Chapter 8

"I could have paid it back. I could have put it back if the old skinflint hadn't got to sniffing round and sicked 'em on my books. I could have won it all back in time, Renie. With my own uncle, my own mother's brother, it--it wasn't like I was stealing it, was it, Renie? Was it?"

"Oh, my God, Izzy!"

"It wasn't, Renie--my own uncle! I could have won it back if--if--"

"Won back what, Izzy--won back what?"

"I--I started with a hundred, Renie. I had to have it; I had to, I tell you. You remember that night I--I wanted you to go over and ask Aunt Beck for it? I had to have it. Pa--. I--I couldn't excite him any more about it; and--and I had to have it, I tell you, Renie."

"Yes; then what?"

"And I--I borrowed it without asking. I--I fixed it on my books so--so Uncle Isadore wouldn't--couldn't--. I--I fixed it on my books."

"Oh-oh, Izzy! Oh--oh--oh!"

"I was trying out a system--a new one--and it worked, Renie. I tried it out on the new wheel down at Sharkey's and the seventeen system worked like a trick. I won big the first and second nights, Renie--you remember the night I brought you and ma the bracelets? I paid back the hundred the first week, Renie; and no one knew--no one knew."

"Oh-h-h-h!"

"The next Friday my luck turned on me--I never ought to have played on Friday--turned like a toad one unlucky Friday night. I got in deep before I knew it, and deeper and deeper; and then--and then it just seemed there wasn't no holding me, Renie. I got wild--got wild, I tell you; and I--I wrote 'em checks I didn't have no right to write. I--I went crazy, I tell you. Next day--you remember that morning I left the house so early?--I had to fix it with the books and borrow what--what I needed before the banks opened. I--I had to make good on them checks, Renie. I fixed it with the books, and from that time on it worked."

"Oh, Izzy--Izzy--Izzy!"

"I kept losing, Renie; but I knew, if my luck just changed from that unlucky Friday night, I could pay it back like the first time. All I needed was a little time and a little luck and I could pay it back like the first hundred; so I kept fixing my books, Renie, and--and borrowing more--and more."

"How much?"

"O God, Renie! I could have paid it back with time; I--"

"'Sh-h-h! How much, Izzy--how much?"

"Somebody must have snitched on me, how I was losing every night. The old skinflint, he--Oh, my God! They got me, Renie--they got me; and it'll kill the old man!"

"How much, Izzy--how much?"

"Oh, my God! I could have paid it back if--if--"

"How much? Tell me, I say!"

"Four--thousand!"

"Oh-h-h, Izzy--Izzy--Izzy!" She sprang back from him, blind with scalding tears. "Izzy! Four thousand! Oh, my God! Four thousand!"

"I could have paid it back, Renie; the system was all right, but--"

"Four thousand! Four thousand!"

"He--he was all for detaining me right away, Renie; sending for pa, and--and sicking the law right on his--his own sister's son. On my knees for three hours I had to beg, Renie--on my knees, for ma's sake and your sake and pa's--just for a little time I begged. A little time was all I begged. He don't care nothing for blood. I--I had to beg him, Renie, till--till I fainted."

"What shall we do, Izzy? What shall we do?"

"I squeezed two weeks' time out of him, Renie. Two weeks to pay it back or he puts the law on me--two weeks; and I got it from him like blood from a turnip. Oh, my God, Renie, four thousand in two weeks--four thousand in two weeks!"

He fell in a half-swoon against her skirts. Out of her arms she made a pillow of mercy and drew his head down to her bosom; and tears, bitter with salt, mingled with his, and her heart's blood buzzed in her brain.

"Izzy, Izzy! What have you done?"

"I can't pay it back, Renie. Where could I get half that much? I can't pay back four dollars, much less four thousand. I can't! I can't!"

"Four thousand!"

"We gotta keep it from the old man and ma, Renie. Let 'em kill me if they want to; but we gotta keep it from him and ma."

"Four thousand! Four thousand!"

In the half-light of the room, with the late sunshine pressing warm against the drawn green shades, the remote shouts of children coming to them through the quiet, and the whir of a lawn-mower off somewhere, they crouched, these two, as though they would shut their ears to the flapping of vultures' wings.

"They can't do anything to you, Izzy."

"What'll we do, Renie? What'll we do?"

"We got to find a way, Izzy."

"They can't send me up for it, Renie--say they can't!"

"No--no, dearie."

"I ain't crooked like that! It was my own uncle. They can't send me up, Renie. I'll kill myself first! I'll kill myself first!"

