Chapter 7

Mrs. Shongut's voice dropped into her throat in the guise of a whisper. "Some time, Mrs. Lissman, when my Renie ain't home, I want you should come over and I read you some of the letters that girl gets from young men. So mad she always gets at me if she knows I talk about them."

"Mrs. Shongut, you'll laugh when I tell you; but already in the school my Jeannie gets little notes what the little boys write to her. Mad it makes me like anything; but what can you do when you got a pretty girl?"

"A young man in Peoria, Mrs. Lissman, such beautiful letters he writes Renie, never in my life did I read. Such language, Mrs. Lissman; just like out of a song-book! Not a time my Renie goes out that I don't go right to her desk to read 'em--that's how beautiful he writes. In Green Springs she met him."

"Ain't it a pleasure, Mrs. Shongut, to have grand letters like that? Even with my little Jeannie, though it makes me so mad, still I--"

"But do you think my Renie will have any of them? 'Not,' she says, 'if they was lined in gold.'"

"I guess she got plenty beaus. Say, I ain't so blind that I don't see Sollie Spitz on your porch every--"

"Sollie Spitz! Ach, Mrs. Lissman, believe me, there's nothing to that! My Renie since a little child likes reading and writing like he does. I tell her papa we made a mistake not to keep her in school like she wanted."

"My Jeannie--"

"She loves learning, that girl. Under her pillow yesterday I found a book of verses about flowers. Where she gets such a mind, Mrs. Lissman, I don't know. But Sollie Spitz! Say, we don't want no poets in the family."

"I should say not! But I guess she gets all the good chances she wants."

"And more. A young man from Cincinnati--if I tell you his name, right away you know him--twice her papa brought him out to supper after they had business down-town together--only twice; and now every week he sends her five pounds--"

"Just think!"

"And such roses, Mrs. Lissman! You seen for yourself when I sent you one the other day. Right in his own hothouse he grows 'em, Mrs. Lissman."

"Just think!"

"If I tell you his name, Mrs. Lissman, right away you know his firm. In Cincinnati they say he's got the finest house up on the hill--musical chairs, that play when you sit on 'em. Twice every week he sends her--"

"Grand!"

"'I tell you,' I says to her papa, 'her cousins over in Kingston Place got tickets to take the young men to theaters with and automobiles to ride them round in; but, if I say so myself, not one of them has better chances than my Renie, right here in our little flat.'"

Mrs. Lissman folded her arms in a shelf across her bosom and leaned her ample uncorseted figure against the railing. "I give you right, Mrs. Shongut. Look at Jeannette Bamberger, over on Kingston; every night when me and Mr. Lissman used to walk past last summer, right on her grand front porch that girl sat alone, like she was glued."

"I know."

"Then look at Birdie Schimm, across the street. Her mother a poor widow who keeps a roomer, and look how her girl did for herself! Down at Rindley's this morning nothing was fine enough for that Birdie to buy for her table. I tell you, Mrs. Shongut, money ain't everything in this world."

"I always tell Renie she can take her place with the best of them."

"Washing?"

"An hour already my Lizzie has been down in the laundry."

"Half a day I take Addie to help with the ironing."

"You should watch her, Mrs. Lissman; she steals soap."

"They're all alike."

"Ah, the mailman. Always in my family no one gets letters but my Renie. Look, Mrs. Lissman! What did I tell you? Another one from Cincinnati. Renie! Renie!" Mrs. Shongut bustled indoors, leaving her broom indolent against the porch pillar. "Renie!"

"Yes, mamma."

"Letter!" Feet hurrying down the hall. "Letter from Cincinnati, Renie."

"Mamma, do you have to read the postmarks off my letters? I can read my own mail without any help."

"How she sasses her mother! Say, for my part, I should worry if you get letters or not. A girl that is afraid to give her mother a little pleasure!"

Mrs. Shongut made a great show of dragging the room's furniture back into place; unpinning the lace curtains and draping them carefully in their folds; drawing chairs across the carpet until the casters squealed; uncovering the piano. At the business of dusting the mantelpiece she lingered, stealing furtive glances through its mirror.

Miss Shongut ripped open the letter with a hairpin and curled her supple figure in a roomy curve of the divan. Her hair, unloosened, fell in a thick, black cascade down her back.

Mrs. Shongut redusted the mantel, raising each piece of bric-a-brac carefully; ran her cloth across the piano keys, giving out a discord; straightened the piano cover; repolished the mantelpiece mirror.

Her daughter read, blew the envelope open at its ripped end and inserted the letter. Her eyes, gray as dawn, met her mother's.

