. But, after that, when matters of money for
+the household came up, he sometimes dared to assert himself, mentioning
+that, after all, as long as he was paying for the running of the
+household and was supporting, unaided, both Corinna and her mother,
+perhaps his opinion might be listened to and his desires fulfilled.
+
+The next year Corinna’s daughter was born. Corinna did not especially
+want a baby. Still, all of her friends were having them.... When she
+knew the baby was coming, she yielded herself deliberately to having
+it, spending more months than necessary in the house in negligée,
+ashamed to go on the street on account of her figure. She lay on the
+couch then, ate huge amounts of chocolates and read sentimental stories
+in the magazines. After the baby came she did not regain her figure,
+but retained some of the plumpness which characterized her mother.
+
+There was a maid, now, an ill-trained, slow girl, but, even so, Corinna
+did not resume the pursuits of her early married life. There were
+fewer teas with men acquaintances. Perhaps because she was heavier and
+less entertaining, perhaps because the baby took up much of her time,
+perhaps because her mother and Arthur seemed to question her more,
+there seemed fewer chances for “fun.” She associated more with women
+and talked babies and servants and played bridge. At the end of two
+years another baby came, Arthur, junior, and before another two years
+had passed, Corinna’s third child, Archie, was born.
+
+Corinna was definitely middle-aged, now, although she felt that she
+was still young and didn’t look her age, nearly. She spent her time
+with the children mostly, for even with the help of her mother and the
+one maid, the children were always falling down or crying or needing
+attention.
+
+There was always a lot to do. When she went down-town, it was usually,
+definitely, on a shopping trip, with a list of things in her purse that
+had to be looked after. She wore rather expensive things, a bit flashy,
+too full of ornament, not very carefully made, sometimes torn where one
+of the children had pulled, but quite “in style” as to the cut of the
+skirt and the colour.
+
+Arthur did very well in business. When Beatrice, the oldest child, was
+twelve, he became buyer for his department. With the years, Arthur had
+changed a little, too. He was a nervous fellow and, when he was home,
+he insisted that the children be kept quiet. He was on rather a strict
+diet, which precluded most good things to eat and did not help his
+disposition. But he retained his quiet habits and his love of home and
+did not develop any new desires outside of his business ambitions.
+
+
+VII
+
+It was when Beatrice was thirteen that she said something which
+surprised Corinna.
+
+“Mother,” she said, “when I get grown up and married, you bet I’m not
+going to be a slave to a husband, the way you are to Dad.”
+
+“The way I am, Bee? How can you talk like that? Your father is the
+kindest man. Doesn’t he give you everything? He never....”
+
+“He’s good to us, of course,” the child persisted. “It isn’t that.
+It’s just—you’re sort of a slave to him. I guess all women are. You
+bet I won’t be when I’m grown up and married. You were worried all day
+yesterday for fear Miss Loftus would call last night, because she gets
+on Father’s nerves.”
+
+“You know how nervous he is; mustn’t be bothered....”
+
+“Oh, I know. Only it doesn’t keep you from being a slave. You worry
+about what he eats—and if he’s a little late, coming home from the
+office—and if company stays too late—and if the matinée lasts too long
+and he’ll be home first—and about his meals and clothes.”
+
+“Nonsense,” said Corinna, “you don’t understand men, dear. They like to
+have their meals on time, things regular. When you are grown up....”
+
+When her daughter had gone away, Corinna looked back a little at her
+own life, started to think about things, puzzled over things as she
+had done when she was younger. With the children and all, there had
+been little time for introspection. She remembered what she had said to
+her mother, years before. She had believed—all this time—that she had
+followed her original plan of independence. She—a slave—to a man—as her
+mother had been—nonsense! Why—Arthur was no one to slave for—Arthur!
+
+She had thought—all these years—indefinitely—that she still looked down
+on Arthur, did as she pleased. But she knew, finally now, that after
+the first year or two of matrimony she had never done that. She knew
+that her daughter was right, as she had been right. All she was living
+for was peace and quiet, a regular household, the children well, Arthur
+satisfied.
+
+There had been quarrels, a few years before. But Corinna had found that
+Arthur hadn’t greatly minded quarrelling. There were always quarrels
+in the office, it seemed. One quarrel more or less, in a day, hadn’t
+mattered to him. But Corinna’s day was so tasteless—children, the
+household—that it was Arthur’s coming home that added flavour to her
+life. Arthur—whom she had so despised! She had wanted peace in the
+evenings, because evenings were the pleasantest part of the day. She
+knew now, as she must have recognized subconsciously then, that Arthur
+was the important thing in her life, that his home-comings were the big
+events for her.
+
+Now she was fat and thirty-eight and already slightly wrinkled.
+There was nobody—nothing—she was interested in. The children—her
+home, of course—but outside of that. She doubted if she could take
+shorthand notes if she tried. She knew she could no longer operate a
+typewriter—older women couldn’t get positions, anyhow.
+
+She thought of long days of dictation in an office, and shuddered.
+Arthur made a good living. There were two servants, now, and a good
+sized apartment and a little place up in the country for the summer.
+They might even afford a small car next year. Arthur was particular,
+of course, a bit cranky, even. He still cared for her, never looked
+at other women, she knew that. He was not very affectionate, never had
+been. She had been glad of that, at one time. Now she almost wished he
+were a bit more demonstrative. But he still spoke of their marriage
+as a success, of their affair as a “love match.” She was glad he felt
+that way. After all, life was pleasant enough; little household things
+during the day, shopping, bridge, matinées—Arthur in the evenings.