"Izzy, ain't you ashamed?" But it was as though the odor of death found its way to her nostrils, nauseating her. "Let me think. Let me think just a minute. Let me think." She rammed the ends of her fists tight against her eyes until Catherine wheels spun and spun against her lids. "Let me think just a minute."

"There's nobody, Renie--nobody--nobody--no way."

"Four--thousand!"

"No-body, I tell you, Renie. But I'll kill myself before I--"

Renie stood up. "Izzy! I will!"

He was whimpering frankly against her skirt. After a while she raised her face. Jeanne d'Arc might have looked like that when she beheld the vision.

"Squash!"

"What?"

"Squash! It's like he was sent out of heaven!"

"He--he ain't--"

"He's coming to-night--to ask me, Izzy. You know what I mean? Don't you see? Don't you see?"

"I--"

"Don't you see, Izzy? He's going to ask me, and--and I'm going to do it!"

"Oh, my God! Renie, you can't do that for me if--You can't do that for me."

"He's got it, Izzy. I can get ten thousand out of him if I got to."

"But, Renie--"

"I--I can rush it through and--do it before two weeks, Izzy; and we got a way out, Izzy--we got a way. We got a way!"

She threw herself in a passion of hysteria face downward on the bed and a tornado of weeping swept over her. Rooted, he stood as though face to face with an immense dawn, but with eyes that dared not see the light.

"Renie, I--can't! I--Renie, I can't let you do that for me if--if--I can't let you marry him for me if you don't--"

"'Sh-h-h!"

Mrs. Shongut's voice outside the door, querulous: "Renie!"

Silence.

"Re-nie!"

"Yes, mamma."

"Why you got your door locked?"

Silence.

"Huh?"

"I--I--"

"Come right away out in the dining-room. If you 'ain't got no more regards for your parents than not to stay home for supper, anyways you got to fix for the table the flowers what I brought home from market."

"Yes, mamma." She darted to her feet, drying the tears on her cheeks with the palm of her hand. "Coming, mamma." And she slipped through the door of her room, scarcely opening it.

In the dining-room, beside the white-spread table, Mrs. Shongut unwound a paper toot of pink carnations; but the flavor of her spirit was bitter and her thin, pressed-looking lips hung at the corners.

"Maybe you can stop pouting long enough to help with things a little, even if you won't be here. I tell you it's a pleasure when papa comes home for supper with company, to have children like mine."

"Listen, mamma. I--"

"Sounds like somebody's going out of the house, Renie. Who--"

"No, no. No one has been here, mamma. It's just the breeze."

"I tell you it's a pleasure to have a daughter like mine! What excuses to make to Max Hochenheimer, a young man what comes all the way from Cincinnati to see her--"

"Listen, mamma; I--I've only been fooling--honest, I have."

"What?"

"I--aw, mamma."

Miss Shongut's face was suddenly buried in the neat lace yoke of her mother's dimity blouse, and her arms crept up about her neck.

"I've been only fooling about to-night, mamma. Don't you think I know it is just like he was sent from heaven? I've only been fooling, mamma, so that--so that you shouldn't know how happy I am."

The soul peeped out suddenly in Mrs. Shongut's face, hallowing it. "Renie! My little Renie!"

* * * * *

On Wasserman Avenue the hand that rocks the cradle oftener than not carves the roast. Behind her platter, sovereign of all she surveyed, and skilfully, so that beneath her steel the red, oozing slices curled and fell into their pool of gravy, reigned Mrs. Shongut. And her suzerainty rested on her as lightly as a tiara of seven stars.

"Mr. Hochenheimer, you ain't eating a thing!" Mrs. Shongut craned her neck round the centerpiece of pink carnations. "Not a thing on your plate! Renie, pass Mr. Hochenheimer some more salad."

"No, no, Mrs. Shongut; just don't you worry about me."

"I hope you ain't bashful, Mr. Hochenheimer. We feel toward you just like home folks."

"Indeed, what I don't see I ask for, Mrs. Shongut."

"Renie, pass Mr. Hochenheimer some more of that red cabbage."

"No, no--please, Mrs. Shongut; I got plenty."

"Ach, Mr. Hochenheimer, you eat so little you must be in love."

"Mamma!"

"Ach, Mr. Hochenheimer knows that I only fool. Renie, pass the dumplings."

"No, no--please! I--"

"Mamma, don't force. You're not bashful, are you, Mr. Hochenheimer?"

Miss Shongut inclined her head with a saucy, birdlike motion, and showed him the full gleaming line of her teeth. He took a large mouthful of ice-water to wash down the red of confusion that suddenly swam high in his face, tingeing even his ears.

"For more dumplings I ain't bashful, Miss Renie; but there--there's other things--I am bashful to ask for."

