The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 60

"I--me and Lester--Lester and me were talking, mamma--when the engagement's announced next week--a reception--"

"We can clear out this room, move the bed out of gramaw's room into ours, and serve the ice-cream and cake in--"

"Oh, mamma, I don't mean--that!"

"What?"

"Who ever heard of having a reception _here_! People won't come from town way out to this old--cabbage patch. Even Gertie Wolf with their big house on West Pine Boulevard had her reception at the Walsingham Hotel.

You--we--can't expect Mark Haas and all the relations--the Sinsheimers--and--all to come out here. I'd rather not have any."

"But, Selene, everybody knows we ain't millionaires, and that you got in with that crowd through being friends at school with Amy Rosen. All the city salesmen and the boys on Washington Avenue, even Mark Haas himself, that time he was in the store with Lester, knows the way we live. You don't need to be ashamed of your little home, Selene, even if it ain't on West Pine Boulevard."

"It'll be--your last expense, mamma. The Walsingham, that's where the girl that Lester Goldmark marries is expected to have her reception."

"But, Selene, mamma can't afford nothing like that."

Pink swam up into Miss Coblenz's face, and above the sheer-white collar there was a little beating movement at the throat, as if something were fluttering within.

"I--I'd just as soon not get married as--as not to have it like other girls."

"But, Selene--"

"If I--can't have a trousseau like other girls and the things that go with marrying into a--a family like Lester's--I--then--there's no use.

I--I can't! I--wouldn't!"

She was fumbling now for a handkerchief against tears that were imminent.

"Why, baby, a girl couldn't have a finer trousseau than the old linens back yet from Russia that me and gramaw got saved up for our girl--linen that can't be bought these days. Bed-sheets that gramaw herself carried to the border, and--"

"Oh, I know. I knew you'd try to dump that stuff on me. That old worm-eaten stuff in gramaw's chest."

"It's hand-woven, Selene, with--"

"I wouldn't have that yellow old stuff--that old-fashioned junk--if I didn't have any trousseau. If I can't afford monogrammed up-to-date linens, like even Alma Yawitz, and a--a p.u.s.s.y-willow-taffeta reception dress, I wouldn't have any. I wouldn't." Her voice crowded with pa.s.sion and tears rose to the crest of a sob. "I--I'd die first!"

"Selene, Selene, mamma ain't got the money. If she had it, wouldn't she be willing to take the very last penny to give her girl the kind of a wedding she wants? A trousseau like Alma's cost a thousand dollars if it cost a cent. Her table-napkins alone they say cost thirty-six dollars a dozen, unmonogrammed. A reception at the Walsingham costs two hundred dollars if it costs a cent. Selene, mamma will make for you every sacrifice she can afford, but she ain't got the money."

"You--have got the money!"

"So help me G.o.d, Selene! You know, with the quarries shut down, what business has been. You know how--sometimes even to make ends meet, it is a pinch. You're an ungrateful girl, Selene, to ask what I ain't able to do for you. A child like you that's been indulged, that I ain't even asked ever in her life to help a day down in the store. If I had the money, G.o.d knows you should be married in real lace, with the finest trousseau a girl ever had. But I ain't got the money--I ain't got the money."

"You have got the money! The book in gramaw's drawer is seven hundred and forty. I guess I ain't blind. I know a thing or two."

"Why Selene--that's gramaw's--to go back--"

"You mean the bank-book's hers?"

"That's gramaw's to go back--home on. That's the money for me to take gramaw and her wreaths back home on."

"There you go--talking loony."

"Selene!"

"Well, I'd like to know what else you'd call it, kidding yourself along like that."

"You--"

"All right. If you think gramaw, with her life all lived, comes first before me, with all my life to live--all right!"

"Your poor old--"

"It's always been gramaw first in this house, anyway. I couldn't even have company since I'm grown up because the way she's always allowed around. n.o.body can say I ain't good to gramaw; Lester say it's beautiful the way I am with her, remembering always to bring the newspapers and all, but just the same I know when right's right and wrong's wrong. If my life ain't more important than gramaw's, with hers all lived, all right. Go ahead!"

"Selene, Selene, ain't it coming to gramaw, after all her years' hard work helping us that--she should be ent.i.tled to go back with her wreaths for the graves? Ain't she ent.i.tled to die with that off her poor old mind? You bad, ungrateful girl, you, it's coming to a poor old woman that's suffered as terrible as gramaw that I should find a way to take her back."

"Take her back. Where--to jail? To prison in Siberia herself--"

"There's a way--"

"You know gramaw's too old to take a trip like that. You know in your own heart she won't ever see that day. Even before the war, much less now, there wasn't a chance for her to get pa.s.sports back there. I don't say it ain't all right to kid her along, but when it comes to--to keeping me out of the--the biggest thing that can happen to a girl--when gramaw wouldn't know the difference if you keep showing her the bank-book--it ain't right. That's what it ain't. It ain't right!"

In the smallest possible compa.s.s, Miss Coblenz crouched now upon the floor, head down somewhere in her knees, and her curving back racked with rising sobs.

"Selene--but some day--"

"Some day nothing! A woman like gramaw can't do much more than go down-town once a year, and then you talk about taking her to Russia! You can't get in there, I--tell you--no way you try to fix it after--the way gramaw--had--to leave. Even before the war, Ray Letsky's father couldn't get back on business. There's nothing for her there even after she gets there. In thirty years do you think you can find those graves? Do you know the size of Siberia? No! But I got to pay--I got to pay for gramaw's nonsense. But I won't. I won't go to Lester, if I can't go right. I--"

"Baby, don't cry so--for G.o.d's sake don't cry so!

"I wish I was dead."

"Sh-h-h--you'll wake gramaw."

"I do!"

"O G.o.d, help me to do the right thing!"

"If gramaw could understand, she'd be the first one to tell you the right thing. Anybody would."

"No! No! That little bank-book and its entries are her life--her life."

"She don't need to know, mamma. I'm not asking that. That's the way they always do with old people to keep them satisfied. Just humor 'em. Ain't I the one with life before me--ain't I, mamma?"

"O G.o.d, show me the way!"

"If there was a chance, you think I'd be spoiling things for gramaw? But there ain't, mamma--not one."

"I keep hoping if not before, then after the war. With the help of Mark Haas--"