+Other women envied her—her home and her children and Arthur. Why,
+Arthur was nicer than most husbands. She went over in her mind all of
+the women she knew—all the same—as they had been when she was a little
+girl—all struggling, working to please the man—the man—
+
+Corinna remembered how strongly she had felt against this when she was
+a little girl. She knew how her daughter was beginning to feel now. It
+wasn’t fair of course. It didn’t seem right—that the man should always
+come first, that his wishes should come first—that she should spend
+hours—her days—her life—planning for him, doing things for him—always
+the man—the man.
+
+Yet Corinna thought of the women she knew who had never married—fearing
+each day that they’d be too old to be allowed to keep on
+working—discontented, lonely. She knew that women, like herself, who
+had accepted matrimony—or who had reached for and found matrimony—were
+slaves. It wasn’t fair. But life wasn’t fair to women. You couldn’t
+get out of it—do anything about it. If you weren’t married—and didn’t
+have money—you were lonely, worked hard—had a difficult time of it.
+If you were married—Corinna knew people only in her own class—you
+were a slave—as much of a slave as if you had lived hundreds of years
+ago. Life was not beautiful nor romantic nor lovely. She did not love
+Arthur—yet, she certainly did not despise him—she really admired him
+a great deal—getting ahead without pull or anything like that. He
+worked hard—didn’t get much out of life, either, deserved peace and
+quiet, things the way he wanted them at home. Life was funny, not
+especially interesting—children—little things.... She was a slave, of
+course—still, life was better than it might be—some one to look forward
+to seeing in the evenings—to worry about pleasing—to do things for—a
+man.
+
+
+
+
+THE END OF ANNA
+
+
+I
+
+Anna Clark committed suicide. She did it stupidly, with no striving
+after effects, no dramatic value. Her death seemed as unfinished as her
+life. At thirty-five, after ten years of an apparently happy enough
+marriage, early in the afternoon of a calm, clear day, she swallowed
+a dose of rather unpleasant poison and died before any one found out
+about it.
+
+The incompleteness of Anna Clark’s death lay in her own
+thoughtlessness. She did not leave even one short note to tell of her
+reasons. There was nothing well-rounded about the affair. One expects
+at least a note from a suicide. It is little enough, considering the
+annoyance the whole thing causes. Hurriedly, hysterically written, left
+on the dresser to be discovered by the first horrified intruder, a note
+forms the final, definite thing to talk about. Anna Clark never liked
+to write. She proved her own incompetence, her inadequacy, her love of
+avoidance of duties, by neglecting note-writing now. No one ever knew
+why she chose to escape from a continuance of life as it had come to
+her.
+
+
+II
+
+Anna’s younger sister found the body. It was late afternoon. Anna must
+have taken the poison about one o’clock, it was proved later. Ruth, as
+was her wont, came by to get Anna to go for a walk or a call. Ruth, who
+was married to a clerk in a haberdashery—a well-appearing chap, too,
+who could criticize your cravats and tell you if your trousers were of
+a proper cut—lived in an apartment similar to Anna’s, though a trifle
+less expensive. Anna’s husband, a city salesman for a spice concern,
+was doing well and his commissions were far above what they had been
+at the time of his marriage, almost far enough to make him talk,
+ambitiously, of a permanent savings account in a year or two.
+
+Ruth usually called for Anna about three o’clock. If it was a nice
+day, the two women would meet other women of their acquaintance,
+whom they called “the girls,” and, in groups of three or more, would
+go down-town, spending a pleasant hour or two looking in the shop
+windows on Fifth Avenue or on the less pretentious, but to them, more
+accommodating side streets.
+
+Then Anna would go home, stopping in at a neighbourhood combination
+meat and vegetable market to purchase her supplies for the evening
+meal, cooking it so that it would be ready just when Fred Clark got in,
+which was usually about half-past six. Fred did not dress for dinner,
+but contented himself by washing his hands, hurriedly, as adequate
+preparation. Fred liked his meals on time.
+
+Sometimes “the girls” spent the afternoons sewing at the home of one
+of them or calling on more distant acquaintances. They all lived in
+practically identical apartments, differing only as to a choice of wall
+paper, of fumed oak or highly polished mahogany for living rooms and
+of four-poster or brass beds in the sleeping chambers. Sometimes each
+“girl” spent the afternoon alone, but this was restricted, usually, to
+rainy days or days too threatening to venture out. On those days, “the
+girls” spent their individual afternoons doing their less nice darning
+and sewing, washing garments too fragile to be trusted to the laundry
+or making batches of fudge, according to their individual needs and
+desires.
+
+Ruth had a key to her sister’s apartment, an extra key, made for Anna’s
+mother-in-law, who lived in Canton, Ohio, and came up each Spring for
+a visit. Anna had given it to Ruth a few weeks before so that Ruth
+might get a package in her absence. So, when her ring failed to bring
+response, Ruth did not need to summon the janitor in order to gain
+admission. She thought that perhaps her sister had gone out earlier and
+left a note for her on the table.
+
+Ruth opened the door with the key, which had lain next to her own in
+her purse, and went in. The living room was in its usual condition,
+fairly neat, stiffly arranged, dusty in the corners. The mahogany
+“set” of three pieces, green velour upholstered, a gift from Fred two
+Christmases ago, the wicker chair with the broken arm, the oval centre
+table with its rose-coloured silk shade, which Anna had made with the
+help of “free instruction” given when you buy materials at one of
+the department stores, all stood in their accustomed places. In the
+bedroom, the bird’s-eye maple set looked as impudently clean as ever.
+
+In the bathroom, Ruth found Anna. She screamed. Then she went closer
+and examined the body curiously, as if Anna were a stranger. Anna was
+fully dressed. She was wearing her new waist and her tan spats.