"Well, Renie, is--is he well?"

Silence.

"You're afraid, I guess, it gives me a little pleasure if I know what he has to say. A girl gets a letter from a man like Max Hochenheimer, of Cincinnati, and sits like a funeral!"

Rena unfolded herself from the divan and slid to her feet, slim as a sibyl.

"I knew it!"

"Knew what?"

"He's coming!"

"Coming? What?"

"He left Cincinnati last night and gets here this morning."

"This morning!"

"He comes on business, he says. And at five o'clock he stops in at the store and comes home to supper with papa."

"Supper--and a regular wash-day meal I got! Tongue sweet-sour, and red cabbage! Renie, get on your things and--"

"Honest, if it wasn't too late I would telegraph him I ain't home."

"Get on your things, Renie, and go right down to Rindley's for a roast. If you telephone they don't give you weight. This afternoon I go myself for the vegetables." Excitement purred in Mrs. Shongut's voice. "Hurry, Renie!"

"I'll get Izzy to take me out to supper and to a show."

"Get on your things, I say, Renie. I'll call Lizzie up-stairs too; we don't need no wash-day, with company for supper. Honest, excited like a chicken I get. Hurry, Renie!"

Miss Shongut stood quiescent, however, gazing through the lace curtains at the sun-lashed terrace, still soft from the ravages of winter and only faintly green. A flush spread to the tips of her delicate ears.

"Izzy's got to take me out to supper and a show. I won't stay home."

"Renie, you lost your mind? You! A young man like Max Hochenheimer begins to pay you attentions in earnest--a man that could have any girl in this town he snaps his finger for--a young man what your stuck-up cousins over on Kingston would grab at! You--you--Ach, to a man like Max Hochenheimer, of Cincinnati, she wants to say she ain't home yet!"

"Him! An old fatty like him! Izzy calls him Old Squash! Izzy says he's the only live Cartoon in captivity."

"Izzy--always Izzy! Believe me, your brother could do better than layin' in bed at eight o'clock in the morning, to copy after Max Hochenheimer."

"Always running down Izzy! Money ain't everything. I--I like other things in a man besides money--always money."

"Believe me, he has plenty besides money, has Max Hochenheimer. He 'ain't got no time maybe for silk socks and pressed pants, but for a fine good man your papa says he 'ain't got no equal. Your brother Izzy, I tell you, could do well to mock after Max Hochenheimer--a man what made hisself; a man what built up for hisself in Cincinnati a business in country sausages that is known all over the world."

"Country sausages!"

"No; he 'ain't got no time for rhymes like that long-haired Sollie Spitz, that ain't worth his house-room and sits until by the nightshirt I got to hold papa back from going out and telling him we 'ain't got no hotel! Max Hochenheimer is a man what's in a legitimate business."

"Please, mamma, keep quiet about him. I don't care if he--"

"I tell you the poultry and the sausage business maybe ain't up to your fine ideas; but believe me, the poultry business will keep you in shoes and stockings when in the poetry business you can go barefoot."

"All right, mamma; I won't argue."

"Your papa has had enough business with Max Hochenheimer to know what kind of a man he is and what kind of a firm. Such a grand man to deal with, papa says. Plain as a old shoe--just like he was a salesman instead of the president of his firm. A poor boy he started, and now such a house they say he built for his mother in Avondale on the hill! Squashy! I only wish for a month our Izzy had his income."

"I wouldn't marry him if--"

"Don't be so quick with yourself, missy. Just because he comes here on a day's business and then comes out to supper with papa don't mean so much."

"Don't it? Well, then, if you know more about what's in this letter than I do, I've got no more to say."

Mrs. Shongut sat down as though the power to stand had suddenly deserted her limbs. "What--what do you mean, Renie?"

"I'm not so dumb that I--I don't know what a fellow means by a letter like this."

"Renie!" The lines seemed to fade out of Mrs. Shongut's face, softening it. "Renie! My little Renie!"

"You don't need to my-little-Renie me, mamma; I--"

"Renie, I can't believe it--that such luck should come to us. A man like Max Hochenheimer, of Cincinnati, who can give her the greatest happiness, comes for our little girl--"

"I--"

"Always like me and papa had to struggle, Renie, in money matters you won't have to. I tell you, Renie, nothing makes a woman old so soon. Like a queen you can sit back in your automobile. Always a man what's good to his mother, like Max Hochenheimer, makes, too, a grand husband. I want, Renie, to see your Aunt Becky's and your cousins' faces at the reception. Renie--I--"

"Mamma, you talk like--Oh, you make me so mad."

