Torchy and Vee
tucked in here and there. Maybe you know the kind--the asphalt always
littered with paper, garbage cans left out, and swarms of kids playin'
tip-cat or dashin' about on roller skates. Cheap and messy. And to judge
by the names on the letter boxes you'd say the tenants had been shipped
in from every country on the map. Anyway, our noble allies was well
represented--with the French and Italians in the lead and the rest made
up of Irish, Jews, Poles and I don't know what else. Everything but
straight Americans.
Yet when you come to count up the service flags in the front windows you
had to admit that Miss Casey's block must have a good many reg'lar
citizens in it at that. There was more blue stars in evidence than you'd
find on any three brownstone front blocks down on Madison or up in the
Seventies. One flag had four, and none of 'em stood for butlers or
chauffeurs. Course, some was only faded cotton, a few nothing but
colored paper, but every star stood for a soldier, and I'll bet there
wasn't a bomb-proofer in the lot.
Whether you could get these people together on any kind of a celebration
or not was another question. We begins with Mike's place, on the corner.
"Sure!" says Mike. "Let's have a party. I'll ante twenty-five. And, say,
I got a cousin in the Knights of Columbus who'll give you some tips on
how to manage the thing."
The little old Frenchy in the Parisian hand laundry gave us a boost,
too. Even J. Streblitz, high-class tailoring for ladies and gents,
chipped in a ten and told us about his boy Herman, who'd been made a
corporal and was at Chateau Thierry. Inside of three hours we'd made a
sketchy canvas of the whole block, got half a dozen of the men to go on
the committee, had over $100 subscribed, and the thing was under way.
"I just knew you could do it," says Vee, when I tells her about the
start that's been made.
"Me!" says I. "Why it was mostly Miss Casey. About all I did was tag
along and watch her work up the enthusiasm. She's some breeze, she is.
When I left her she was plannin' on two bands and free ice cream for
everyone who came."
As a matter of fact, that's about all I had to do with it, after the
first push. Miss Casey must have had a busy week, but she don't lay down
once on her reg'lar work nor beg for any time off. All she asks is if
Vee and me couldn't be persuaded to be on hand Wednesday night as guests
of honor.
"We wouldn't miss it for anything," says I.
Well, we didn't. I'd heard more or less about these block parties, but
I'd never been to one. Course, I wasn't sure just how Vee would take it
gettin' mixed up in a mob like that, but I was bankin' on her being a
good sport. Besides, she was wild to go and see how Miss Casey had made
out.
And say, when we swings in off Ninth Avenue and I gets my first glimpse
of what had been done to that scrubby, messy lookin' block, it got a
gasp out of me. First off there was strings of Japanese lanterns with
electric lights in 'em stretched across the street from the front of
every flat buildin' to the one opposite. Also every doorway and window
was draped and decorated with bunting. Then there was all kinds of
flags, from little ten centers to big twenty footers swung across the
street. There was a whackin' big Irish flag loaned by the A. O. H.; two
Italian flags almost as big; I don't know how many French tri-colors and
some I couldn't place; Czecho-Slovaks maybe. And besides the lanterns
and extra arc-lights there was red fire burnin' liberal. Then at either
end of the block was a truck backed up with a band in it and they was
tearin' away at all kinds of tunes from the "Marseillaise" to
"K-k-k-katie," while bumpin' and bobbin' about on the asphalt were
hundreds of couples doing jazz steps and gettin' pelted with confetti.
"Why, it's almost like the Mardi Gras!" says Vee.
"Looks festive, all right," says I. "And I should say Miss Casey has put
over the real thing. I wonder if we can find her in this mob."
Seemed like a hopeless search, but finally, down in the middle of the
block, I spots an old lady in a wheel chair, and I has a hunch it might
be Mrs. Mears. Sure enough, it is. Not much to look at, she ain't; sort
of humped over, with a shawl 'round her shoulders. But say, when you got
a glimpse of the way her old eyes was lighted up, and saw the smile
flickerin' around her lips, you knew that nobody in that whole crowd was
any happier than she was just at that minute.
"Oh, yes," says she. "Minnie Casey is looking for you two young folks.
She's dancing with Edgar now, but they'll be back soon. Haven't seen my
son Edgar, have you? Well, you must. He--he's a soldier, you know."
"We should be delighted," says Vee. And then she whispers to me: "Hasn't
she a nice face, though?"
We hadn't waited long before I sees a tall, willowy young thing wearin'
one of them zippy French tams come bearin' down on us wavin' energetic
and towin' along a red-faced young doughboy who looks like he'd been
stuffed into his uniform by a sausage machine. It's Minnie and Stub.
"Hello, folks!" she sings out. "Say, I was just wonderin' if you was
goin' to renig on me. Fine work! An' I want you to meet one of the most
prominent privates in the division, Mr. Mears. Come on, Stubby, pull
that overseas salute of yours. Ain't he a bear-cat, though? And how
about the show? Ain't it some party?"
"Why, it's simply wonderful," says Vee. "I had no idea, Miss Casey, that
you were planning anything like this."
"I didn't," says Minnie. "Only after we got started it kept gettin'
bigger and bigger until there wa'n't a soul on the block but what came
in on it. Know what one of the decorators told me? He says there ain't a
block on the West Side has had anything up to this, from Houston Street
up to the Harlem. That's goin' some, ain't it? You got here just in time
for the big doin's, too. It's comin' off right now. See who's standin'
up in the truck over there? That's one of the Paulist Fathers, who's
goin' to make the speech and bless the flag. There it comes, out of that
third-story window. Wow! Hear 'em cheer."
