Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 25

"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 sa.s.s 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 portieres 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, _ba.s.so-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 Wa.s.serman Avenue emerged in dainty dimity and silk sewing-bags. Rocking-chairs, tiptilted against veranda railings, were swung round front-face. Greetings, light as rubber b.a.l.l.s, 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 st.i.tch, Mrs. Schimm. When I finish this centerpiece I start me a dozen doilies too."