something wonderful after typhoid. Why, I had a friend----"
"Did you get my message?" interrupted Effie.
"I was only talking to hide my nervousness," said Gabe, and started
forward. But Effie waved him away.
"Sit down," she said. "I've got something to say." She looked
thoughtfully down at one shining finger nail. Her lower lip was caught
between her teeth. When she looked up again her eyes were swimming in
tears. Gabe started forward again. Again Effie waved him away.
"It's all right, Gabie. I don't blubber as a rule. This fever leaves
you as weak as a rag, and ready to cry if any one says 'Boo!' I've been
doing some high-pressure thinking since nursie left. Had plenty of time
to do it in, sitting here by this window all day. My land! I never knew
there was so much time. There's been days when I haven't talked to a
soul, except the nurse and the chambermaid. Lonesome! Say, the amount
of petting I could stand would surprise you. Of course, my nurse was a
perfectly good nurse--at twenty-five per. But I was just a case to her.
You can't expect a nurse to ooze sympathy over an old maid with the
fever. I tell you I was dying to have some one say 'Sh-sh-sh!' when
there was a noise, just to show they were interested. Whenever I'd moan
the nurse would come over and stick a thermometer in my mouth and write
something down on a chart. The boys and girls at the store sent flowers.
They'd have done the same if I'd died. When the fever broke I just used
to lie there and dream, not feeling anything in particular, and not
caring much whether it was day or night. Know what I mean?"
Gabie shook a sympathetic head.
There was a little silence. Then Effie went on. "I used to think I was
pretty smart, earning my own good living, dressing as well as the next
one, and able to spend my vacation in Atlantic City if I wanted to. I
didn't know I was missing anything. But while I was sick I got to
wishing that there was somebody that belonged to me. Somebody to worry
about me, and to sit up nights--somebody that just naturally felt they
had to come tiptoeing into my room every three or four minutes to see if
I was sleeping, or had enough covers on, or wanted a drink, or something.
I got to thinking what it would have been like if I had a husband and
a--home. You'll think I'm daffy, maybe."
Gabie took Effie's limp white hand in his, and stroked it gently.
Effie's face was turned away from him, toward the noisy street.
"I used to imagine how he'd come home at six, stamping his feet, maybe,
and making a lot of noise the way men do. And then he'd remember, and
come creaking up the steps, and he'd stick his head in at the door in the
funny, awkward, pathetic way men have in a sick room. And he'd say,
'How's the old girl to-night? I'd better not come near you now, puss,
because I'll bring the cold with me. Been lonesome for your old man?'
"And I'd say, 'Oh, I don't care how cold you are, dear. The nurse is
downstairs, getting my supper ready.'
"And then he'd come tiptoeing over to my bed, and stoop down, and kiss
me, and his face would be all cold, and rough, and his mustache would be
wet, and he'd smell out-doorsy and smoky, the way husbands do when they
come in. And I'd reach up and pat his cheek and say, 'You need a shave,
old man.'
"'I know it,' he'd say, rubbing his cheek up against mine.
"'Hurry up and wash, now. Supper'll be ready.'
"'Where are the kids?' he'd ask. 'The house is as quiet as the grave.
Hurry up and get well, kid. It's darn lonesome without you at the table,
and the children's manners are getting something awful, and I never can
find my shirts. Lordy, I guess we won't celebrate when you get up!
Can't you eat a little something nourishing for supper--beefsteak, or a
good plate of soup, or something?'
"Men are like that, you know. So I'd say then: 'Run along, you old
goose! You'll be suggesting sauerkraut and wieners next. Don't you let
Millie have any marmalade to-night. She's got a spoiled stomach.'
"And then he'd pound off down the hall to wash up, and I'd shut my eyes,
and smile to myself, and everything would be all right, because he was
home."
There was a long silence. Effie's eyes were closed. But two great tears
stole out from beneath each lid and coursed their slow way down her thin
cheeks. She did not raise her hand to wipe them away.
Gabie's other hand reached over and met the one that already clasped
Effie's.