"Musical chairs they got in the house, Renie, what, as soon as you sit on, begin to play. Mrs. Schwartz herself sat on one; and the harder you sit, she says, the louder it plays. Automobiles; a elevator for his mother! I--Ach, Renie, I--I feel like all our troubles are over. I-- Ach, Renie, you should know how it feels to be a mother."

Tears rained frankly down Mrs. Shongut's face and she smiled through their mist, and her outstretched arms would tremble.

"Renie, come to mamma!"

Miss Shongut, quivering, drew herself beyond their reach. "Such talk! Honest, mamma, you--you make me ashamed, and mad like anything, too. I wouldn't marry a little old squashy fellow like him if he was worth the mint."

"Renie! Re-nie!"

"An old fellow, just because he's got money and--"

"Old! Max Hochenheimer ain't more than in his first thirties, and old she calls him! When a man makes hisself by hard work he 'ain't got time to keep young, with silk socks and creased pants, and hair-tonic what smells up my house a hour after Izzy's been gone. It ain't the color of a man's vest, Renie--it's the color of his heart, underneath it. When papa was a young man, do you think, if I had looked at the cigar ashes on his vest instead of at what was underneath, that I--"

"That talk's no use with me, mamma."

"Renie; you--you wouldn't do it--you wouldn't refuse him?"

Her reply leaped out suddenly, full of fire: "It's not me or my feelings you care anything about. Every one but me you think about first. What about me? What about me? I'm the one that's got to do the marrying and live with him. I'm the one you're trying to sell off like I was cattle. I'm the one! I'm the one!"

"Renie!"

"Yes; sell me off--sell me off--like cattle!"

Tears, blinding, scalding, searing, rushed down her cheeks, and her smooth bosom, where the wrapper fell away to reveal it, heaved with the storm beneath.

"But you can't sell me--you can't! You can't keep nagging to get me married off. I can get out, but I won't be married out! If I wasn't afraid of papa, with his heart, I'd tell him so, too. I'd tell him so now. I won't be married out--I won't be married out! I won't! I won't!"

Mrs. Shongut clasped her cheeks in the vise of her two hands. "Married out! She reproaches me yet--a mother that would go through fire for her children's happiness!"

"Always you're making me uncomfortable that I'm not married yet--not papa or Izzy, but you--you! Never does one of the girls get engaged that you don't look at me like I was wearing the welcome off the door-mat."

"Listen to my own child talk to me! No wonder you cry so hard, Renie Shongut, to talk to your mother like that--a girl that I've indulged like you. To sass her mother like that! A man like Max Hochenheimer comes along, a man where the goodness looks out of his face, a man what can give her every comfort; and, because he ain't a fine talker like that long-haired Sollie Spitz, she--"

"You leave him out! Anyways, he's got fine feeling for something besides--sausages."

"Is it a crime, Renie, that I should want so much your happiness? Your papa's getting a old man now, Renie; I won't always be here, neither."

"For the love of Mike, what's the row? Can't a fellow get any beauty sleep round this here shebang? What are you two cutting up about?"

The portières parted to reveal Mr. Isadore Shongut, pressed, manicured, groomed, shaved--something young about him; something conceited; his magenta bow tied to a nicety, his plushlike hair brushed up and backward after the manner of fashion's latest caprice, and smoothing a smooth hand along his smooth jowl.

"Morning, ma. What's the row, Renie? Gee! it's a swell joint round here for a fellow with nerves! What's the row, kid?"

Mr. Isadore Shongut made a cigarette and puffed it, curled himself in a deep-seated chair, with his head low and his legs flung high. His sister lay on the divan, with her tearful profile buried, _basso-rilievo_, against a green velours cushion, her arms limp and dangling in exhaustion.

"What's the row, Renie?"

"N-nothing."

"Aw, come out with it--what's the row? What you sitting there for, ma, like your luck had turned on you?"

"Ask--ask your sister, Izzy; she can tell you."

"'Smater, sis?"

"N-nothing--only--only--old--old Hochenheimer's coming to--to supper to-night, Izzy; and--"

"Old Squash! Oh, Whillikens!"

"Take me out, Izzy! Take me out anywhere--to a show or supper, or--or anywhere; but take me out, Izzy. Take me out before he comes."

"Sure I will! Old Squash! Whillikens!"

* * * * *

At five o'clock Wasserman Avenue emerged in dainty dimity and silk sewing-bags. Rocking-chairs, tiptilted against veranda railings, were swung round front-face. Greetings, light as rubber balls, bounded from porch to porch. Fine needles flashed through dainty fabrics stretched like drum parchment across embroidery hoops; young children, shrilling and shouting in the heat of play, darted beneath maternal eyes; long-legged girls in knee-high skirts strolled up and down the sidewalks, arms intertwined.

