Just Around the Corner: Romance en casserole

A sudden trembling took Mrs. Binswanger. "For God's sakes, know what, Julius--know what?" "I'm done for! I'm gone under! Till it happened you wouldn't believe me. Two years I seen it coming, two years I been fightin' and fightin'--fightin' it by myself! And now for yourselves you look in the papers two weeks from to-morrow, the first of March, and see--I'm done for--I'm gone under, I--" "Julius--my God, you--you ain't, Julius, you ain't!" His voice rose like a gale. "I'm gone under--I ain't got twenty cents on the dollar. I'm gone, Becky. Beat up! To-morrow two weeks the creditors, they're on me! My last extension expires, and they're on me. I been fightin' and fightin'. Twenty cents on the dollar I can't meet, Becky--I can't, Becky, I can't! I been fightin' and fightin', but I can't, Becky--I--can't! I'm gone!" "Pa." "Julius, Julius, for God's sakes, you--you don't mean it, Julius--you--don't--mean it--you're fooling us--Julius!" Small, cold tears welled to the corners of his eyes. "I'm gone, Becky--and now he--he wants the shirt off my back--he can have it, God knows. But--but--_ach_, Becky--I--I wish I could have saved _you_--but that a man twice so strong as his father--_ach, Gott_, what--what's the use? I'm gone, Becky, gone!" Mr. Isadore Binswanger swung to his feet and regarded his parent with the dazed eyes of a sleepwalker awakening on a perilous ledge. "Aw, pa, for--for God's sake, why didn't you tell a fellow? I--we--aw, pa, I--I can knuckle down if I got to. Gee whiz! how was a fellow to know? You--you been cuttin' up about everything since--since we was kids; aw, pa--please--gimme a chance, pa, I can knuckle down--pa--pa!" He approached the racked form of his father as if he would throw himself a stepping-stone at his feet, and then because his voice stuck in his throat and ached until the tears sprang to his eyes he turned suddenly and went out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The echo hung for a moment. Miss Binswanger lay whitely in her chair, weakened as if the blood had flowed out of her heart. From the granitoid square at the base of the air-shaft came the rattle of after-dinner dishes and the babble of dialect. Mr. Binswanger wept the tears of physical weakness. "I--I'm gone, Becky. What you want for Poil I can't do. I'm gone under. We got to start over again. It was the interurban done it, Becky. I needed new capital to meet the new competition. I--I could have stood up under it then, Becky, but--but--" "_Ach_, my husband--for myself I don't care. _Ach_, my husband." "I--I'm gone, Becky--gone." He rose to his feet and shambled feebly to his bedroom, his fingers feeling of the furniture for support, and his breath coming in the long wheezes of dry tears. And in the cradle of her mother's arms Miss Binswanger wept the hot tears of black despair; they seeped through the showy lace yoke and scalded her mother's heart. "Oh, my baby! _Ach_, my husband! A good man like him, a good man like him!" "Don't cry, mamma, don't--cry." "Nothing he ever refused me, and now when we should be able to do for our children and--" "Don't cry, mamma, don't cry." "If--if he had the money--for a boy like Max--he'd give it, Poil. Such a good husband--such--_ach_, I go me in to papa now--poor papa. I've been bad, Poil; we must make it up to him; we--" "'Sh-h-h!" "We got to start over again, Poil--to the bone I'll work my fingers, I--" "'Shh-h-h, mamma,'sh-h-h--somebody's knocking." They raised their tear-ravaged faces in the attitude of listening, their eyes salt-bitten and glazed. "It's--it's Izzy, baby. See how sorry he gets right away. He ain't a bad boy, Poil, only always I've spoilt him. Come in, my boy--come in, and go in to your papa." The door swung open and fanned backward the stale air in a sharp gust, and the women sprang apart mechanically as automatons, the sagging, open-mouthed vacuity of surprise on Mrs. Binswanger's face, the tears still wet on her daughter's cheeks and lying lightly on her lashes like dew. "Mr. Teitlebaum." "Max!" Mr. Teitlebaum hesitated at the threshold, the flavor of his amorous spirit tasty on his lips and curving them into a smile. "That's my name! Hello, Pearlie girlie! How-dye-do, Mrs. Binswanger--what what--" He regarded them with dark, quiet eyes, the quick red of embarrassment running high in his face and under his tight-fitting cap of close-nap black hair. "Ah, excuse me; I might have known. I--I'm too early. Like my mother says, I was in such a hurry to--to get back here again I--I nearly got out and pushed the Subway--I--you must excuse me. I--" "No, no; sit down, Mr. Teitlebaum. Pearlie ain't feelin' so well this evening; she's all right now, though. Such a cold she's got, ain't you, Poil?" "Yes--yes. Such a cold I got. Sit--sit down, Max." He regarded her with the rims of his eyes stretched wide in anxiety. "Down at supper so well you looked, Pearlie; I says to my mother, like a flower you looked." A fog of tears rose sheer before her. "Her papa, Mr. Teitlebaum, he ain't so well, neither. Just now he went to bed, and he--he said to you I should give his excuses." "So! Ain't that too bad, now!" "Sit down, Max, there, next to mamma." He leaned across the table toward the little huddle of her figure, the gentle villanelle of his emotions writ frankly across his features. "Pearlie--" "She'll be all right in a minute, Mr. Teitlebaum--like her papa she is, always so afraid of a little sickness." "Pearlie, ain't you going to look at me?" She sprang from his light hand on her shoulder, and the tears grew to little globules, trembled, fell. Then a sudden rod of resolution straightened her back. "We--I been lying to you, Max; I ain't--sick!" "Poil!" "I--I think I know, little Pearlie!" "Poil!" "No, no; it's