+
+Ruth screamed again.
+
+She got out into the hall.
+
+A bill collector for an instalment furniture house was coming out of
+one of the other apartments and heard her. He went to find the janitor.
+
+In less than five minutes a crowd had gathered. Two policemen were
+there, questioning every one, writing in small notebooks with thick
+fingers and stubs of pencils and giving out sullen, inaccurate
+information.
+
+Ruth gave her name and Anna’s and Fred Clark’s name and business
+address and told about finding the body. In half an hour Fred Clark
+was there, questioning, being questioned, sorrowful, melancholy, yet
+conscious of his importance.
+
+The funeral was two days later. “The girls” all sent flowers and the
+spice firm employés sent a large wreath bought from money collected by
+the bookkeeper, who always did such things. Every one said Anna was
+well remembered and that it was a nice funeral.
+
+After the funeral, Fred let Anna’s two sisters, Ruth and Sophie, and
+his brother Philip’s wife take what they wanted of the household
+things, and sold the rest to a second-hand dealer, where they brought
+little enough, and he went to live with Philip, who had a room for him,
+since his oldest boy had gone West on business.
+
+Ever since she discovered the body, Ruth had tried to find out why Anna
+committed suicide. It was such a terrible thing to do—the worst thing
+you could do—just to end things—like that. How Anna must have suffered
+there, alone! Yet she never left a note or anything. Ruth couldn’t
+quite understand it. She knew that she never could do away with
+herself. She was prettier than Anna had been, rather plump and blonde,
+with little, fine lines around her mouth and light eyes, which had been
+very blue when she was sixteen.
+
+After a few days, when things began to settle down a little, and Ruth
+had become accustomed to thinking of Anna as being dead and no longer
+fell asleep meditating on getting black clothes or the awfulness of
+finding Anna in the bathroom, she began to reason out for herself why
+Anna had committed suicide. And, after a while, it came to her and she
+didn’t blame Anna at all. In fact, she wondered why she herself didn’t
+do it.
+
+Anna had committed suicide, of course, because she had been in love.
+Ruth knew now whom Anna had been in love with. Why hadn’t she suspected
+it sooner? Of course, Anna was in love with Martin, the clerk at the
+Good Measure Grocery and Meat Market.
+
+It was very plain to Ruth, as she thought about it. She remembered how,
+when the other girls suggested buying things at grocery departments
+of down-town department stores, Anna always said; “Oh, let’s not do
+that, and carry all the bundles home on the subway.” And, if any one
+suggested having things sent, Anna always reminded them how long it
+took for deliveries—days sometimes—and down-town stores never would
+deliver fresh vegetables and fruits at all. “I like the little stores
+in my own neighbourhood,” Anna would add.
+
+Ruth remembered that Anna had remarked, many times, on the beauty of
+the clerk Martin’s eyelashes. They were beautiful—long and dark and
+heavy, and his eyes were an odd shape. Ruth remembered how Anna often
+lingered with Martin, after the others had given their orders and
+teased him about things or pretended to scold because she had not been
+given full measure. And Ruth remembered, too, how Anna always got the
+pick of everything.
+
+Of course Martin—Ruth never even knew if that was his first or his last
+name—was the social inferior of their family. No one she knew had ever
+worked in a grocery store. But, even so, that couldn’t keep Anna from
+being in love with him. Of course, there hadn’t been anything between
+them. Ruth knew that. She had been with her sister every day and knew
+Anna was absolutely moral and all that, but, no doubt, it was the
+hopelessness of it—loving Martin and seeing only a glimpse of him every
+day and maybe even knowing that he didn’t love her in return. It was
+quite too awful. And yet Ruth knew how Anna had felt.
+
+For Ruth was in love too. If Anna had only confided in her, she could
+have confided in Anna. It just shows how little sisters really know one
+another.
+
+Of course, Ruth knew that her love was far different from Anna’s, far
+deeper and truer and more lasting. Though, at that, hadn’t Anna’s love
+lasted as long as she had? But, of course, there was a difference. For
+Ruth was in love with no mere grocer’s clerk. She was in love with
+Towers Wellman, her husband’s best friend.
+
+Towers Wellman worked at the same haberdasher’s shop as her husband
+even, but there the resemblance ended. For, while Dick was a nice
+little fellow, quite loving and attentive, he never quite understood
+things. His mind was wrapped up in collars and underwear sales. But
+Towers Wellman was a man of the world. He belonged to a bowling club
+and a political club and went to stag dinners. He was not married and
+he made jokes about matrimony.
+
+Ruth knew three women who were hopelessly in love with him. Towers had
+told Ruth about the women himself. Dick would bring Towers home to
+dinner and Ruth would spend the whole afternoon preparing things he
+liked, and, in the evening, the three of them would attend a moving
+picture show, and, sometimes, before she knew it, when there was a dark
+scene, Towers would be holding her hand.
+
+Ruth thought of Towers the last thing before she went to sleep at
+night, visualizing his dark, lean profile, his deep-set eyes, his
+black, waved hair. No wonder women, rich women, were in love with him.
+And yet, Ruth felt that he loved her alone. Frequently, half in fun, he
+had told how he had broken an important social engagement to come to
+dinner, but Ruth knew that the look he gave her had a double meaning,
+for he _had_ come to dinner, and there wasn’t a reason in the world why
+some rich woman hadn’t invited him first.
+
+So—Anna had been in love too! And she had felt so badly over it that
+she had taken poison! Maybe the affair had gone further than Ruth
+suspected! Yet, how could it? Wasn’t Fred home every evening and hadn’t
+she seen Anna every day?