At five-thirty the sun had got so low that it found out Mrs. Schimm in a shady corner of her porch, dazzled her eyes, and flashed teasingly on her needle, so that she crammed her dainty fabric in her sewing-bag and crossed the paved street.

"You don't mind, Mrs. Lissman, if I come over on your porch for a while, where it's shady?"

"It's a pleasure, Mrs. Schimm. Come right up and have a rocker."

"Just a few minutes I can stay."

"That's a beautiful stitch, Mrs. Schimm. When I finish this centerpiece I start me a dozen doilies too."

"I can learn it to you in five minutes, Mrs. Lissman. All my Birdie's trousseau napkins I did with this Battenberg stitch."

"Grand!"

"For a poor widow's daughter, Mrs. Lissman, that girl had a trousseau she don't need to be ashamed of."

"Look, will you? Mrs. Shapiro's coming down her front steps all diked out in a summer silk. I guess she goes down to have supper with her husband, since he keeps open evenings."

"I don't want to say nothing; but I don't think it's so nice--do you, Mrs. Lissman?--the first month what her mourning for her mother is up a yellow bird of paradise as big as a fan she has to have on her hat."

"Ain't it so!"

"I wish you could see the bird of paradise my Birdie bought when her and Simon was in Kansas City on their wedding-trip--you can believe me or not, a yard long! How that man spends money on that girl, Mrs. Lissman!"

"Say, when you got it to spend I always say it's right. He's in a good business and makes good money."

"You should know how good."

"The rainy days come to them that save up for them, like us old-fashioned ones, Mrs. Schimm."

"I--Look, will you? Ain't that Izzy Shongut crossing the street? He comes home from work this early! I tell you, Mrs. Lissman, I don't want to say nothing; but I hear things ain't so good with the Shonguts."

"So!"

"Yes; I hear, since the old man bought out that sausage concern, they got their troubles."

"And such a nice woman! That's what she needs yet on top of his heart trouble and her girl running round with Sollie Spitz; and, from what she don't say, I can see that boy causes her enough worry with his wild ways. That's what that poor woman needs yet!"

"Look at Izzy, Mrs. Lissman. I bet that boy drinks or something. Look at his face--like a sheet! I tell you that boy ain't walking up this street straight. Look for yourself, Mrs. Lissman. Ach, his poor mother!" A current like electricity that sets a wire humming ran in waves along Mrs. Schimm's voice. "Look!"

"Oh-oh! I say, ain't that a trouble for that poor woman? When you see other people's trouble your own ain't so bad."

"Ain't that awful? Just look at his face! Ain't that a trouble for you?"

"She herself as much as told me not a thing does her swell brother over on Kingston do for them. I guess such a job as that boy has got in his banking-house he could get from a stranger too."

"'Sh-h-h, Mrs. Lissman! Here he comes. Don't let on like we been talking about him. Speak to him like always."

"Good evening, Izzy."

Isadora Shongut paused in the act of mounting the front steps and turned a blood-driven face toward his neighbor. His under jaw sagged and trembled, and his well-knit body seemed to have lost its power to stand erect, so that his clothes bagged.

"Good evening, Mrs.--Lissman."

"You're home early to-night, Izzy?"

"Y-yes."

He fitted his key into the front-door lock, but his hand trembled so that it would not turn; and for a racking moment he stood there vainly pushing a weak knee against the panel, and his breath came out of his throat in a wheeze.

The maid-of-all-work, straggly and down at the heels, answered his fumbling at the lock and opened the door to him.

"You, Mr. Izzy!"

He sprang in like a catamount, clicking the door quick as a flash behind him. "'Sh-h-h! Where's ma?"

"Your mamma ain't home; she went up to Rindley's. You ain't sick, are you, Mr. Izzy?"

A spasm of relief flashed over his face, and he snapped his dry fingers in an agony of nervousness. "Where's Renie? Quick!"

"She's in her room, layin' down. She ain't goin' to be home to the supper-party to-night, Mr. Izzy; she--What's the matter, Mr. Izzy?"

He was down the hallway in three running bounds and, without the preliminary of knocking, into his sister's tiny, semi-darkened bedroom, his breathing suddenly filling it. She sprang from her little chintz-covered bed, where she had flung herself across its top, her face and wrapper rumpled with sleep.

"Izzy!"

"'Sh-h-h!"

"Izzy, what--where--Izzy, what is it?"

