Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 36

"'Mamma,' he used to say--standing in the kitchen door when he came home nights and looking at me maybe rocking Becky there by the stove and waiting supper for him--'Mamma,' he'd say, clapping his hands at me, 'open your eyes wide so I can see what's in 'em.'"

"That such a big man should play like that!"

"'Come in, darling,' I'd say; 'you can't guess from there what we got.'"

"Just think, like just married you were together."

"'Noodles!' he'd holler, and all the time right in back of me, spread out on the board, he could see 'em. I can see him yet, Mrs. Fischlowitz, standing there in the kitchen doorway, under the horseshoe what he found when we first landed."

"I can tell you, Mrs. Meyerburg, in that flat we 'ain't had nothing but luck, neither, with you so good to us."

"Ach, now, Mrs. Fischlowitz, for an old friend like you, what I lived next door to so many years and more as once gave my babies to keep for me when I must go out awhile, I shouldn't do a little yet."

"'Little,' she calls it. With such low rent you give us I'm ashamed to bring the money. Five weeks in the country and milk for my Tillie, until it's back from the grave you s.n.a.t.c.hed her. Even on my back now every st.i.tch what I got on I got to thank you for. Such comfort I got from that black cape!"

"I was just thinking, Mrs. Fischlowitz, with your rheumatism and on such a cold day a cape ain't so good for you, neither. Right up under it the wind can get."

"Warm like toast it is, Mrs. Meyerburg."

"I got a idea, Mrs. Fischlowitz! In that chest over there by the wall I got yet a jacket from Rivington Street. Right away it got too tight for me. Like new it is, with a warm beaver collar. At auction one day he got it for me. Like a top it will fit you, Mrs. Fischlowitz."

"No, no, please, Mrs. Meyerburg. It just looks like every time what I come you got to give me something. Ashamed it makes me. Please you shouldn't."

But in the pleasant frenzy of sudden decision Mrs. Meyerburg was on her knees beside a carved chest, burrowing her arm beneath folded garments, the high smell of camphor exuding.

"Only yesterday in my hand I had it. There! See! Just your size!" She held the creased garment out from her by each shoulder, blowing the nap of the beaver collar.

"Please, no, Mrs. Meyerburg. Such a fine coat maybe you can wear it yourself. No, I don't mean that, when you got such grander ones; but for me, Mrs. Meyerburg, it's too fine to take. Please!"

Standing there holding it thrust enthusiastically forward, a glaze suddenly formed over Mrs. Meyerburg's eyes and she laid her cheek to the brown fur collar, a tear dropping to it.

"You'm right, Mrs. Fischlowitz, I--I can't give this up. I--he--a coat he bought once for me at auction when--he _oser_ could afford it. I--you must excuse me, Mrs. Fischlowitz."

"That's right, Mrs. Meyerburg, for a remembrance you should keep it."

Then brightening: "But I got in the next room, Mrs. Fischlowitz, a coat better as this for you. Lined all in squirrel-skin they call it. One day by myself I bought it, and how my Becky laughs and won't even let me wear it in automobile. I ain't stylish enough, she says."

With an inarticulate medley of sounds Mrs. Fischlowitz held up a hand of remonstrance. "But--"

"Na, na, just a minute." And on the very wings of her words Mrs.

Meyerburg was across the room, through the ornate door of an ornate boudoir, and out presently with the garment flung across her arm. "Na, here put it on."

"Ach, such a beau-tiful coat!"

"So! Let me help!"

They leaned together, their faces, which the years had pa.s.sed over none too lightly, close and eager. Against the beaver collar Mrs.

Fischlowitz's hand lay fluttering.

"Put your hands in the pockets, Mrs. Fischlowitz. Deep, eh?"

"Finer you can believe me as I ever had in my life before. I can tell you, Mrs. Meyerburg, a woman like you should get first place in heaven and you should know how many on the East Side there is says the same.

I--I brought you your rent, Mrs. Meyerburg. You must excuse how late, but my Sollie--"

"Ja, ja."

Eleven! Twelve! Twelve-fifty! Mrs. Fischlowitz counted it out carefully from a small purse tucked in her palm, snapping it carefully shut over the remaining coins.

"Thank you, Mrs. Fischlowitz. You should never feel hurried. Mr.

Oppenheimer will mail you a receipt."

"I guess now I must be going, Mrs. Meyerburg--to-night I promised my Sollie we have cheese-Kuchen for supper."

"Always I used to make it with a short crust for my Isadore. How he loved it!"

"Just again, Mrs. Meyerburg, I want you should let me say how--how this is the finest present what I ever had in my life. I can tell you from just how soft it is on me, I can tell how it must feel to ride in automobile."

A light flashed in brilliance up into Mrs. Meyerburg's face. "Mrs.

Fischlowitz!"

"Ja, Mrs. Meyerburg?"

"I tell you what! I--this afternoon my Becky, Mrs. Fischlowitz, she--she ain't so well and like always can't take with me a ride in the Park.

Such--such a cold that girl has got. How I should like it, Mrs.

Fischlowitz, if you would be so kind to--to take with me my drive in--in your new coat."

"I--"

"Ja, ja, I know, Mrs. Fischlowitz, cheese Kuchen should first get cold before supper, but if you could just an hour ride by me a little? If you would be so kind, Mrs. Fischlowitz!"

Diffidence ran trembling along Mrs. Meyerburg's voice, as if she dared not venture too far upon a day blessed with tasks. "I got always so--so much time to myself now'days, Mrs. Fischlowitz, sometimes I--I get maybe a--a little lonesome."

"Ach, Mrs. Meyerburg, you don't want to be bothered with such--such a person like me when you ride so grand through the Park."

"Fit like a fiddle it will make you feel, Mrs. Fischlowitz. b.u.t.ton up tight that collar and right away we start. Please, right next to you, will you press that third b.u.t.ton? That means we go right down and find outside the car waiting for us."

"But, Mrs. Meyerburg--"

"See, just like you, I put on a coat on the inside fur. This way, Mrs.

Fischlowitz. Careful, your foot!"

In the great lower hall full of Tudor gloom the carved stone arches dropping in rococo stalact.i.tes from the ceiling, and a marble staircase blue-veined as a delicate woman's hand winding up to an oriole window, a man-servant swung back two sets of trellised doors; bowed them noiselessly shut again.

The quick cold of December bit them at the threshold. Opposite lay the Park, its trees, in their smooth bark whipped bare, and gray as nuns, the sunlight hard against their boles. More sunlight lay cold and glittering down the length of the most facaded avenue in the world and on the great up-and-down stream of motor-cars and their nickel-plated snouts and plate-gla.s.s sides.

Women, with heads too haughty to turn them right or left, moved past in closed cars that were perfumed and upholstered like jewel-boxes; the joggly smartness of hansom cabs, their fair fares seeing and being seen behind the wooden ap.r.o.ns and their frozen laughter coming from their lips in vapor! On the broad sidewalks women in low shoes that defied the wind, and men in high hats that the wind defied; nursemaids trim as deaconesses, and their charges the beautiful exotic children of pure milk and pure sunshine!

One of these deaconess-like nursemaids, walking out with a child whose black curls lay in wide sprays on each shoulder, detached herself from the up-town flow and crossed to the trellised threshold.