And as the red-bordered banner with the white field is pulled out where
the searchlight strikes it we can make out the figures formed by blue
stars.
"What!" says I. "Not 217 from this one block?"
"Uh-huh!" says Minnie. "And every one of 'em a Fritzie chaser. 'Most a
whole company. But ther'd been one less if it hadn't been for Stubby,
and everybody knows there's luck in odd numbers. That's why we're so
chesty about him. Eh, Mrs. Mears?"
Yes, it was some lively affair. After the speech Mme. Toscarelli, draped
in red, white and blue, sang the Star-Spangled Banner in spite of strong
opposition from one of the bands that got the wrong cue and played
"Indianola" all through the piece. And a fat boy rolled out of a
second-story window in the Princess flats, but caromed off on an awnin'
and wasn't hurt. Also a few young hicks started some rough stuff when
the ice-cream freezers were opened, but a squad of Junior Naval League
boys soon put a crimp in that. And when we had to leave, along about
nine-thirty, it was as gay a scene as was ever staged on any West Side
block, bar none. I remarked something of the sort to Mrs. Mears.
"Yes," says she, her eyes sort of dimmin' up. "And to think that all
this should be done for my Edgar!"
At which Minnie Casey tips us the private wink. "Why not, I'd like to
know?" says she. "Just look who he is."
"Yes, of course, dear," says Mrs. Mears, smilin' satisfied.
"Can you beat that for the genuine mother stuff?" whispers Minnie,
givin' us a partin' grin.
"I do hope," says Vee, as we settles ourselves in a Long Island train
for the ride home, "that Miss Casey gets her Edgar back safe and sound."
"If she don't," says I, "she's liable to go over and tear what's left of
Germany off the map. Anyway, they'd better not get her started."
CHAPTER V
THE VAMP IN THE WINDOW
It was a case of Vee's being in town on a shoppin' orgie and my being
invited to hunt her up about lunch time.
"Let's see," she 'phoned, "suppose you meet me about 12:30 at the Maison
Noir. You know, West Fifty-sixth. And if I'm having a dress fitted on
the second floor just wait downstairs for me, will you, Torchy?"
"In among all them young lady models?" says I. "Not a chance. You'll
find me hangin' up outside. And don't make it more'n half an hour behind
schedule, Vee, for this is one of my busy days."
"Oh, very well," says she careless.
So that's how I came to be backed up in the lee of the doorway at 12:45
when this stranger with the mild blue eyes and the chin dimple eases in
with the friendly hail.
"Excuse me," says he, "but haven't we met somewhere before?"
Which is where my fatal gift for rememberin' faces and forgettin' names
comes into play. After giving him the quick up and down I had him placed
but not tagged.
"Not quite," says I. "But we lived in the same apartment buildin' a
couple of years back. Third floor west, wasn't you?"
"That's it," says he. "And I believe I heard you'd just been married."
"Yes, we did have a chatty janitor," says I. "You were there with your
mother, from somewhere out on the Coast. We almost got to the noddin'
point when we met in the elevator, didn't we?"
"If we did," says he, "that was the nearest I came to getting acquainted
with anyone in New York. It's the lonesomest hole I was ever in.
Say----"
And inside of three minutes he's told me all about it; how he'd brought
Mother on from Seattle to have a heart specialist give her a three
months' treatment that hadn't been any use, and how he'd come East alone
this time to tie up a big spruce lumber contract with the airplane
department. Also he reminds me that he is Crosby Rhodes and writes the
name of the hotel where he's stopping on his card. It's almost like a
reunion with an old college chum.
"But how do you happen to be sizin' up a show window like this?" says I,
indicatin' the Maison Noir's display of classy gowns. "Got somebody back
home that you might take a few samples to?"
His big, square-cut face sort of pinks up and his mild blue eyes take on
kind of a guilty look as he glances over his shoulder at the window.
"Not a soul," says he. "The fact is, I'm not much of a ladies' man. Been
in the woods too much, I suppose. All the same, though, I've always
thought that if ever I ran across just the right girl----" Here he
scrapes his foot and works up that fussed expression again.
"I see," says I, grinnin'. "You have the plans and specifications all
framed up and think you'd know her on sight, eh?"
Crosby nods and smiles sheepish. "It's gone further than that," says he.
"I--I've seen her."
"Well, well!" says I. "Where?"
He looks around cautious and then whispers confidential. "In that show
window."
"Eh" says I, gawpin'. "Oh! You mean you got the idea from one of the
dummies? Well, that's playin' it safe even if it is a little unique."
Crosby seems to hesitate a minute, as if debatin' whether to let it ride
at that or not, and then he goes on:
"Say," he asks, "do--do they ever put live ones in there?"
"Never heard of it's being done," says I. "Why?"
"Because," says he, "there's one in this window right now."
"You don't say?" says I. "Are you sure?"
"Step around front and I'll point her out," says he. "Now, right over in
that far--Why--why, say! She's gone!"
"Oh, come!" says I. "You've been seein' things, ain't you? Or maybe it
was only one of the salesladies in rearrangin' the display."
"No, no," says Crosby emphatic. "I tell you I had been watching her for
several minutes before I saw you, and she never moved except for a
flutter of the eyelids. She was standing back to, facing that mirror, so