sat out on the porch with Rudie and Ivy and talked baseball, and got up
to show Rudie how he could have got the goat of that Keokuk catcher if
only he had tried one of his famous open-faced throws. Rudie looked
politely interested, and laughed in all the right places. But Ivy didn't
need to pretend. Rudie Schlachweiler spelled baseball to her. She did
not think of her caller as a good-looking young man in a blue serge suit
and a white shirtwaist. Even as he sat there she saw him as a blonde god
standing on the pitcher's mound, with the scars of battle on his baseball
pants, his left foot placed in front of him at right angles with his
right foot, his gaze fixed on first base in a cunning effort to deceive
the man at bat, in that favorite attitude of pitchers just before they
get ready to swing their left leg and h'ist one over.
The second time that Rudie called, Ma Keller said:
"Ivy, I don't like that ball player coming here to see you. The
neighbors'll talk."
The third time Rudie called, Pa Keller said: "What's that guy doing here
again?"
The fourth time Rudie called, Pa Keller and Ma Keller said, in unison:
"This thing has got to stop."
But it didn't. It had had too good a start. For the rest of the season
Ivy met her knight of the sphere around the corner. Theirs was a walking
courtship. They used to roam up as far as the State road, and down as
far as the river, and Rudie would fain have talked of love, but Ivy
talked of baseball.
"Darling," Rudie would murmur, pressing Ivy's arm closer, "when did you
first begin to care?"
"Why I liked the very first game I saw when Dad----"
"I mean, when did you first begin to care for me?"
"Oh! When you put three men out in that game with Marshalltown when the
teams were tied in the eighth inning. Remember? Say, Rudie dear, what
was the matter with your arm to-day? You let three men walk, and Albia's
weakest hitter got a home run out of you."
"Oh, forget baseball for a minute, Ivy! Let's talk about something else.
Let's talk about--us."
"Us? Well, you're baseball, aren't you?" retorted Ivy. "And if you are,
I am. Did you notice the way that Ottumwa man pitched yesterday? He
didn't do any acting for the grandstand. He didn't reach up above his
head, and wrap his right shoulder with his left toe, and swing his arm
three times and then throw seven inches outside the plate. He just took
the ball in his hand, looked at it curiously for a moment, and fired
it--zing!--like that, over the plate. I'd get that ball if I were you."
"Isn't this a grand night?" murmured Rudie.
"But they didn't have a hitter in the bunch," went on Ivy. "And not a
man in the team could run. That's why they're tail-enders. Just the
same, that man on the mound was a wizard, and if he had one decent player
to give him some support----"
Well, the thing came to a climax. One evening, two weeks before the
close of the season, Ivy put on her hat and announced that she was going
downtown to mail her letters.
"Mail your letters in the daytime," growled Papa Keller.
"I didn't have time to-day," answered Ivy. "It was a thirteen inning
game, and it lasted until six o'clock."
It was then that Papa Keller banged the heavy fist of decision down on
the library table.
"This thing's got to stop!" he thundered. "I won't have any girl of mine
running the streets with a ball player, understand? Now you quit seeing
this seventy-five-dollars-a-month bush leaguer or leave this house. I
mean it."
"All right," said Ivy, with a white-hot calm. "I'll leave. I can make
the grandest kind of angel-food with marshmallow icing, and you know
yourself my fudges can't be equaled. He'll be playing in the major
leagues in three years. Why just yesterday there was a strange man at
the game--a city man, you could tell by his hat-band, and the way his
clothes were cut. He stayed through the whole game, and never took his
eyes off Rudie. I just know he was a scout for the Cubs."
"Probably a hardware drummer, or a fellow that Schlachweiler owes money
to."
Ivy began to pin on her hat. A scared look leaped into Papa Keller's
eyes. He looked a little old, too, and drawn, at that minute. He
stretched forth a rather tremulous hand.
"Ivy-girl," he said.
"What?" snapped Ivy.
"Your old father's just talking for your own good. You're breaking your
ma's heart. You and me have been good pals, haven't we?"
"Yes," said Ivy, grudgingly, and without looking up.
"Well now, look here. I've got a proposition to make to you. The
season's over in two more weeks. The last week they play out of town.
Then the boys'll come back for a week or so, just to hang around town and
try to get used to the idea of leaving us. Then they'll scatter to take
up their winter jobs-cutting ice, most of 'em," he added, grimly.
"Mr. Schlachweiler is employed in a large establishment in Slatersville,
Ohio," said Ivy, with dignity. "He regards baseball as his profession,
and he cannot do anything that would affect his pitching arm."
