Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 30

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 p.r.o.nounce."

"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 sanct.i.ty 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 Wa.s.serman 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."