Just Around the Corner: Romance en casserole

"You are safe with me, Mrs. Katzenstein." "Come here, Birdie! Turn round for Mrs. Adler--only twelve dollars to make with findings!" "I'll take her my blue cloth," said Mrs. Adler. "You won't regret it. Just tell her I sent you. If you want you can have the address, too, Mrs. Gump." "I got a compliment for you about the dress you wore last night, Miss Birdie. Wonderful! No trump! This morning at breakfast Marcus said lots about your pretty dress and pretty ways; and for him to say that is a lot; not ten words can I get out of him, as a rule." "I wish you could hear Birdie, too, Mrs. Gump! Believe me, she thinks he's a fine boy--and how hard that girl is to suit you wouldn't believe it!" "Aw, mamma!" "Change partners, ladies!" Birdie hurried out into the dining-room; a flush branded her cheeks--Daphne fleeing from Apollo could not have been more deliciously agitated. "Tillie," she directed, "you can make the coffee now and put the finger-rolls on." A snowy round table was spread beneath a large, opaline dome of lights, which showered over the feast like a spray of stars; and in the center a mammoth cut-glass bowl of fruit, overflowing its sides with trailing bunches of hothouse grapes, and piled to a fitting climax of oranges, peeled in fanciful flower designs; fat bananas, with half the skin curled backward; and apples so firm and red that they might have been lacquered. The guests filed in. "We haven't got much, ladies--Tillie, bring in some of the chairs from the parlor--but Birdie says it isn't style to have such big lunches any more. Sit right down here, Mrs. Gump, between me and Birdie. Now, ladies, help yourselfs and don't be bashful. Start the sardines round, Batta." "What a pretty centerpiece, Mrs. Katzenstein!" "Do you like it, Mrs. Kronfeldt? Birdie made it when the whip-stitch first came out. We got the doilies, too." "I think it's good for a girl to be so practical," said Mrs. Gump, squeezing an arc of a lemon over her sardine. "If I had a daughter she should know how to do things round the house, even if she didn't have to use it." "I'm not the kind to brag on my children; but, if I do say so myself, my girls can turn their hands to anything. If the day ever comes--God forbid!--when they should need it they'll know how." "Exactly." "When my Ray got engaged she made every monogram for her trousseau. I can prove it by Batta what a trousseau that girl had--and she made every monogram for every piece. She never comes home with the children to visit that she don't say: 'Mamma, thank Heaven, Abe is doing so grand and I don't need to--but there ain't a woman in Kansas City can beat me on housekeeping.'" "This is delicious grape-jelly, Mrs. Katzenstein." "That's some more of Birdie's doings. Honest, you may believe me or not, Mrs. Gump, but I have to fight to keep that girl away from the kitchen and housework! Yesterday it was all I could do to get her to go to Rosie Freund's linen shower; she wanted to stay home and help me with to-day's _Kuechen_. This morning, after last night, she was up before eight! Such a child!" "I suppose you heard of poor Flora Freund's trouble, didn't you, Salcha?" "Yes, Batta; you could have knocked me down with a feather! But Mr. Katzenstein always said the new store was too big. And such a failure, too!" "I guess Flora won't have so many airs now! Down to her feet she got a sealskin coat this winter." "I always say to Mr. Katzenstein we ain't such high-fliers, but we are steady. Try some of that pickled herring, Mrs. Gump. I put it up myself." "I guess you heard of Stella Loeb's engagement, Birdie, didn't you?" inquired Mrs. Mince, spreading the grape-jelly atop a finger-roll. "To a Mr. Steinfeld from Cleveland." "Yes, I hear she's doing grand; but so is he. To get in with the Loeb Brothers' crowd ain't so bad." "Yes, they're all grand matches!" exclaimed Mrs. Ginsburg. "It's just like Meena says; they're all gold pocket-book and automobile matches when they're with out-of-town men; but Cleveland--I don't wish it to her to live in Cleveland--not that I've ever been there, but I don't envy girls that marry out of New York." "My Ray's got it grand in Kansas City! I wish you could see her closet room and her pantry--as big as my whole kitchen! A girl could do worse than Kansas City or Cleveland." "I always say," remarked Birdie, "when I get engaged it makes no difference where he goes." "That's the right way to feel, Miss Birdie. Some day, if Marcus should ever marry--and I'm the last one to stand in his way--if he gets his promotion to the Newark factories and the girl he picks out don't like Newark, then she's not the right girl," said Mrs. Gump. "Newark," said Mrs. Katzenstein, "is a grand little town. Whenever we pass through on our way to Kansas City Birdie always says what a sweet little town it is. Mrs. Silverman, have another cup of coffee." The short winter day sloughed off suddenly, and it was dark when they rose from the table. "So late!" exclaimed Mrs. Mince. "I got a girl that can't so much as put on the potatoes. Honest, the servant problem gets woise and woise." "Sh-h-h!" cautioned Mrs. Katzenstein, placing her forefinger across her lips and glancing warningly toward the kitchen. "Tillie," she whispered, "ain't such a jewel neither; but she's honest, and I'm glad enough to have anybody these days. Birdie, she's always fussing with me because I do too much in the kitchen; but why should my husband have his coffee so it don't suit him? Children don't understand--they're too much for style." "In my little flat, with Etta married and gone," chimed in Mrs. Adler, "I'm better off without a girl. I got a woman to come in and clean three times a week, and me and Ike go out for our supper. I got it better without the worry of a girl." "I