Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 48

"What? What, Vi? What?"

She fumbled into the bosom of her blouse and slid a small folded square of yellowback bill into his hand.

"What? What, Vi? What?"

"A cool hundred, darlin'. Ingram--the Aid Society, because it's Christmas, darlin'. They opened up--a cool hundred! We--we can light out To-morrow, darlin'. A cool hundred! Old Ingram, the old skinflint, he opened up like--like a oyster. South, all of us, to-morrow, darlin'; it ain't nothing for me to get a job South. When I seen it was snowin'

I'd 'a' killed somebody to get it. I--I had to have it and we got it, darlin', we--we got it--a cool hundred!"

He lay back on the pillow, suddenly limp, the bill fluttering to the coverlet, and she slid her arm beneath his head.

"You could have knocked me down, too, darlin'. Easy, just like that he forked over. 'What's a Aid Society for?' he kept sayin'. 'What's a Aid Society for?'"

"Vi, I--"

"Don't cry, darlin', don't cry. I just can't stand it!"

"I--"

"'S-s-s-s-h! Easy, just like that he gimme it, darlin'."

"And me lying here hatin' him for a skinflint and his store for a bloodsucker and the Aid Society for a fake!"

"Yes, yes, darlin'."

"I feel new already, Vi. I can feel the sun already shining through me.

If he was here, I--I could just kiss his hand; that's how it feels for a fellow to get his nerve back. I got my chance now, Vi; there ain't nothing can keep me down. Just like he says--I'll be a new man out there. Look, hon, just talking about it! Feel how I got some strength back already. An hour ago I couldn't hold you like this."

"Oh, my darlin'!"

He sat up suddenly in bed and drew her into his arms and she laid her cheek against his, and in the silence, from the trundle crib beside them, the breathing of a child rose softly, fell softly.

"I--I blew us to a real Christmas, darlin', us and the kid. I--I couldn't help it. I couldn't bear to have her wake up without it, Harry, her and you--and me."

"A real Christmas, baby!"

"Red wine for you, darlin', like I brought you last Tuesday night and warmed you up so nice. The kind the doctor says is so grand for you, darlin'--red wine without bubbles like he says you gotta have."

"Red wine!"

"Yeh, and black grapes like I brought you last Tuesday, and like he says you oughtta have--black grapes and swell fruit that's good for you, darlin'."

"A real blow-out, Vi-dee."

"A bear for the kid, Harry!"

"Vi!"

"Yeh, a real brown grizz, with the grin and all, like she cried for in the window that Sunday--a real big brown one with the grin and all."

"That cost a real bunch of money, sweet!"

"Yeh, I blew me like sixty for it, hon, but she cried for it that Sunday and she had to have a Christmas, didn't she, darlin', even if she is too little. It--it would 'a' broke my heart to have her wake up to-morrow without one."

He regarded her through the glaze of tears. "My little kiddo!"

'"S-s-s-s-h!"

"It just don't seem fair for you to have to--"

"'S-s-s-s-h! Everything's fair, darlin', in love and war. All the rules for the game of living ain't written down--the Eleventh Commandment and the Twelfth Commandment and the Ninth Commandment."

"My little kiddo!"

"To-morrow, Harry, to-morrow, Harry, we're going! South, darlin', where he says the sun is going to warm you through and through. To-morrow, darlin'!"

"The next day, sweetness. You're all worn out and to-morrow's Christmas, and--"

But the shivering took hold of her again, and when she pressed her hand over his mouth he could feel it trembling.

"To-morrow, darlin', to-morrow before eight. Every day counts. Promise me, darlin'. I--I just can't live if you don't. To-morrow before eight.

Promise me, darlin'! Oh, promise me, darlin'!"

"Poor, tired little kiddo, to-morrow before eight, then, to-morrow before eight we go."

Her head relaxed.

"You're tired out, darlin'. Get to bed, baby. We got a big day to-morrow. We got a big day to-morrow, darlin'! Get to bed, Vi-dee."

"I wanna spread out her Christmas first, Harry. I want her to see it when she wakes up. I couldn't stand her not seem' it."

She scurried to the hall and back again, and at the foot of the bed she spread her gaudy wares: An iridescent rubber ball glowing with six colors; a ribbon of gilt paper festooned to the crib; a gleaming Christmas star that dangled and gave out radiance; a huge brown bear standing upright, and with bead eyes and a grin.

T.B.

The figurative underworld of a great city has no ventilation, housing or lighting problems. Rooks and crooks who live in the putrid air of crime are not denied the light of day, even though they loathe it. Cadets, social skunks, whose carnivorous eyes love darkness, walk in G.o.d's sunshine and breathe G.o.d's air. Scarlet women turn over in wide beds and draw closer velvet curtains to shut out the morning. Gamblers curse the dawn.

But what of the literal underworld of the great city? What of the babes who cry in fetid cellars for the light and are denied it? What of the Subway track-walker, purblind from gloom; the coal-stoker, whose fiery tomb is the boiler-room of a skysc.r.a.per; sweatshop workers, a flight below the sidewalk level, whose faces are the color of dead Chinese; six-dollar-a-week salesgirls in the arc-lighted subcellars of six-million-dollar corporations?

This is the literal underworld of the great city, and its sunless streets run literal blood--the blood of the babes who cried in vain; the blood from the lungs of the sweatshop workers whose faces are the color of dead Chinese; the blood from the cheeks of the six-dollar-a-week salesgirls in the arc-lighted subcellars. But these are your problems and my problems and the problems of the men who have found the strength or the fear not to die rich. The babe's mother, who had never known else, could not know that her cellar was fetid; she only cried out in her anguish and hated vaguely in her heart.

Sara Juke, in the bargain bas.e.m.e.nt of the t.i.tanic Department Store, did not know that lint from white goods clogs the lungs, and that the air she breathed was putrefied as from a noxious swamp. Sometimes a pain, sharp as a hat-pin, entered between her shoulder-blades. But what of that? When the heart is young the heart is bold, and Sara could laugh upward with the musical glee of a bird.

There were no seasons, except the spring and fall openings and semiannual clearing-sales, in the bargain bas.e.m.e.nt of the t.i.tanic Store.

On a morning when the white-goods counter was placing long-sleeve, high-necked nightgowns in its bargain bins, and knit underwear was supplanting the reduced muslins, Sara Juke drew her little pink-knitted jacket closer about her narrow shoulders and shivered--shivered, but smiled. "Br-r-r! October never used to get under my skin like this."