+
+Ruth almost wished that she had the courage to kill herself, or
+something. It was mighty hard, living with one man and loving another
+one. And spending the days chatting about other things, never talking
+about what you want to talk about or getting near the one you care for.
+Never daring to tell any one about things! Maybe, if she and Anna had
+confided in each other.... But, it was too late for that now. Anna had
+loved and found it hopeless, and gone out.
+
+Ruth knew her love was hopeless, too. For, though she loved Towers and
+felt that he loved her, she knew that he was too little to take her
+away with him. She loved him none the less for his prudence, for she
+was rather a coward and hated scandals and things like that herself.
+Anna’s suicide was bad enough. The family would never quite recover
+from it. Oh, well, life was pretty messy after all. Here she had to
+keep on, day after day, and Towers was the only one she cared for.
+Nothing else, no one else mattered. If only Towers and she could go
+away some place, away from every one and be happy together! And she
+never could do that, she knew. After all, hadn’t Anna done the wiser
+thing?
+
+
+III
+
+Sophie missed her younger sister a great deal. The girls were orphans,
+their mother had died when Sophie was fourteen and their father three
+years later, and Sophie, though just a few years older, had really
+raised Anna.
+
+The last year Sophie didn’t see Ruth and Anna frequently, for Sophie
+had four children and children take time. Sophie’s husband was a union
+tailor and was on strike a great deal and she couldn’t dress well or
+have things as nice as the two younger girls. Not that she envied
+them, only—well, there wasn’t much use feeling bad by trying to go with
+them anyhow. They had their own crowd and were younger and smarter and
+different. But fine girls, of course.
+
+Sophie thought about Anna as she mended always-torn blouses and washed
+always-dirty dishes. Why had Anna done such a thing? After all the time
+she had spent raising her! It seemed as if Anna were only a little
+girl, instead of a woman of thirty-five. But even thirty-five is young
+when one has a lot to live for. Didn’t Anna have? Sophie had always
+thought of her two younger sisters as rather happy and fortunate.
+Surely, Anna had always seemed happy. And yet....
+
+What had made Anna hate the world enough to want to get out of it? She
+had a nice home, nicer than Sophie would ever have. There surely were
+no debts. Certainly they got along well enough together, Anna and Fred.
+
+But did they?
+
+People thought that she and Steve got along all right too. You can keep
+people from finding out things like that, if you’re careful. Hadn’t she
+done it? For years and years? And she probably would keep on, until the
+kids were grown up and then—oh, how could she get along any other way?
+It was more than a habit.
+
+Still, Fred didn’t drink. At least, at first, Sophie was pretty certain
+he didn’t. You couldn’t be too sure. People didn’t all know about Steve.
+
+Though Steve was working, now, Sophie shuddered and walked quietly, as
+if he were asleep in the next room. For Steve got paid on Saturday,
+when he “worked steady,” and on Saturday night he came in, his pay
+envelope pitifully depleted, smelling horribly of cheap whisky, and
+cursing. She’d pray the children wouldn’t hear and she’d get him to bed.
+
+In the morning he’d be sick and lay there saying things he shouldn’t,
+though usually he’d be up and able to work on Monday. It wasn’t that
+Steve drank more than most men. It was just that he was the sort that
+shouldn’t drink at all. Even the doctor said he had a delicate stomach
+and couldn’t stand it. But he did drink, though not so terribly often
+like some men.
+
+But even when Steve didn’t drink, things weren’t so much better. He
+had a mean disposition, the kind that can take an innocent phrase and
+boomerang it into a sneer. He was never quite satisfied about things,
+about his home, about his children. He hated the Government and joined
+various political societies, getting into fights with the neighbourhood
+leaders and hating them in turn. Steve wouldn’t read several of the
+newspapers, because he “had it in for them” and their policies. He
+disliked Sophie’s friends and her relatives, and quarrelled because
+he had to spend the evening with them occasionally. He called Dick a
+“damned white-collared little snob” and Fred was a “sick roach who
+hadn’t the liver to have a will of his own.” Steve was not a pleasant
+person to live with.
+
+Thinking over her life since her marriage and the life of Anna, since
+her marriage, as she knew it, little things came to Sophie which showed
+her that Fred was not all that Anna tried to picture him. She saw,
+now, clearly enough, that Anna had been brave, that she had tried to
+conceal Fred’s failings, but that, underneath, she hated him for his
+cruelty to her. Little things that Anna had said proved this. It could
+be nothing else.
+
+Why hadn’t Anna left Fred? Sophie felt that she would have left Steve
+years ago, if it hadn’t been for the kids. Anna could have left—any
+day. Only herself to look out for and she had been a cashier before
+her marriage and could have always made a living. Still, maybe she
+did think of that way—and decided against it. Sophie felt that there
+was something noble, something brave, about what Anna had done. She
+wished she could do it. She wished it on Saturday nights, when Steve
+was drinking and on many other nights when he wasn’t. There wasn’t very
+much use in living, most of the time.
+
+And yet—the kids. They were sweet. They had mean tempers sometimes,
+especially little Steve, who could be really bad. But then, again,
+sometimes when they were in bed, they’d let her put her arms around
+them, tight, some nights, and kiss her in return, too. They were sweet,
+the kids, and worth a lot of hard things.
+
+But Anna hadn’t any kids. Not a one. If the baby hadn’t died, maybe she
+could have stood it, too. Still, what is the use of it all? You can’t
+tell how kids’ll turn out, even if you spend years sewing and cooking
+and cleaning for them. It’s taking a chance. And the other things ...
+it’s best to get away from them.