From his place at the far end of the table Mr. Shongut laughed deep, as though a spiral spring was vibrating in the recesses of his throat.

"Bashful with the girls--eh, Hochenheimer?"

"I ain't much of a lady's man, Shongut."

"Well, I wish you was just so bashful in business--believe me! I wish you was."

"Shongut, I never got the best of you yet in a deal."

"With my girl he's bashful yet, mamma; but down to the last sausage-casing I have to pay his fancy prices. Nun, look mamma, how red she gets! What you get so red for, Renie--eh?"

"Aw, papa!"

"A little teasing from her old father she can't take. Look at her, mamma! Look at both of them--red like beets. Neither of them can stand a little teasing from an old man."

"Adolph, you mustn't! All people don't like it when you make fun. Mr. Hochenheimer, you must excuse my husband; a great one he is to tease and make his little fun."

Mr. Shongut's ancient-looking face, covered with a short, grizzled growth of beard and pale as a prophet's beneath, broke into a smile, and a minute network of lines sprang out from the corners of his eyes.

"I was bashful in my life once, too--eh, mamma?"

"Papa!"

"Please, you must excuse my husband, Mr. Hochenheimer; he likes to have his little jokes."

Mr. Hochenheimer pushed away his plate in high embarrassment; nor would his eyes meet Miss Shongut's, except to flash away under cover of exaggerated imperturbability.

"My husband's a great one to tease, Mr. Hochenheimer. My Izzy too, takes after him. I'm sorry that boy ain't home, so you could meet him again. We call him the dude of the family. Renie, pass Mr. Hochenheimer the toothpicks."

A pair of deep-lined brackets sprang out round Mr. Shongut's mouth. "Why ain't that boy home for supper, where he belongs?"

"Ach, now, Adolph, don't get excited right away. Always, Mr. Hochenheimer, my husband gets excited over nothing, when he knows how it hurts his heart. Like that boy ain't old enough to stay out to supper when he wants, Adolph! 'Sh-h-h!"

Mrs. Shongut smiled to conceal that her heart was faint, and the saga of a mother might have been written round that smile.

"Now, now, Adolph, don't you begin to worry."

"I tell you, Shongut, it's a mistake to worry. I save all my excitement for the good things in life."

"See, Adolph; from a young man like Mr. Hochenheimer you can get pointers."

"I tell you, Shongut, over such a nice little home and such a nice little family as you got I might get excited; but over the little things that don't count for much I 'ain't got time."

Mrs. Shongut waved a deprecatory hand. "It's a nice enough little home for us, Mr. Hochenheimer, but with a grand house like I hear you built for your mother up on the stylish hilltop in Cincinnati, I guess to you it seems right plain."

"That's where you're wrong, Mrs. Shongut. Like I says to Shongut coming out on the street-car with him to-night, if it hadn't been that I thought maybe my mother would like a little fanciness after a hard life like hers, for my own part a little house and a big garden is all I ask for."

"Ach, Mr. Hochenheimer, with such a grand house like that is--sunk-in baths Mrs. Schwartz says you got! To see a house like that, I tell you it must be a treat."

"It's a fine place, Mrs. Shongut, but too big for me and my mother. When I got into the hands of architects, let me tell you, I feel I was lucky to get off with only twenty-five rooms. Right now, Mrs. Shongut, we got rooms we don't know how to pronounce."

"Twenty-five rooms! Did you hear that, Adolph? Twenty-five rooms! I bet, Mr. Hochenheimer, your mother is proud of such a son as can give her twenty-five rooms."

"We don't say much about it to each other, my mother and me; but--you can believe me or not--in our big, stylish house up there on the hill, with her servants to take away from her all the pleasure of work and her market and old friends down on Richmond Street yet, and nothing but gold furniture round her, she gets lonesome enough. If it wasn't for my garden and the beautiful scenery from my terraces, I would wish myself back in our little down-town house more than once, too. I tell you, Mrs. Shongut, fineness ain't everything."

"You should bring your mother some time to Mound City with you when you come over on business, Mr. Hochenheimer. We would do our best to make it pleasant for her."

"She's an old woman, Mrs. Shongut, and in a train or an automobile I can't get her. I guess it would be better, Mrs. Shongut, if I carry off some of your family with me to Cincinnati."

And, to belie that his words had any glittering import, he lay back in his chair in a state of silent laughter, which set his soft-fleshed cheeks aquiver; and his blue eyes, so ready yet so reluctant, disappeared behind a tight squint.

