Just Around the Corner: Romance en casserole

"Sure thing. Wait, Miss Ruby--I'll climb for you. I have to go up anyway." "Aw, you're busy with your own customers. Don't trouble." "Nothing's trouble when it's for you, Miss Ruby. Show her those tassel tops, too." "Oh, Mr. Ginsburg, ain't you the kidder, though! Yes'm; the tassel tops are eighty. Ain't they the cutest little things?" At six o'clock a medley of whistles shrieked out the eventide--clarions that ripped upward like sky-rockets in flight; hard-throated soprano whistles that juggled with the topmost note like a colorature diva. The oak benches emptied, Mr. Ginsburg raised the front awning and kicked the carpet-covered brick away from the door, so that it swung quietly closed; daubed at his wrists and collar-top with a damp handkerchief. "First breathing space we've had to-day, ain't it, Miss Ruby?" Miss Cohn flopped down on a bench and breathed heavily; her hair lay damp on her temples; the ruffles at her neck were limp as the ruff of a Pierette the morning after the costume ball. "You should worry, Mr. Ginsburg! With such a business next year at this time you'll have two clerks and more breathing space than you got breath." Mr. Ginsburg seated himself carefully beside her at a wide range, so that a customer for a seven-E last could have fitted in between them. "I've built up a good business here, Miss Ruby. The trouble with poor papa was he was afraid to spend, and he was afraid of novelties. I couldn't learn him that a windowful of satin pumps helps swell the storm-rubber sale. Those little dollar-ninety-eights look swell on your feet, Miss Ruby; you're a good advertisement for the stock--not?" "Funny what a hit them pumps make! Mr. Leavitt was crazy about them, too; but, say, what your mother thinks of these satin slippers I'd hate to tell you. When she was down the day before I left she looked at 'em till I got so nervous I tripped over the cracks between the boards. Say, but wasn't she sore about the new glass fixtures! I kinda felt like it was my fault, too; but I was strong for 'em because--" "Mamma's the old-fashioned kind, Miss Ruby--her and poor papa like the old way of doing things. She's getting old, Miss Ruby, but she means well. She's a good mother--a good mother." "She's sure a grand woman--carrying soup across to old Levinsky every day, and all." "She's more'n you know she is, too, Miss Ruby--little things that woman does I could tell you about--when she didn't have it so good as now neither." Miss Ruby dropped her lids until her eyes were as soft as plush behind the portieres of her lashes; her voice dropped into a throat that might have been lined with that same soft plush. "I had a mother for two days--like I said to Mr. Leavitt the other day up in the country--we was talking about different things. I says to him, I says, she quit when she looked at me--just laid down and died when I was two days old. I must have been enough to scare the daylights out of any one. Next to a pink worm on a fish-hook gimme a red-headed baby for the horrors! Say, you ought to seen Mr. Leavitt fish! Six bass he caught in one day--I sat next him and watched; we had 'em fried for supper. He's some little--" "What a pleasure you'd 'a' been to your mother, Miss Ruby! Such a girl like you I could wish my own mother." "That's just what Mr. Leavitt used to tell me; but, gee! he was a kidder! I--I oughtta had a mother! Sometimes I--sometimes in the night when I can't sleep--daytimes you don't care so much--but sometimes at night I--I just don't care about nothing. With a girl like me, that ain't even known a mother or father, it ain't always so easy to keep her head above water." "Poor little girl!" "Since the day I left the Institootion I been dodging the city and jumping its mud-holes like a lady trying to cross Sixth Avenue when it's torn up. I--oh, ain't I the silly one?--treating you to my troubles! Say, I got a swell riddle! I can't give it like Leavitt--like Simon did; but--" "Always Mr. Leavitt, and now it's Simon yet--such a hit as that man made with you--not?" "Hit! Can't a girl have a gentleman friend? Can't you have a lady friend--a friend like Miss Washeim, who comes in for shoes three times--" "Ruby, can I help it when she comes in here?" "Can I help it when I go to the country and meet Mr. Leavitt?" "Ruby!" Mr. Ginsburg slid himself along the bench until a customer for a AA misses' last would have fitted with difficulty between, and looked at her as ancient Phidias must have looked at his Athene. "Ruby--I can't keep it back no longer--since you went away on your vacation I've had it inside of me, but I never knew what it was till you walked back this morning. First, I thought I was sick with the heat; but now I know it was you--" "What--what you--" "I--I invite you to get married, Ruby. I got a feeling for you like I never had for any girl! I want it that mamma should have a good girl like you to make it easy for her. I can't say what I want to say, Ruby; I don't say it so good, but--a girl could do worse than me--not, Ruby?" Miss Cohn's fingers closed over the shoe-hook at her belt until the knuckles sprang out whiter than her white skin. "Oh, Mr. Ginsburg! What would your mamma say? A young man like you, with a grand business and all--you could do for yourself what you wanted. If you was only a drummer like Simon; but--" A wisp of Miss Cohn's hair, warm as sunset, brushed close to Mr. Ginsburg's lips; he groped for her hand, because the mist of his emotions was over his eyes. "Ruby, I invite you to get married; that's--all I want is that mamma should have it good with me always like she has it now. She's getting old, Ruby, and I always say what's the difference if I humor her? When she don't want to move in an apartment with a marble hall and built-in wash-tubs, I