+
+Anna, without any one but Fred, and he mean to her and she trying to
+conceal it with smiles and jokes and changing the subject ... she
+had been brave. And one person can’t stand everything. And, looking
+ahead and seeing nothing but years of Fred and bad treatment or of
+working to try to make a living, maybe, after all, Anna had figured it
+out that her way was best. Fred had said they hadn’t quarrelled. But
+then, Sophie never did trust Fred too much from the first. Of course,
+he’d have said that. They had probably had an awful quarrel the night
+before, and rather than go through with it all again....
+
+Well, Anna was dead. It must be good to simply quit and stop
+quarrelling and working. If she had Anna’s chance to go out, without
+harming any one else, without leaving any kids for maybe worse
+treatment ... Sophie knew, in her heart, why Anna had committed
+suicide, and though she shed many tears over her sister, understanding
+things as she did, she couldn’t blame her. Maybe Anna had picked out
+the right path.
+
+
+IV
+
+After his wife’s death, Fred Clark went to live with his brother Philip
+and Phil’s wife, Myrtle. Fred missed his wife a great deal, especially
+during the first few months after her death. A companionship of ten
+years—and as close a companionship as a married couple, living together
+in a city apartment, without children, are bound to have, is not easily
+forgotten.
+
+But, in a few months, Fred grew accustomed to life at Phil’s house,
+which was not much different from his old life. It was the same social
+stratum. Fred enjoyed the company of his two little nephews and liked
+to bring small presents home to them when he came in early on Saturday
+afternoon. He got along quite well with Myrtle, a pleasant-faced
+pale woman, who was glad of the extra money that Fred paid into the
+housekeeping fund.
+
+Fred’s share of the expenses, as proportioned by Phil, was much less
+than he had ever paid for the upkeep of his own apartment and he was
+able to begin saving money immediately after the funeral expenses were
+paid.
+
+Often, when he was alone in his room, Fred thought of Anna and of her
+death.
+
+At first he had been too startled, too numbed into silence to think
+that there had to be a reason for her suicide. It had seemed more like
+an accidental death, something that had taken Anna unawares as it had
+taken him. He and Anna had shared so many of their sensations that it
+seemed hard for Fred to believe that Anna had done this thing herself.
+
+But, gradually, the unreality of the situation wore away and Fred
+came to know that Anna was really dead—and by her own hand. And, as
+he realized that she had killed herself, at the same time came the
+realization of the motive for it, the only possible motive. Anna had
+killed herself because she was poor! It had been under the burden of a
+continued poverty that must have eaten into her spirit as he had often
+felt it eat into his, that Anna had decided not to live any more. Anna
+had never said anything to Fred about it. He was surprised, now, that
+she never had—for he thought that she had told him everything. And yet,
+he had felt the same thing so often himself that he was not surprised
+to find that Anna had felt it and that it had been too much for her.
+
+They had never really experienced the pangs of poverty, it is true.
+Fred felt that it would have been easier to bear if they had. He had
+always “done well,” in that he had made a living. Each month, by
+hurrying around to dozens of little, retail groceries, he had sold
+enough spices to maintain his simple household.
+
+But each month there had been the fear that, perhaps, there wouldn’t be
+enough for the month to come.
+
+Each month some household article had advanced in price and had to be
+purchased less frequently or not at all. If he and Anna went to the
+theatre—balcony seats—there could be no other luxuries that week or the
+week that followed. Even a guest in to dinner—and the Clarks had little
+company—made a difference in the household money. New shoes were to
+be talked over, several weeks ahead, at the dinner table. A new suit
+meant that they had to start saving for it a month or two in advance,
+and, if one made a mistake and bought the wrong suit, which happened
+quite often enough, the suit had to be worn just the same, throughout
+the season. Fred had to look neat all the time. And Anna had a certain
+position to uphold too. She had to prove to “the girls” and to the rest
+of her small world, that she was the wife of a prosperous city salesman.
+
+Anna was not extravagant. Fred knew that. He could picture her,
+brow-knitted, looking over small household bills, trying to find which
+could be reduced without radically altering a fairly comfortable manner
+of living. Anna cleaned her own gloves and her own thin waists. Outside
+of a few ice cream soda “treats” for “the girls” she spent little money
+foolishly.
+
+Fred knew that Anna had always been a true wife to him. He knew that
+he was the only man she had ever cared about and that she had cared
+for him sincerely and devotedly. He knew that there could have been no
+other trouble. He knew only too well why Anna died.
+
+Fred had felt like that—himself. He and Anna must have lain on the same
+bird’s-eye maple bed and thought the same things about living. Only,
+Anna had ended it and he had kept on.
+
+He hadn’t wanted Anna to work. He didn’t believe that married women
+ought to have positions. A woman’s place is in the home, he always
+maintained, and a position for Anna, as a possible way out of their
+poverty, had never entered his mind.
+
+But, how often he had wished for money, for some of the smaller,
+cheaper luxuries! He had often gone to sleep wondering how many years
+more he could keep up the strain of spice-selling, the constant
+hammering of it, the continued striving to make a living. Always, in
+the end, he felt himself beaten, saw himself, before he had reached
+old age, being overtaken by real poverty, finding that he was unable
+to sell enough spices to support himself and Anna. There was nothing
+else he could do as well. He knew that. Selling, selling, day after
+day, just for the privilege of living in a little, stuffy apartment and
+never enough left over to put some by. No wonder the outlook had been
+too much for Anna. He hadn’t known that she had felt deeply about it—or
+cared. And she had cared, so very much.
+
+Now that Anna was dead, things were different. Fred wondered if Anna
+ever looked down from Up There and saw that her sacrifice had not been
+in vain. The burden of supporting two was lifted. He paid Myrtle each
+week, bought little things for the boys and little extras for himself
+that he never could have afforded before—a more expensive brand of
+cigarette, a new cane, some collars of an odd shape, and each week he
+put a little money into a savings account.