"Adolph, I guess Mr. Hochenheimer will excuse us--eh? Renie, you can entertain Mr. Hochenheimer while me and papa go and spend the evening over at Aunt Meena's. Mr. Shongut's sister, Mr. Hochenheimer, 'ain't been so well. Anyways, I always say young folks 'ain't got no time for old ones."

"You go right ahead along, Mrs. Shongut. Don't treat me like company. I hope Miss Renie don't mind if I spend the evening?"

"I should say not."

"Hochenheimer, a cigar?"

"Thanks; I don't smoke."

"My husband, with his heart trouble, shouldn't smoke, neither, Mr. Hochenheimer; it worries me enough. What me and the doctors tell him goes in one ear and out of the other."

"See, Hochenheimer, when you get a wife how henpecked you get!"

"A henpeck never drew much blood, Shongut."

"Come, Adolph; it is a long car-ride to Meena's."

They pushed back from the table, the four of them, smiling-lipped. With his short-fingered, hairy-backed hands Mr. Hochenheimer dusted at his coat lapels, then shook his bulging trousers knees into place.

The lamp of inner sanctity burns in strange temples. A carpenter in haircloth shirt first turned men's hearts outward. Who can know, who does not first cross the plain of the guide with gold, that behind the moldy panels at Ara Coeli reigns the jeweled bambino, robed in the glittering gems of sacrifice?

Who could know, as Mr. Hochenheimer stood there in the curtailed dignity of his five feet five, that behind his speckled and slightly rotund waistcoat a choir sang of love, and that the white flame of his spirit burned high?

"I tell you, Mrs. Shongut, it is a pleasure to be invited out to your house. You should know how this old bachelor hates hotels."

"And you should know how welcome you always are, Mr. Hochenheimer. To-morrow night you take supper with us too. We don't take 'no'--eh, Adolph? Renie?"

"I appreciate that, Mrs. Shongut; but I--I don't know yet--if--if I stay over."

Mr. Shongut batted a playful hand and shuffled toward the door. "You stay, Hochenheimer! I bet you a good cigar you stay. Ain't I right, Renie, that he stays? Ain't I right?"

Against the sideboard, fingering her white dress, Miss Shongut regarded her parents, and her smile was as wan as moonlight.

"Ain't I right, Renie?"

"Yes, papa."

* * * * *

On the bit of porch, the hall light carefully lowered and cushions from within spread at their feet, the dreamy quiet of evening and air as soft as milk flowed round and closed in about Miss Shongut and Mr. Hochenheimer.

They drew their rocking-chairs arm to arm, so that, behind a bit of climbing moonflower vine, they were as snug as in a bower. Stars shone over the roofs of the houses opposite; the shouts of children had died down; crickets whirred.

"Is the light from that street lamp in your eyes, Renie?"

"No, no."

The wooden floor reverberated as they rocked. A little thrill of breeze fluttered her filmy shoulder scarf against his hand. To his fermenting fancy it was as though her spirit had flitted out of the flesh.

"Ah, Miss Renie, I--I--"

"What, Mr. Hochenheimer?"

"Nothing. Your--your little shawl, it tickled my hand so."

She leaned her elbow on the arm of her chair and cupped her chin in her palm. Her eyes had a peculiar value--like a mill-pond, when the wheel is still, reflects the stars in calm and unchurned quiet.

"You look just like a little princess to-night, Miss Renie--that pretty shawl and your eyes so bright."

"A princess!"

"Yes; if I had a tin suit and a sword to match I'd ride up on a horse and carry you off to my castle in Cincinnati."

"Say, wouldn't it be a treat for Wasserman Avenue to see me go loping off like that!"

"This is the first little visit we've ever had together all by ourselves, ain't it, Miss Renie? Seems like, to a bashful fellow like me, you was always slipping away from me."

"The flowers and the candies you kept sending me were grand, Mr. Hochenheimer--and the letter--to-day."

"You read the letter, Miss Renie?"

"Yes, I--I--You shouldn't keep spoiling me with such grand flowers and candy, Mr. Hochenheimer."

"If tell you that never in my life I sent flowers or candy, or wrote a letter like I wrote you yesterday, to another young lady, I guess you laugh at me--not, Miss Renie?"

"You shouldn't begin, Mr. Hochenheimer, by spoiling me."

"Ah, Miss Renie, if you knew how I like to spoil you, if you would let me--Ach, what's the use? I--I can't say it like I want." She could hear him breathing. "It--it's a grand night, Miss Renie."

"Yes."

"Grand!"

"And look over those roofs! It seems like there's a million stars shining, don't it?"

"You're like me, Miss Renie; so many times I've noticed it. Nothing is so grand to me as nature, neither."