give you right. If I'd listen to Marcus I'd keep a servant, too--a servant when I got my troubles without one!" "Ain't that jus' like papa, Birdie? He always says: 'Salcha, you take it easy now; when one girl isn't enough keep two'--as if I didn't have enough troubles already!" "Good-by, Mrs. Katzenstein!" Mrs. Kronfeldt inserted a tissue-paper-wrapped package carefully within her muff. "You got good taste in prizes--salts and peppers always come in handy." "That's the way me and Birdie felt when we picked them out--you can't have too many of them." "And, Birdie, you come over with your mamma some afternoon when Ruby's home. That girl with her society and engagements--I never see her myself! This afternoon she saw vaudeville with Sol Littleberger. He's in off the road." "Birdie had an engagement this afternoon, too, with a traveling-man; but I always like to have her home when I entertain." "I had a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Katzenstein. You and Miss Birdie must come and see me--One Hundred and Forty-first Street ain't so far away that you can't get to us." "Me and Birdie can come almost any afternoon, Mrs. Gump, except Saturday we go to the matinee--we're great ones for Saturday matinee." "That's what I call too bad! On Saturday Marcus comes home early, and he could see you home." "Well," said Mrs. Katzenstein, plucking a thread off Mrs. Gump's coat-sleeve, "it's not like there weren't plenty more Saturdays in the year. I got enough vaudeville shows this year anyway." "After the third number I always say, 'Mamma, let's go!'--don't I, mamma?" said Birdie. "We can come next Saturday, all right, Mrs. Gump; but mind, don't you go to any trouble for us--Birdie's on a diet, and all I want is a cup of coffee. It makes my husband so mad when I come home and got no appetite." "Good-by, Mrs. Ginsburg. _Ach_, that's right--I forgot; Birdie, write down Maggie's address for Mrs. Ginsburg. You try her once. She brings home the clothes so white it's a pleasure to put them away. Tell her I recommended her. I wish you could see Birdie's shirt-waists come home from the wash--just like new!" "I'll try her next week," said Mrs. Ginsburg, buckling her fur neckpiece. "Give Adolph my love, Batta. Birdie, help Aunt Batta with her coat. Come over some evening soon. Good-by, ladies! Come again. Good-by! Be careful of that step there, Mrs. Gump. Good-by!" Mrs. Katzenstein clicked the door softly shut and turned to her daughter. There were high red spots on her cheeks. "Well," she sighed, "I'm glad that's over." "Me, too; and I'm sorry enough that Mrs. Gump didn't win those salt-cellars." "Such a grand woman as she is--plain and unassuming! He left her real comfortable, too--not much, but enough for herself. But, to look at her in that plain black dress, you wouldn't think that she had a son that might be made manager of the Loeb factory, would you?" "It is so," agreed Birdie, nibbling from a half-emptied candy-dish on one of the tables; "and that's just the way with Marcus last night--it was only accident that he let out that him and Louis Epstein might have an automobile." "Plain and unassuming people!" Mrs. Katzenstein exclaimed. "I says to him when we were in the taxi, I says: 'Automobile-riding sure is grand!' Then he says: 'If something I'm hoping for happens in a couple of days, me and Louis Epstein are going to buy one of those five-hundred-dollar roadsters together. Then we can have a swell time together, Birdie!' Just like that he said it." "You're a good girl, Birdie, and you deserve the best. To-night you wear your blue. Tillie, come in and set the chairs straight--nice--Miss Birdie's going to have company. How that Mrs. Ginsburg got on my nerves, I can't tell you, with her Meena and her brag!" "I should say so!" * * * * * At eight o'clock Birdie again posed before her mirror. Her robin's-egg-blue dress where it fell away from her rather splendid and carefully powdered chest was spangled with small sequins, which glinted like stars. There was a corresponding galaxy of spangles arranged bandeau-fashion in her hair. The Blessed Damozel, when she leaned out from the golden bar of Heaven, wore seven significant stars in her hair. Birdie also wore stars in her hair, in her eyes, and in her heart and on her bosom. "I think this dress makes me look grand and thin, mamma." "It cost enough." "Do you like those silver spangles in my hair? That's the way Bella Block wore hers at the theater the other night." "I don't believe in such fussiness for girls! Your mother before you didn't have it. If you want you can wear my diamond bow-knot. Have Tillie come in and pin it on you with the safety-catch. I'm so nervous like a cat!" "What are you so nervous about, mamma?" "Say, Birdie, you know I'm the last one to talk about such things--but the Gumps don't start things without intentions. Flora told me herself that Ben Gump got engaged to her sister the second time he called." "Aw, mamma!" "Believe me, if it should come to us we got no cause to complain. Grand prospects! Grand boy! And what more do you want? Papa and me, with such a son-in-law, can enjoy our old age." "Such talk!" "You think I let on to anybody! All I say is to you; but a girl needs advice from her parents. Look at your sister Ray--she was a smart and sensible girl." "Abe, with his stuttering and all!" "Just the same he is a good husband to her and makes her a good living. You think she would have got him if she hadn't fixed things for herself--kind of! Believe me, it was hard enough for us, then, before papa went into petticoats." "She can have him!" "I always say Ray was a smart girl. She wasn't no beauty, and the chances didn't come so thick; and now to walk in her house you wouldn't think she did the courting! A more devoted boy than Abe I don't know."