+
+Fred felt years younger. He was preparing for old age. There was
+something to look ahead to. But—to have kept on the other way ...
+trudging always to a poorer future.... It had looked mighty black. Too
+black, sometimes. Fred had considered, often enough, the very thing
+that Anna had done. He had been insured for three thousand dollars, in
+her name, and he felt that her sisters would both rather look out for
+her—they had good homes—and she could have stayed with them and gone to
+work at an easy job, if necessary. It seemed such a cowardly thing to
+do—to step from under, and he had never quite got to it, after all. And
+now—he was free.
+
+But Anna—wasn’t she free, too? Hadn’t she taken the way out, as she saw
+it, a way that meant no more scraping and saving, no more using up of
+left-overs, of planning for new bargain shoes three weeks before the
+soles ran through the old ones? It was sad enough, losing Anna, but
+when he thought it over, Fred understood perfectly. It was the simplest
+solution. He didn’t blame Anna at all. Compared to living on, doing
+without nice things, planning to keep on doing without them, and with
+the strain drawing tighter and tighter, Anna had certainly chosen the
+better way.
+
+
+V
+
+On the morning that she committed suicide, Anna Clark waked up at
+seven. The round nickeled clock on the bird’s-eye maple dresser awoke
+her as usual. She yawned and stretched her arms above her head as she
+did every morning. Then she nudged Fred, sleeping rather noisily with
+his mouth not quite tightly closed, as he always slept. Then, as she
+never missed doing, Anna got up and shut off the alarm, went into the
+bathroom, hung up the towels that Fred had thrown on the floor the
+night before, and took a hurried bath. She put on her “morning clothes”
+that hung in the disorderly, tightly-crowded closet. They differed from
+her “best clothes” in that the cheap lace edging of the underthings was
+badly worn and that, instead of a dark skirt and a georgette waist—her
+usual afternoon outfit—Anna wore a checked gingham dress. Anna had
+three morning dresses. Two were blue and white and one pink and white.
+The pink and white one was slightly faded. By wearing aprons over them,
+when she cooked, one dress looked plenty clean enough to wear mornings,
+and when she got dinner, for a whole week.
+
+After she had bathed, Anna went back into the bedroom to dress and
+again waked Fred, who always fell asleep after the first waking. This
+time, Anna talked to him about what had happened to both of them the
+day before. She had been with Ruth to call on Mrs. Ambier, an old
+friend, who had just had her third baby at a neighbourhood hospital.
+
+“She doesn’t look strong,” Anna said. “She ought not to have any more
+children.”
+
+Fred didn’t remember whether or not Mrs. Ambier had looked strong the
+last time he had seen her—for several months, Mrs. Ambier had not
+performed her accustomed social duties—but agreed that, if she looked
+badly, there should be no more children.
+
+Fred told Anna about old Klingman, one of his regular customers, and
+how he made him taste the pickled herring and other Klingman-prepared
+specialties.
+
+“He’s quite a character,” Fred added.
+
+While Fred shaved, Anna got breakfast. It was the usual breakfast.
+There was half of a large orange for each. When oranges were smaller,
+Fred and Anna each had a whole one, but grapefruit and large oranges
+were always divided. Then there was oatmeal, cooked the night before
+and left standing, wrapped in a towel, on the radiator all night.
+It’s just as good that way, Anna always told her friends, as if
+prepared in a fireless cooker—and a great deal less trouble. There
+were two soft-boiled eggs apiece—on alternate mornings the eggs were
+scrambled—but to-day was the day to soft-boil them.
+
+Some mornings there was toast, but this morning the bread was soft
+enough to be eaten without toasting—and coffee. Before putting the
+eggs in water Anna went to see how far Fred had progressed with his
+dressing. He was putting his shirt on, which meant that Anna would have
+to hurry things a little—as she always did towards the end.
+
+Breakfast was at eight-thirty. Before sitting down, Fred got the paper,
+which the boy had left at the door, and read it as he ate. He was not
+too absorbed in the news to listen to what Anna had to say nor pass
+morsels of the last twelve hours’ happenings to her.
+
+After eating, Fred looked at his watch, a $2.50 Ingersoll, which kept
+just as good time for him as a gold one that he had had given to him
+when he was twenty-one, and found that he was a trifle late. He tried
+to be at the office at nine-thirty, starting from there on his rounds
+of spice-selling, after dictating a few business letters and handing in
+reports that he had not attended to the night before.
+
+As usual, Fred was a trifle late. He folded his paper irregularly
+and thrust it into his overcoat pocket. It was early in the fall and
+slightly cool. He kissed Anna good-bye a bit hurriedly, as usual, but
+he remembered later that the kiss she gave him in response was no
+warmer, no colder, for that matter, than the kiss she usually gave him.
+It was the last time Fred saw Anna alive.
+
+After Fred left, Anna gathered together the breakfast dishes and washed
+them in the sink, without a dishpan. She preferred this method because
+it was quicker. The water was not very warm. It scarcely ever was warm
+enough to wash dishes properly and she frequently spoke to the janitor
+about it. With the use of a cleaning powder, she got the dishes fairly
+clean and dried them slowly.
+
+After putting the dishes away, Anna made the one bed. Then, with a
+carpet sweeper which needed oiling and squeaked badly she went over
+the brightly coloured rugs in the living and dining-rooms. She did the
+bedroom on alternate days. She dusted the furniture with an irregularly
+shaped piece of cloth, the tail of one of Fred’s old shirts.