"Effie," he said, in a voice that was as hoarse as it was gentle.
"H'm?" said Effie.
"Will you marry me?"
"I shouldn't wonder," replied Effie, opening her eyes. "No, don't kiss
me. You might catch something. But say, reach up and smooth my hair
away from my forehead, will you, and call me a couple of fool names. I
don't care how clumsy you are about it. I could stand an awful fuss
being made over me, without being spoiled any."
Three weeks later Effie was back at the store. Her skirt didn't fit in
the back, and the little hollow places in her cheeks did not take the
customary dash of rouge as well as when they had been plumper. She held
a little impromptu reception that extended down as far as the lingeries
and up as far as the rugs. The old sparkle came back to Effie's eye.
The old assurance and vigor seemed to return. By the time that Miss
Weinstein, of the French lingeries, arrived, breathless, to greet her
Effie was herself again.
"Well, if you're not a sight for sore eyes, dearie," exclaimed Miss
Weinstein. "My goodness, how grand and thin you are! I'd be willing to
take a course in typhoid myself, if I thought I could lose twenty-five
pounds."
"I haven't a rag that fits me," Effie announced proudly.
Miss Weinstein lowered her voice discreetly. "Dearie, can you come down
to my department for a minute? We're going to have a sale on imported
lawnjerie blouses, slightly soiled, from nine to eleven to-morrow.
There's one you positively must see. Hand-embroidered, Irish motifs, and
eyeleted from soup to nuts, and only eight-fifty."
"I've got a fine chance of buying hand-made waists, no matter how
slightly soiled," Effie made answer, "with a doctor and nurse's bill as
long as your arm."
"Oh, run along!" scoffed Miss Weinstein. "A person would think you had a
husband to get a grouch every time you get reckless to the extent of a
new waist. You're your own boss. And you know your credit's good.
Honestly, it would be a shame to let this chance slip. You're not
getting tight in your old age, are you?"
"N-no," faltered Effie, "but----"
"Then come on," urged Miss Weinstein energetically. "And be thankful you
haven't got a man to raise the dickens when the bill comes in."
"Do you mean that?" asked Effie slowly, fixing Miss Weinstein with a
thoughtful eye.
"Surest thing you know. Say, girlie, let's go over to Klein's for lunch
this noon. They have pot roast with potato pfannkuchen on Tuesdays, and
we can split an order between us."
"Hold that waist till to-morrow, will you?" said Effie. "I've made an
arrangement with a--friend that might make new clothes impossible just
now. But I'm going to wire my party that the arrangement is all off.
I've changed my mind. I ought to get an answer to-morrow. Did you say
it was a thirty-six?"
VII
MAYMEYS FROM CUBA
There is nothing new in this. It has all been done before. But tell me,
what is new? Does the aspiring and perspiring summer vaudeville artist
flatter himself that his stuff is going big? Then does the stout man
with the oyster-colored eyelids in the first row, left, turn his bullet
head on his fat-creased neck to remark huskily to his companion:
"The hook for him. R-r-r-rotten! That last one was an old Weber'n
Fields' gag. They discarded it back in '91. Say, the good ones is all
dead, anyhow. Take old Salvini, now, and Dan Rice. Them was actors.
Come on out and have something."
Does the short-story writer felicitate himself upon having discovered a
rare species in humanity's garden? The Blase Reader flips the pages
between his fingers, yawns, stretches, and remarks to his wife:
"That's a clean lift from Kipling--or is it Conan Doyle? Anyway, I've
read something just like it before. Say, kid, guess what these magazine
guys get for a full page ad.? Nix. That's just like a woman. Three
thousand straight. Fact."
To anticipate the delver into the past it may be stated that the plot of
this one originally appeared in the Eternal Best Seller, under the
heading, "He Asked You For Bread, and Ye Gave Him a Stone." There may be
those who could not have traced my plagiarism to its source.
Although the Book has had an unprecedentedly long run it is said to be
less widely read than of yore.