say: All right; we stay over the store. When she don't like it that I put a telephone in, I tell her I got a friend in the business put it in for nothing. You could give it to her as good as a daughter--not, Ruby?" "She's a grand woman, Abie; she--" "Ruby!" "Oh! Oh!" In the eventide quiescence of the shop, with the heliotrope of early dusk about them, and passers-by flashing by the plate-glass window in a stream that paused neither for love nor life, Mr. Ginsburg leaned over and gathered Miss Cohn in his arms, pushed back the hair from her forehead and kissed her thrice--once on each lowered eyelid, and once on her lips, which were puckered to resemble a rosebud. "Abie, you--you mustn't! We're in the store!" "I should worry!" "What will--what will they say?" "For what they say I care that much!" cried Mr. Ginsburg, with insouciance. "Ain't I got a ruby finer than what they got in the finest jewelry store?" Miss Cohn raised her smooth cheek from the rough weft of Mr. Ginsburg's sleeve. "What your mamma will say I don't know! You that could have Beulah Washeim or Birdie Harburger, or any of those grand girls that are grand catches--I ain't bringing you nothing, Abie." "We're going to make it grand for mamma, Ruby--that's all I want you to bring me. She'll have it so good as never in her life. You are going to be a good daughter to her--not, Ruby?" "Yes, Abe. If we take a bigger apartment she can have an outside room, and I can take all the housekeeping off her hands. Such nut-salad as I can make you never tasted--like they serve it in the finest restaurant! I got the recipe from my landlady. If we take a bigger apartment--" "What mamma wants we do--how's that? She's so used to having her own way I always say, What's the difference? When poor papa lived she--" "Abe, there's your mamma calling you down the back stairs now--you should go up to your supper. I must go, too; my landlady gets mad when I'm late--it's half past six already. Oh, I feel scared! What'll she say when she hears?" "Scared for what, my little girl?... Yes, mamma; I'm coming!... There ain't a week passes that mamma don't say if I find the right girl I should get married. Even the other night, before I knew it myself, she said it to me. 'Abie,' she always says, 'don't let me stand in your way!'... Yes, mamma; I'll be right up!... You and her can get along grand when you two know each other--grand!" "Your mamma's calling like she was mad, Abie." "To-night, Ruby, you come up to us for supper--we bring her a surprise-party." "Oh, you ain't going to tell her to-night--right away--are you?" "For what I have secrets from my own mother? She should know the good news. Get your hat, Ruby. Come on, Ruby-la! Come on!" "Oh, Abie, you ain't going to forget to lock the front store door, are you?" "_Ach!_--that should happen to me yet. The things a man don't do when he's engaged! If mamma should know I forget to lock the store she'd think I've gone crazy with being in love--you little Ruby-la!" Mr. Ginsburg hastened to the front of the store on feet that bounded off the floor like rubber balls, and switched on the electric show-window display. "Abe, you got the double switch on! What you think this is--convention or Christmas week?" "To-night we celebrate with double window lights. What's the difference if it costs a little more or a little less? The night he gets engaged a fellow should afford what he wants." "Abe!" "There now--with two locks on the door we should worry about burglars! I'm the burglar that's stealing the ruby, ain't I?... One, two, three--up we go, to mamma and supper. Watch out for the step there! I want her to see my Ruby--finer than you can buy in the finest jewelry store!" cried Mr. Ginsburg, clinging proudly to his metaphor. Any of three emotions were crowded into his voice--excitement, trepidation, the love that is beyond understanding--or the trilogy of them all. "Come along, Ruby-la!" Through the rear of the store and up a winding back stairway they marched like glorified children; and at the first landing he must pause and kiss away the words of fear and nervousness from her lips and look into her diffident eyes with the same rapture that was Jupiter's when he gazed on Antiope. "Such a little scarey she is--like mamma was going to bite!" At the top of the flight the door of the apartment stood open; a blob of gas lighted a yellowish way to the kitchen, and through the yellow Mrs. Ginsburg's voice drifted out to them: "Once more I call you, Abie, and then I dish up supper and eat alone--no consideration that boy has got for his mother! He should know what it is not to have a mother who fixes him _Pfannkuechen_ in this heat! Don't complain to me if everything is not fit to eat! In the heat I stand and cook, and that boy closes so late--Abie! Once more I call you and then I dish up. Ab-ie!" Mrs. Ginsburg's voice rose to an acidulated high C. "Mamma! Mamma, don't get so excited--it ain't late. The days get shorter, that's all. Look! I brought company for supper. We don't stand on no ceremony. Come right in the kitchen, Ruby." Mr. Ginsburg pushed Miss Cohn into the room before him, and Mrs. Ginsburg raised her face from over the steaming stove-top--the pink of heat and exertion high in her cheek. Reflexly her hand clutched at the collar of her black wrapper, where it fell away to reveal the line where the double scallop of her chin met the high swell of her bosom. "Miss Cohn! Miss Cohn!" "How do you do, Mrs. Ginsburg? I--" "Sit right down, Miss Cohn--or you and Abie go in the front room till I dish up. You must excuse me the way I holler, but so mad that boy makes me. Just like his poor papa, he makes a long face if his supper is cold, but not once does he come up on time." "All men are alike, Mrs. Ginsburg--that's what they say about 'em anyway."