+
+A package she had ordered the day before came up the dumb-waiter. Anna
+opened it. It was a bargain shirtwaist and she noticed that one of the
+sleeves was sewed in crooked. She took it into the bedroom, glanced at
+the clock and saw that it was nearly ten-thirty.
+
+Anna tried on the shirtwaist. It fitted well enough, except where the
+sleeve was wrong. She could wear it that afternoon and fix it—in half
+an hour—some other time. The collar was rather nice.
+
+She picked up a woman’s magazine—she had subscribed to it and two more
+a few months before, “to help a boy through college”—and read two
+stories in it. The second story was quite pathetic and she wiped her
+eyes at the ending.
+
+She looked over the back of the magazine at the cooking recipes and
+found a simple recipe for spice cakes with one egg. She found she
+had all the ingredients in the house and Fred and she both liked
+spice cakes. She went back into the kitchen, propped the magazine
+against the built-in cabinet, using a yellow mixing bowl, and made the
+cakes, following the recipe carefully, humming a little to herself
+as she cooked. Anna was not especially fond of cooking. She had been
+housekeeping for ten years.
+
+While the little cakes were baking—she had poured the batter into
+muffin tins—she read some more of the magazine. When the cakes were
+done, she spread them on a clean towel, and, as soon as they were cool
+enough, bit into one. It was quite good. If the cakes had failed,
+those who wondered about her suicide might have found the spice cakes
+and considered them as a motive. But the cakes were so good Anna ate
+two of them. She put the others into the cake box along with a stale
+piece of baker’s cake, left over from three days before, gathered up
+the crumbs, washed the dishes her baking had soiled and went into the
+bedroom. It was eleven-fifteen.
+
+She washed and started to change into her “afternoon clothes,” choosing
+the new waist that Ruth found her in. The ’phone rang just before she
+finished dressing. It was Marie Cluens, one of “the girls,” asking her
+to come over in the afternoon. Marie was expecting a few other callers.
+Anna said that Ruth was coming for her and if Ruth had made no other
+plans she’d be glad to go.
+
+She was all dressed, and looking at herself in the bird’s-eye maple
+dresser mirror. She approved of her looks, for, at thirty-five, it was
+quite all right to have a few wrinkles and a sprinkling of grey hair.
+Most women of thirty-five looked older.
+
+Then Anna remembered that she had neglected to put on her spats. She
+had bought some tan ones, a few weeks before, while shopping with Ruth,
+who had bought grey. Spats are awkward things to button, after one is
+dressed, when one hasn’t a maid, and Anna had taken on a few extra
+pounds recently. She finally managed to button them. Then, suddenly,
+button-hook still in her hand, after she had finished buttoning her
+spats, Anna sat upright on the bird’s-eye maple chair and thought, for
+the first time in months, about herself.
+
+Here she was—buttoning spats! She hated to button them. What a bore,
+what a terrible bore it was, to button them! And, to-night, she would
+have to unbutton them, and to-morrow afternoon, she would have to take
+the spots out of them, if there were any spots, and button them again.
+
+And it wasn’t only spats. Of course she didn’t have to wear spats.
+It was the other things. Anna thought of all of the other pieces of
+clothes she wore, her vest, copied after its more expensive Italian
+silk sisters, her “Teddy-bears,” the delicate and modest name “the
+girls” had taken to calling their combinations, then corsets,
+stockings, camisole, skirt—every garment requiring buttoning or
+fastening or tying or pinning. Each one had to be pulled in place or
+puffed or tied. And, in the evening, each one had to be taken off again.
+
+Anna thought of how, each morning, she had to go through the same
+process of bathing and putting on a number of things. Then, she had
+to get breakfast and wash the dishes. Then she had to clean and do
+some washing, usually those same underneaths, and then dress again.
+And then go out and then come home and cook dinner—and eat it—and then
+wash more dishes and then spend an evening at something tiresome—and
+then undress again. Life stretched out before Anna—a void of little
+things—punctuated only by dressing and undressing.
+
+The worst of it was, after she was dressed, there was nothing to do.
+There is some object in dressing if one has an appointment, a little
+secret meeting, a half hour’s flirtation, a dinner, the meeting of
+new people, adventure, anything. Then, indeed, may one dress without
+heeding the buttons. But Anna knew that there were no surprises in her
+day—that there never could be—that nothing could come that would be
+pleasurable enough to make up for the thousand unbuttonings.
+
+Sitting there, button-hook held in her right hand, Anna went over her
+life as it drifted back to her. First, years of school, slow, stupid
+years, of little quarrels with playmates, little misunderstandings with
+her teachers, lessons at night at a round table, with Sophie and Ruth;
+occasionally very dull parties on Friday evenings. Then, the death of
+her parents. Then, school days were over and the dull years stretched
+into long days of working and long evenings with “the boys” and “the
+girls.” “The boys” were the masculine set, who, attracted by “the
+girls,” took them to possible social diversions. Fred had been one of
+“the boys.” Three years of a dull monotone of a courtship and she and
+Fred were married and the years had gone on—and she had dressed each
+morning for a day of colourless calm and undressed in the evening to
+get rest for another.
+
+All things had come to Anna, and yet nothing had come. School,
+courtship, marriage, and then, after two years, a baby, a sickly,
+crying boy baby, who had taken all of her time from useless things to
+the doing of little, constantly repeated things for him. And then,
+after a year of the baby, he had died and she and Fred had decided that
+they did not want another. Mourning, then, calm, placid. And then two
+years of absolute blankness.
+
+Then, Anna had had an admirer. It had seemed the one experience that
+her grey life had missed, the one thing that might have had some
+significance. Her admirer had been the family dentist, a ruddy young
+fellow, getting bald too young. In the unpicturesque pose of being
+open-mouthed in a dentist chair she had fallen in love with him and he
+had seemingly reciprocated her affection.