Pa Keller put on the tremolo stop and brought a misty look into his eyes.
"Ivy, you'll do one last thing for your old father, won't you?"
"Maybe," answered Ivy, coolly.
"Don't make that fellow any promises. Now wait a minute! Let me get
through. I won't put any crimp in your plans. I won't speak to
Schlachweiler. Promise you won't do anything rash until the ball
season's over. Then we'll wait just one month, see? Till along about
November. Then if you feel like you want to see him----"
"But how----"
"Hold on. You mustn't write to him, or see him, or let him write to you
during that time, see? Then, if you feel the way you do now, I'll take
you to Slatersville to see him. Now that's fair, ain't it? Only don't
let him know you're coming."
"M-m-m-yes," said Ivy.
"Shake hands on it." She did. Then she left the room with a rush,
headed in the direction of her own bedroom. Pa Keller treated himself to
a prodigious wink and went out to the vegetable garden in search of
Mother.
The team went out on the road, lost five games, won two, and came home in
fourth place. For a week they lounged around the Parker Hotel and held
up the street corners downtown, took many farewell drinks, then, slowly,
by ones and twos, they left for the packing houses, freight depots, and
gents' furnishing stores from whence they came.
October came in with a blaze of sumac and oak leaves. Ivy stayed home and
learned to make veal loaf and apple pies. The worry lines around Pa
Keller's face began to deepen. Ivy said that she didn't believe that she
cared to go back to Miss Shont's select school for young ladies.
October thirty-first came.
"We'll take the eight-fifteen to-morrow," said her father to Ivy.
"All right," said Ivy.
"Do you know where he works?" asked he.
"No," answered Ivy.
"That'll be all right. I took the trouble to look him up last August."
The short November afternoon was drawing to its close (as our best talent
would put it) when Ivy and her father walked along the streets of
Slatersville. (I can't tell you what streets, because I don't know.) Pa
Keller brought up before a narrow little shoe shop.
"Here we are," he said, and ushered Ivy in. A short, stout, proprietary
figure approached them smiling a mercantile smile.
"What can I do for you?" he inquired.
Ivy's eyes searched the shop for a tall, golden-haired form in a soiled
baseball suit.
"We'd like to see a gentleman named Schlachweiler--Rudolph
Schlachweiler," said Pa Keller.
"Anything very special?" inquired the proprietor. "He's--rather busy
just now. Wouldn't anybody else do? Of course, if----"
"No," growled Keller.
The boss turned. "Hi! Schlachweiler!" he bawled toward the rear of the
dim little shop.
"Yessir," answered a muffled voice.
"Front!" yelled the boss, and withdrew to a safe listening distance.
A vaguely troubled look lurked in the depths of Ivy's eyes. From behind
the partition of the rear of the shop emerged a tall figure. It was none
other than our hero. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and he struggled into
his coat as he came forward, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
hurriedly, and swallowing.
I have said that the shop was dim. Ivy and her father stood at one side,
their backs to the light. Rudie came forward, rubbing his hands together
in the manner of clerks.
"Something in shoes?" he politely inquired. Then he saw.
"Ivy!--ah--Miss Keller!" he exclaimed. Then, awkwardly: "Well, how-do,
Mr. Keller. I certainly am glad to see you both. How's the old town?
What are you doing in Slatersville?"
"Why--Ivy----" began Pa Keller, blunderingly.
But Ivy clutched his arm with a warning hand. The vaguely troubled look
in her eyes had become wildly so.
"Schlachweiler!" shouted the voice of the boss. "Customers!" and he
waved a hand in the direction of the fitting benches.
"All right, sir," answered Rudie. "Just a minute."
"Dad had to come on business," said Ivy, hurriedly. "And he brought me
with him. I'm--I'm on my way to school in Cleveland, you know. Awfully
glad to have seen you again. We must go. That lady wants her shoes, I'm
sure, and your employer is glaring at us. Come, dad."
At the door she turned just in time to see Rudie removing the shoe from
the pudgy foot of the fat lady customer.
We'll take a jump of six months. That brings us into the lap of April.
Pa Keller looked up from his evening paper. Ivy, home for the Easter
vacation, was at the piano. Ma Keller was sewing.
Pa Keller cleared his throat. "I see by the paper," he announced, "that
Schlachweiler's been sold to Des Moines. Too bad we lost him. He was a
great little pitcher, but he played in bad luck. Whenever he was on the
slab the boys seemed to give him poor support."