"'Sh-h-h, for God's sake! 'Sh-h! Don't let 'em hear, Renie. Don't let 'em hear!"

Her swimming senses suddenly seemed to clear. "What's happened, Izzy? Quick! What's wrong?"

He clicked the key in the lock, and in the agony of the same dry-fingered nervousness rubbed his hand back and forth across his dry lips. "Don't let 'em hear--the old man or ma--don't!"

"Quick! What is it, Izzy?" She sat down on the edge of the bed, weak. "Tell me, Izzy; something terrible is wrong. It--it isn't papa, Izzy? Tell me it isn't papa. For God's sake, Izzy, he--he ain't--"

"'Sh-h-h! N-no! No, it ain't. It--it ain't pa. It's me, Renie--it's me!" He crumbled at her feet, his palms plastered over his eyes and his fingers clutched deep in the high nap of his hair. "It's me! It's me!"

"What? What?"

"'Sh-h-h! For God's sake, Renie, you got to stand by me; you got to stand by me this time if you ever did! Promise me, Renie! It's me, Renie. I--Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

She stooped to his side, her voice and hands trembling beyond control. "Izzy! Izzy, tell me--tell me! What is it?"

"Oh, my God, why didn't I die? Why didn't I die?"

"Izzy, what--what is it? Money? Haven't I always stood by you before? Won't I now? Tell me, Izzy. Tell me, I say!"

She tugged at his hands, prying them away from his eyes; but the terror she saw there set her trembling again and thrice she opened her lips before she found voice.

"Izzy, if you don't tell me, mamma will be back soon, and then pa; and--you better tell me quick. Your own sister will stand by you. Get up, dearie." Tears trickled through his fingers and she could see the curve of his back rise and fall to the retching of suppressed sobs. "Izzy, you got to tell me quick--do you hear?"

He raised his ravaged face at the sharp-edged incisiveness in her voice. "I'm in trouble, Renie--such trouble. Oh, my God, such horrible trouble!"

"Tell me quick--do you hear? Quick, or mamma and papa--"

"Renie--'sh-h-h! They mustn't know--the old man mustn't; she mustn't, if--if I got to kill myself first. His heart--he--he mustn't, Renie--he mustn't know."

"Know what?"

"It's all up, Renie. I've done something--the worst thing I ever done in my life; but I didn't know while I was doing it, Renie, how--what it was. I swear I didn't! It was like borrowing, I thought. I was sure I could pay it back. I thought the system was a great one and--and I couldn't lose."

"Izzy--roulette again! You--you been losing at--at roulette again?"

"No, no; but they found out at--at the bank, Renie. I--oh, my God! Nothing won't save me!"

"The bank, Izzy?"

"They found out, Renie. Yesterday, when the bank was closed, he--Uncle Isadore--put 'em on the books. Nothing won't save me now, Renie. He won't; you--you know him--hard as nails! Nothing won't save me. It's going to be stripes for me, Renie. Ma--the old man--stripes! I--I can't let 'em do it. I--I'll kill myself first. I can't let 'em--I--can't--I can't let 'em!"

He burrowed his head in her lap to stifle his voice, which slipped up and away from his control; and her icy hands and knees could feel his entire body trembling.

"'Sh-h-h, dearie! Try to tell me slow, dearie, for pa's and ma's sake, so--so we can fix it up somehow."

"We can't fix it up. The old man 'ain't got the money and--and he can't stand it."

"For God's sake, Izzy, tell me or I'll go mad! Slow, dearie, so Renie can think and listen and help you. She's with you, darling, and nothing can hurt you. Now begin, Izzy, and go slow. What did you start to tell me about Uncle Isadore and the books? Slow, darling."

Her voice was smooth and flowing, and the hand that stroked his hair was slow and soothing; the great stream of his passion abated and he huddled quietly at her feet.

"Now begin, dearie. Uncle Isadore--what?"

"This morning, when I got down to--to the office, two men had--my books."

"Yes."

"O God! When I seen 'em, right away my heart just stopped."

'"Sh-h-h! Yes--two men had the books."

"And Uncle Isadore--Uncle Isadore--he was--he--"

"Go on!"

"He--he was in the cage, too; and--and you know how he looks when his eyes get little."

"Yes, yes, Izzy."

"They were--expert accountants with him. All day yesterday, Sunday, they were on my books; and--and they had me, Renie--they had me like a rat in a trap."

"Had you, Izzy?"

He drew himself upward, clutching at her arms; and the sobs began to tear him afresh. "They had me, Renie."

"Oh, Izzy, why--"