+
+Anna’s passion had been brief, shallow. There had been a number of
+pseudo-appointments, which had been given over to love-making.
+
+Then the dentist, his first name was Harvey, had called during the
+mornings, when Anna knew “the girls” weren’t likely to come in. Harvey
+had stayed for lunch, and, as that was the one meal of the day which
+Anna did not usually have to prepare, she rebelled at having to cook
+it for her lover, who had a large appetite. After only the smallest
+glimmer of pleasurable excitement, Harvey had dimmed into the monotony
+of her regular life, his visits, the lunches with him, the fear of
+being discovered with her lover gradually blotched into the background.
+
+And, as unexcitedly as he had drifted in, Harvey, perhaps finding Anna
+as monotonous as she found him, perhaps because a prettier patient
+appeared, drifted out.
+
+Anna did not grieve for him. Occasionally she shuddered at the thought
+of what might have happened if Fred or Ruth had discovered the affair,
+but even the shudders grew to lack distinction.
+
+After Harvey, Anna had had no more lovers. Now, thinking about it, Anna
+found that she had not talked, seriously, to a man alone, for over
+three years. There was no one she was interested in, no one she knew or
+cared to know whom being alone with was worth the effort of planning
+for it. She knew so few men. There was a stupid grocer’s clerk with
+long lashes, a drug clerk who simpered at her and a friend of Fred’s,
+who held her hand when he told her good-night—and they all lacked sex
+interest.
+
+Anna knew that Ruth was having a silly affair with a friend of Dick’s,
+but it didn’t bother her. It didn’t interest her enough to make her
+wish that Ruth would get confidential about it. She had had her affair.
+She knew what a bore affairs were.
+
+Anna had hoped, when she was younger, that she might have a real lover,
+a great passion, but, as the years passed, and she saw her youth
+slipping away, saw that her social position was not one to attract men
+and that she had no special gift of attraction, anyhow, she almost
+forgot about it.
+
+She thought of Fred, pleasantly. Fred was good, awfully good and
+awfully, awfully tiresome. There hadn’t been a surprise in anything
+that Fred had done in five years. Anna knew that he never could do
+anything but calm, expected things. Fred had always been kind to her.
+How different from Sophie’s husband, who was such a terror. Poor
+Sophie! She tried so hard, always, to conceal things. Well, there was
+nothing she could do to help her, so she had never spoken to Sophie
+about it, let her believe that no one knew what a brute Steve was. Anna
+knew she wouldn’t have stood him a week.
+
+Anna thought of other things, of money. She knew Fred worried quite
+a lot about it. She would have liked to have money, too, of course,
+but, as long as Fred made a good living, and she felt that he always
+would do that, the question of finances did not greatly concern her.
+She would have liked to have been rich, but, after all, they were poor
+people and she had been brought up modestly.
+
+She still sat, button-hook in hand. And she looked at the
+button-hook—and at her spats—and thought of the thousands of other
+buttons that would have to be attended to, on thousands of succeeding
+days. What was the use of it all, anyhow? Why keep on? Why bother? She
+really wasn’t interested in living, in anything. Why, there was a way
+out, a way that meant no buttons at all!
+
+Anna felt, suddenly, that she couldn’t stand it another day. The years
+that stretched out—the years of getting old, monotonously, of hundreds
+of calls on and from “the girls,” thousands of moving pictures with
+Fred, thousands of dishes, thousands of—buttons. She couldn’t stand it!
+Anything else!
+
+She threw the button-hook on the floor. It hit the mahogany door, which
+she rubbed down so carefully, every week, so it would retain its shine.
+And Anna smiled. She could get out of polishing that door! It had never
+occurred to her before. It had never entered her mind that she washed
+the dishes and talked to Fred and buttoned and unbuttoned because she
+wanted to—because she chose that way. There was another way, after
+all, a way that might hold something else or nothing else at the end,
+but that, at least, would end, for always, the things that kept on,
+unbearable, now.
+
+She went into the bathroom. From the top shelf of the medicine chest
+she took a large blue bottle. On the label it was marked “Poison” in
+large, black letters. It was an excellent germicide.
+
+Anna tasted it. It rather burnt her lips a little and was decidedly
+unpleasant. But—after all—it would taste unpleasant for only a few
+minutes. And then it would all be over—everything would be over.
+
+It seemed a miracle that things could be ended thus, slightly. One
+drink and dirty dishes, bedmaking, dresssheitel and undressing would
+cease to be. Fred would cease to be—for her. There would be no need
+of trying to appear interested when he was talking to her, of trying
+to say things that would interest him. No dinners to plan or cook.
+Nothing to have to waste time over! No time that needed wasting! And
+she had never thought of it before! Anna looked at her tan spats. They
+were buttoned—and would stay that way—until some other hands than hers
+unbuttoned them. If it hadn’t been for the spats, now, for that last
+straw of additional buttons....
+
+Anna poured the poison into a glass—she never liked to drink things
+out of a bottle—and tasted it again. Then she remembered what she was
+doing, and smiled. It seemed unbelievable that there could be such an
+easy solution. She drank the glassful.
+
+Ruth, coming in, later in the afternoon, with the extra key, found her.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber’s Notes
+
+  Pg 11 Changed: like furniture—curliques and frills
+             To: like furniture—curlicues and frills
+
+  Pg 158 Changed: other women, chosing those that were
+              To: other women, choosing those that were
+
+  Pg 280 Changed: gossipping with the other girls
+              To: gossiping with the other girls
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78464 ***