"Fudge!" exclaimed Ivy, continuing to play, but turning a spirited face
toward her father. "What piffle! Whenever a player pitches rotten ball
you'll always hear him howling about the support he didn't get.
Schlachweiler was a bum pitcher. Anybody could hit him with a willow
wand, on a windy day, with the sun in his eyes."
V
THE KITCHEN SIDE OF THE DOOR
The City was celebrating New Year's Eve. Spelled thus, with a capital C,
know it can mean but New York. In the Pink Fountain room of the Newest
Hotel all those grand old forms and customs handed down to us for the
occasion were being rigidly observed in all their original quaintness.
The Van Dyked man who looked like a Russian Grand Duke (he really was a
chiropodist) had drunk champagne out of the pink satin slipper of the
lady who behaved like an actress (she was forelady at Schmaus' Wholesale
Millinery, eighth floor). The two respectable married ladies there in
the corner had been kissed by each other's husbands. The slim,
Puritan-faced woman in white, with her black hair so demurely parted and
coiled in a sleek knot, had risen suddenly from her place and walked
indolently to the edge of the plashing pink fountain in the center of the
room, had stood contemplating its shallows with a dreamy half-smile on
her lips, and then had lifted her slim legs slowly and gracefully over
its fern-fringed basin and had waded into its chilling midst, trailing
her exquisite white satin and chiffon draperies after her, and scaring
the goldfish into fits. The loudest scream of approbation had come from
the yellow-haired, loose-lipped youth who had made the wager, and lost
it. The heavy blonde in the inevitable violet draperies showed signs of
wanting to dance on the table. Her companion--a structure made up of
layer upon layer, and fold upon fold of flabby tissue--knew all the
waiters by their right names, and insisted on singing with the orchestra
and beating time with a rye roll. The clatter of dishes was giving way
to the clink of glasses.
In the big, bright kitchen back, of the Pink Fountain room Miss Gussie
Fink sat at her desk, calm, watchful, insolent-eyed, a goddess sitting in
judgment. On the pay roll of the Newest Hotel Miss Gussie Fink's name
appeared as kitchen checker, but her regular job was goddessing. Her
altar was a high desk in a corner of the busy kitchen, and it was an
altar of incense, of burnt-offerings, and of showbread. Inexorable as a
goddess of the ancients was Miss Fink, and ten times as difficult to
appease. For this is the rule of the Newest Hotel, that no waiter may
carry his laden tray restaurantward until its contents have been viewed
and duly checked by the eye and hand of Miss Gussie Fink, or her
assistants. Flat upon the table must go every tray, off must go each
silver dish-cover, lifted must be each napkin to disclose its treasure of
steaming corn or hot rolls. Clouds of incense rose before Miss Gussie
Fink and she sniffed it unmoved, her eyes, beneath level brows, regarding
savory broiler or cunning ice with equal indifference, appraising alike
lobster cocktail or onion soup, traveling from blue points to brie.
Things a la and things glace were all one to her. Gazing at food was
Miss Gussie Fink's occupation, and just to see the way she regarded a
boneless squab made you certain that she never ate.
In spite of the I-don't-know-how-many (see ads) New Year's Eve diners for
whom food was provided that night, the big, busy kitchen was the most
orderly, shining, spotless place imaginable. But Miss Gussie Fink was
the neatest, most immaculate object in all that great, clean room. There
was that about her which suggested daisies in a field, if you know what I
mean. This may have been due to the fact that her eyes were brown while
her hair was gold, or it may have been something about the way her
collars fitted high, and tight, and smooth, or the way her close white
sleeves came down to meet her pretty hands, or the way her shining hair
sprang from her forehead. Also the smooth creaminess of her clear skin
may have had something to do with it. But privately, I think it was due
to the way she wore her shirtwaists. Miss Gussie Fink could wear a
starched white shirtwaist under a close-fitting winter coat, remove the
coat, run her right forefinger along her collar's edge and her left thumb
along the back of her belt and disclose to the admiring world a blouse as
unwrinkled and unsullied as though it had just come from her own skilful
hands at the ironing board. Miss Gussie Fink was so innately,
flagrantly, beautifully clean-looking that--well, there must be a stop to
this description.
She was the kind of girl you'd like to see behind the counter of your
favorite delicatessen, knowing that you need not shudder as her fingers
touch your Sunday night supper slices of tongue, and Swiss cheese, and
ham. No girl had ever dreamed of refusing to allow Gussie to borrow her
chamois for a second.