best we tell the truth, mamma." "Ya, ya. Oh, my--" "We--we're in big trouble, Max. Business trouble. The store, ever--ever since the traction--it ain't been the same." "I know, little Pearlie. I--" "Wait a minute, Max. We--we ain't what you maybe think we are. To-morrow two weeks we got to meet creditors and extension notes. We can't pay with even twenty cents on the dollar. We're gone under, Max!" "I--" "We ain't got it to meet them with. Papa--if a man like papa couldn't make it go nobody could--" "Such a man, Mr. Teitlebaum, so honest, so--" "Shh-h-h, mamma." "It's our--my fault, Max. He was afraid even last year, but I--even then I was the one that wanted the expense of the city. Mamma didn't want it--he didn't--it--was me--I--I--" "My fault, too, Poil--_ach, Gott_, my fault! How I drove him! How I drove him!" "We--we got to go back home, Max. We're going back and help him to begin over again. We--we been driving him like a pack of wolves. He never could refuse nobody nothing. If he thought mamma wanted the moon up he was ready to go for it; even when we was kids he--" "_Ach_, my husband, such a good provider he's always been! Such a husband!" "Always we got our way out of him. But to- night--to-night, Max, right here in this chair all _little_ he looked all of a sudden. So little! His back all crooked and all tired and--and I done it, Max--I ain't what you think I am--oh, God, I done it!" "_Ach_, my--" "Don't cry, mamma. 'Sh-h-h-h! Ain't you ashamed, with Mr. Teitlebaum standing right here? You must excuse her, Max, so terrible upset she is. 'Sh-h-h-h, mamma--'sh-h-h-h! We're going back home and begin over again. 'Sh-h-h-h! You won't have to dress for supper no more like you hate. We'll be home in time for your strawberry-preserves season, mamma, and rhubarb stew out of the garden, like papa loves. 'Sh-h-h-h! You must excuse her, Max--you must excuse me, too, to-night--you--come some other time--please." "Pearlie!" He came closer to the circle of light, and his large features came out boldly. "Pearlie, don't you cry neither, little girl--" "I--I ain't." "All what you tell me I know already." "Max!" "Mr. Teitlebaum!" "You must excuse me, Mrs. Binswanger, but in nearly the same line of business news like that travels faster than you think. Only to-day I heard for sure--how--shaky things stand. You got my sympathies, Mrs. Binswanger, but--but such a failure don't need to happen." Mrs. Binswanger clutched two hands around a throat too dry to swallow. "He can't stand it. He isn't strong enough. It will kill him. Always so honest to the last penny he's been, Mr. Teitlebaum, but never when he used to complain would I believe him. Always a great one for a poor mouth he was, Mr. Teitlebaum, even when he had it. So plain he always was, and now I--I've broke him--I--I--" "'Sh-h-h-h, mamma! Do you want papa should hear you in the next room? 'Sh-h-h-h! Please, you must excuse her, Max." "Pearlie"--he placed his hand lightly on her shoulder--"Pearlie--Mrs. Binswanger, you must excuse me, too, but I got to say it--while--while I got the courage. Can't you guess it, little Pearlie? I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you, Pearlie, since the first month you came to this hotel to live." "Max!" "_Ach, Gott!_" "I only got this to say to you: I love you, little Pearlie. To-day, when I heard the news, I was sorry, Pearlie, and--and glad, too. It made things look easier for me. Right away I invited Izzy to lunch so like a school-boy I could hint. I--two years I been wanting to get out of the store, Pearlie, where there ain't a chance for me to build up nothing. Like I told Izzy to-day, I want to find a run-down business that needs building up where I can accomplish things." "Max!" "I wanted him to know what I meant, but like--like a school-boy so mixed up I got. Eight thousand dollars I got laying for a opening. This failure--this failure don't need to happen, Pearlie. With new capital and new blood we don't need to be afraid of tractions and competitions--with me and Izzy, and my eight thousand dollars put in out there, we--we--but this ain't no time to talk business. I--you must excuse me, Mrs. Binswanger, but--but--" "Poil, my baby! Max!" "I love you, Pearlie girlie. Ever since we been in the same hotel together, when I seen you every day fresh like a flower and so fine, I--I been heels over head in love with you, Pearlie. You should know how my father and my married brothers tease me. I--I love you, Pearlie--" She relaxed to his approaching arms, and let her head fall back to his shoulder so that her face, upturned to his, was like a dark flower, and he kissed her where the tears lay wet on her petal-smooth cheeks and on her lips that trembled. "Max!" "My little girlie!" Mrs. Binswanger groped through tear-blinded eyes. "This--this--ain't no place for a--old woman, children--this--this--_ach_, what I'm sayin' I don't know! Like in a dream I feel." "Me, too, mamma; me, too. Like a dream. Ah, Max!" "I tiptoe in and surprise papa, children. I surprise papa. _Ach_, my children, my children, like in a dream I feel." She smiled at them with the tears streaming from her face like rain down a window-pane, opened the door to the room adjoining gently, and closed it more gently behind her. Her face was bathed in a peace that swam deep in her eyes like reflected moonlight trailing down on a lagoon, her lips trembled in the hysteria of too many emotions. She held the silence for a moment, and remained with her wide back to the door, peering across the dim-lit room at the curve-backed outline of her husband's figure, hunched in a sitting posture on the side of the bed. Beside him on the white coverlet a green tin box with a convex top like a miniature trunk lay on one end, its contents, bits of old-fashioned