"Up at Green Springs, in the Ozarks, where we went for ten days last summer, honest, Mr. Hochenheimer, I used to lie looking out the window all night. The stars up there shone so close it seemed like you could nearly touch them."

"Ain't that wonderful, Miss Renie, you should be just like me again!" She smiled in the dark. "When I was a boy always next to the attic window I liked to sleep. When I built my house, Miss Renie, the first thing after I designed my rose-garden I drew up for myself a sleeping-garden on my roof. The architects fussed enough about spoiling the roof-line, but that's one of the things I wanted which I stood pat for and got--my sleeping-garden."

"Sleeping-garden!"

"Miss Renie, I just wish you could see it--all laid out in roses in summer, and a screened-in pergola, where I sleep, right underneath the stars and roses. I sleep so close to heaven I always say I can smell it."

She turned her little face, white as a spray of jasmine against a dark background of night, toward him. "Underneath a pergola of roses! I guess it's the roses you must smell. How grand!"

"Sometimes when--if you come to Cincinnati I want to show you my place, Miss Renie. If I say so myself, I got a wonderful garden; flowers I can show you grown from clippings from every part of the world. If I do say so, for a sausage-maker who never went to school two years in his life it ain't so bad. I got a lily-pond, Miss Renie, they come from all over to see. By myself I designed it."

"It must be grand, Mr. Hochenheimer."

"On Sunday, Miss Renie, I like for my boys and girls from the factory to come up to my place and make themselves at home. You should see my old mother how she fixes for them! I wish you could see them boys and girls, and old men and women. In a sausage-factory they don't get much time to listen to birds and water when it falls into a fountain. I wish, Miss Renie, you could see them with the flowers. I--well, I don't know how to say it; but I wish you could see them for yourself."

"They like it?"

"Like it! I tell you it's the greatest pleasure I get out of my place. I wish, instead of my fine house, the city would let me build my factory for them right in the garden."

"On such a stylish street they wouldn't ever let you, Mr. Hochenheimer."

"Me and my mother ain't much for style, Miss Renie. Honest, you'd be surprised, but with my fine house I don't even keep an automobile. My mother, she's old, Miss Renie, and won't go in one. Alone it ain't no pleasure; and when I don't walk down to my factory the street-cars is good enough."

"You should take it easier, Mr. Hochenheimer."

"All our lives, Miss Renie, we've been so busy, my mother and me, I tell her we got to be learnt--like children got to be learnt to walk--how to enjoy ourselves. We--we need somebody young--somebody like you in the house, Miss Renie--young and so pretty, and full of life, and--and so sweet."

She gave a gauzy laugh. "Honest, it must seem like a dream to have a rose-garden right on the place you live."

"I wish you could see, Miss Renie, a new Killarney my gardener showed me in the hothouse yesterday before I left--white-and-pink blend; he got the clipping from Jamaica. It's a pale pink in the heart like the first minute when the sun rises; and then it gets pinker and pinker toward the outside petals, till it just bursts out as red as the sun when it's ready to set."

"And those beautiful little tan roses you sent me, Mr. Hochenheimer; I--"

"Ah, Miss Renie, the clipping from those sunset roses comes from Italy; but now I call them Renie Roses, if--if you'll excuse me. I tell you, Miss Renie, you look just enough like 'em to be related. Little satiny gold-looking roses, with a pink blush on the inside of the petals and a--a few little soft thorns on the stem."

"Aw, Mr. Hochenheimer, I ain't got thorns."

Out from the velvet shadows his face came closer. "It's thorns to me, Miss Renie, because you're so pretty and sweet, and--and seem so far away from a--plain fellow like me."

"I--"

"I'm a plain man, Miss Renie, and I don't know how to talk much about the things I feel inside of me; but--but I _feel_, all-righty."

"Looks ain't everything."

"I tell you, Miss Renie, now since I can afford it, I just don't seem to know how to do the things I got the feeling inside of me for. Even in my grand house sometimes I feel like it--it's too late for me to live like I feel."

"Nothing's ever too late, Mr. Hochenheimer."

"Just since I met you I can feel that way, Miss Renie, if you'll excuse me for saying it--just since I met you."

"Me?"

"For the first time in my life, Miss Renie, I got the feeling from a girl that, for me, life--maybe my life--is just beginning. Like a vine, Miss Renie, you got yourself tangled round my feelings."

"Oh, Mr. Hochenheimer!"

"Like I told your papa to-night on the car, I 'ain't got much to offer a beautiful young girl like you; money, I can see, don't count for so much with a fine girl like you, and I--I don't need to be told that my face and my ways ain't my fortune."