To-night Miss Fink had come on at 10 P.M., which was just two hours later
than usual. She knew that she was to work until 6 A.M., which may have
accounted for the fact that she displayed very little of what the fans
call ginger as she removed her hat and coat and hung them on the hook
behind the desk. The prospect of that all-night, eight-hour stretch may
have accounted for it, I say. But privately, and entre nous, it didn't.
For here you must know of Heiny. Heiny, alas! now Henri.
Until two weeks ago Henri had been Heiny and Miss Fink had been Kid.
When Henri had been Heiny he had worked in the kitchen at many things,
but always with a loving eye on Miss Gussie Fink. Then one wild night
there had been a waiters' strike--wages or hours or tips or all three.
In the confusion that followed Heiny had been pressed into service and a
chopped coat. He had fitted into both with unbelievable nicety, proving
that waiters are born, not made. Those little tricks and foibles that
are characteristic of the genus waiter seemed to envelop him as though a
fairy garment had fallen upon his shoulders. The folded napkin under his
left arm seemed to have been placed there by nature, so perfectly did it
fit into place. The ghostly tread, the little whisking skip, the
half-simper, the deferential bend that had in it at the same time
something of insolence, all were there; the very "Yes, miss," and "Very
good, sir," rose automatically and correctly to his untrained lips.
Cinderella rising resplendent from her ash-strewn hearth was not more
completely transformed than Heiny in his role of Henri. And with the
transformation Miss Gussie Fink had been left behind her desk
disconsolate.
Kitchens are as quick to seize upon these things and gossip about them as
drawing rooms are. And because Miss Gussie Fink had always worn a little
air of aloofness to all except Heiny, the kitchen was the more eager to
make the most of its morsel. Each turned it over under his tongue--Tony,
the Crook, whom Miss Fink had scorned; Francois, the entree cook, who
often forgot he was married; Miss Sweeney, the bar-checker, who was
jealous of Miss Fink's complexion. Miss Fink heard, and said nothing.
She only knew that there would be no dear figure waiting for her when the
night's work was done. For two weeks now she had put on her hat and coat
and gone her way at one o'clock alone. She discovered that to be taken
home night after night under Heiny's tender escort had taught her a
ridiculous terror of the streets at night now that she was without
protection. Always the short walk from the car to the flat where Miss
Fink lived with her mother had been a glorious, star-lit, all too brief
moment. Now it was an endless and terrifying trial, a thing of shivers
and dread, fraught with horror of passing the alley just back of
Cassidey's buffet. There had even been certain little half-serious,
half-jesting talks about the future into which there had entered the
subject of a little delicatessen and restaurant in a desirable
neighborhood, with Heiny in the kitchen, and a certain blonde, neat,
white-shirtwaisted person in charge of the desk and front shop.
She and her mother had always gone through a little formula upon Miss
Fink's return from work. They never used it now. Gussie's mother was a
real mother--the kind that wakes up when you come home.
"That you, Gussie?" Ma Fink would call from the bedroom, at the sound of
the key in the lock.
"It's me, ma."
"Heiny bring you home?"
"Sure," happily.
"There's a bit of sausage left, and some pie if----"
"Oh, I ain't hungry. We stopped at Joey's downtown and had a cup of
coffee and a ham on rye. Did you remember to put out the milk bottle?"
For two weeks there had been none of that. Gussie had learned to creep
silently into bed, and her mother, being a mother, feigned sleep.
To-night at her desk Miss Gussie Fink seemed a shade cooler, more
self-contained, and daisylike than ever. From somewhere at the back of
her head she could see that Heiny was avoiding her desk and was using the
services of the checker at the other end of the room. And even as the
poison of this was eating into her heart she was tapping her forefinger
imperatively on the desk before her and saying to Tony, the Crook:
"Down on the table with that tray, Tony--flat. This may be a busy little
New Year's Eve, but you can't come any of your sleight-of-hand stuff on
me." For Tony had a little trick of concealing a dollar-and-a-quarter
sirloin by the simple method of slapping the platter close to the
underside of his tray and holding it there with long, lean fingers
outspread, the entire bit of knavery being concealed in the folds of a
flowing white napkin in the hand that balanced the tray. Into Tony's
eyes there came a baleful gleam. His lean jaw jutted out threateningly.
"You're the real Weissenheimer kid, ain't you?" he sneered. "Never mind.
I'll get you at recess."
"Some day," drawled Miss Fink, checking the steak, "the house'll get wise
to your stuff and then you'll have to go back to the coal wagon. I know
so much about you it's beginning to make me uncomfortable. I hate to
carry around a burden of crime."
"You're a sorehead because Heiny turned you down and now----"
"Move on there!" snapped Miss Fink, "or I'll call the steward to settle
you. Maybe he'd be interested to know that you've been counting in the
date and your waiter's number, and adding 'em in at the bottom of your
check."
Tony, the Crook, turned and skimmed away toward the dining-room, but the
taste of victory was bitter in Miss Fink's mouth.
Midnight struck. There came from the direction of the Pink Fountain Room
a clamor and din which penetrated the thickness of the padded doors that
separated the dining-room from the kitchen beyond. The sound rose and
swelled above the blare of the orchestra. Chairs scraped on the marble
floor as hundreds rose to their feet. The sound of clinking glasses
became as the jangling of a hundred bells. There came the sharp spat of
hand-clapping, then cheers, yells, huzzas. Through the swinging doors at
the end of the long passageway Miss Fink could catch glimpses of dazzling
color, of shimmering gowns, of bare arms uplifted, of flowers, and
plumes, and jewels, with the rosy light of the famed pink fountain
casting a gracious glow over all. Once she saw a tall young fellow throw
his arm about the shoulder of a glorious creature at the next table, and
though the door swung shut before she could see it, Miss Fink knew that
he had kissed her.
There were no New Year's greetings in the kitchen back of the Pink
Fountain Room. It was the busiest moment in all that busy night. The
heat of the ovens was so intense that it could be felt as far as Miss
Fink's remote corner. The swinging doors between dining-room and kitchen
were never still. A steady stream of waiters made for the steam tables
before which the white-clad chefs stood ladling, carving, basting,
serving, gave their orders, received them, stopped at the checking-desk,
and sped dining-roomward again. Tony, the Crook, was cursing at one of
the little Polish vegetable girls who had not been quick enough about the
garnishing of a salad, and she was saying, over and over again, in her
thick tongue:
"Aw, shod op yur mout'!"
The thud-thud of Miss Fink's checking-stamp kept time to flying
footsteps, but even as her practised eye swept over the tray before her
she saw the steward direct Henri toward her desk, just as he was about to
head in the direction of the minor checking-desk. Beneath downcast lids
she saw him coming. There was about Henri to-night a certain radiance, a
sort of electrical elasticity, so nimble, so tireless, so exuberant was
he. In the eyes of Miss Gussie Fink he looked heartbreakingly handsome
in his waiter's uniform--handsome, distinguished, remote, and infinitely
desirable. And just behind him, revenge in his eye, came Tony.
The flat surface of the desk received Henri's tray. Miss Fink regarded
it with a cold and business-like stare. Henri whipped his napkin from
under his left arm and began to remove covers, dexterously. Off came the
first silver, dome-shaped top.
"Guinea hen," said Henri.
"I seen her lookin' at you when you served the little necks," came from
Tony, as though continuing a conversation begun in some past moment of
pause, "and she's some lovely doll, believe me."
Miss Fink scanned the guinea hen thoroughly, but with a detached air, and
selected the proper stamp from the box at her elbow. Thump! On the
broad pasteboard sheet before her appeared the figures $1.75 after
Henri's number.
"Think so?" grinned Henri, and removed another cover. "One candied
sweets."
"I bet some day we'll see you in the Sunday papers, Heiny," went on Tony,
"with a piece about handsome waiter runnin' away with beautiful s'ciety
girl. Say; you're too perfect even for a waiter."
Thump! Thirty cents.
"Quit your kiddin'," said the flattered Henri. "One endive, French
dressing."
Thump! "Next!" said Miss Fink, dispassionately, yawned, and smiled
fleetingly at the entree cook who wasn't looking her way. Then, as Tony
slid his tray toward her: "How's business, Tony? H'm? How many two-bit
cigar bands have you slipped onto your own private collection of nickel
straights and made a twenty-cent rake-off?"
But there was a mist in the bright brown eyes as Tony the Crook turned
away with his tray. In spite of the satisfaction of having had the last
word, Miss Fink knew in her heart that Tony had "got her at recess," as
he had said he would.
Things were slowing up for Miss Fink. The stream of hurrying waiters was
turned in the direction of the kitchen bar now. From now on the eating
would be light, and the drinking heavy. Miss Fink, with time hanging
heavy, found herself blinking down at the figures stamped on the
pasteboard sheet before her, and in spite of the blinking, two marks that
never were intended for a checker's report splashed down just over the
$1.75 after Henri's number. A lovely doll! And she had gazed at Heiny.
Well, that was to be expected. No woman could gaze unmoved upon Heiny.
"A lovely doll--"