Even with this preparation I hesitate to confess that this is the story
of a hungry girl in a big city. Well, now, wait a minute. Conceding
that it has been done by every scribbler from tyro to best seller expert,
you will acknowledge that there is the possibility of a fresh
viewpoint--twist--what is it the sporting editors call it? Oh,
yes--slant. There is the possibility of getting a new slant on an old
idea. That may serve to deflect the line of the deadly parallel.
Just off State Street there is a fruiterer and importer who ought to be
arrested for cruelty. His window is the most fascinating and the most
heartless in Chicago. A line of open-mouthed, wide-eyed gazers is always
to be found before it. Despair, wonder, envy, and rebellion smolder in
the eyes of those gazers. No shop window show should be so diabolically
set forth as to arouse such sensations in the breast of the beholder. It
is a work of art, that window; a breeder of anarchism, a destroyer of
contentment, a second feast of Tantalus. It boasts peaches, dewy and
golden, when peaches have no right to be; plethoric, purple bunches of
English hothouse grapes are there to taunt the ten-dollar-a-week clerk
whose sick wife should be in the hospital; strawberries glow therein when
shortcake is a last summer's memory, and forced cucumbers remind us that
we are taking ours in the form of dill pickles. There is, perhaps, a
choice head of cauliflower, so exquisite in its ivory and green
perfection as to be fit for a bride's bouquet; there are apples so
flawless that if the garden of Eden grew any as perfect it is small
wonder that Eve fell for them.
There are fresh mushrooms, and jumbo cocoanuts, and green almonds; costly
things in beds of cotton nestle next to strange and marvelous things in
tissue, wrappings. Oh, that window is no place for the hungry, the
dissatisfied, or the man out of a job. When the air is filled with snow
there is that in the sight of muskmelons which incites crime.
Queerly enough, the gazers before that window foot up the same, year in,
and year out, something after this fashion:
Item: One anemic little milliner's apprentice in coat and shoes that
even her hat can't redeem.
Item: One sandy-haired, gritty-complexioned man, with a drooping ragged
mustache, a tin dinner bucket, and lime on his boots.
Item: One thin mail carrier with an empty mail sack, gaunt cheeks, and
an habitual droop to his left shoulder.
Item: One errand boy troubled with a chronic sniffle, a shrill and
piping whistle, and a great deal of shuffling foot-work.
Item: One negro wearing a spotted tan topcoat, frayed trousers and no
collar. His eyes seem all whites as he gazes.
Enough of the window. But bear it in mind while we turn to Jennie.
Jennie's real name was Janet, and she was Scotch. Canny? Not
necessarily, or why should she have been hungry and out of a job in
January?
Jennie stood in the row before the window, and stared. The longer she
stared the sharper grew the lines that fright and under-feeding had
chiseled about her nose, and mouth, and eyes. When your last meal is an
eighteen-hour-old memory, and when that memory has only near-coffee and a
roll to dwell on, there is something in the sight of January peaches and
great strawberries carelessly spilling out of a tipped box, just like
they do in the fruit picture on the dining-room wall, that is apt to
carve sharp lines in the corners of the face.
The tragic line dwindled, going about its business. The man with the
dinner pail and the lime on his boots spat, drew the back of his hand
across his mouth, and turned away with an ugly look. (Pork was up to
$14.25, dressed.)
The errand boy's blithe whistle died down to a mournful dirge.
He was window-wishing. His choice wavered between the juicy pears, and
the foreign-looking red things that looked like oranges, and weren't.
One hand went into his coat pocket, extracting an apple that was to have
formed the piece de resistance of his noonday lunch. Now he regarded it
with a sort of pitying disgust, and bit into it with the
middle-of-the-morning contempt that it deserved.
The mail carrier pushed back his cap and reflectively scratched his head.
How much over his month's wage would that green basket piled high with
exotic fruit come to?
Jennie stood and stared after they had left, and another line had formed.
If you could have followed her gaze with dotted lines, as they do in the
cartoons, you would have seen that it was not the peaches, or the prickly
pears, or the strawberries, or the muskmelon or even the grapes, that
held her eye. In the center of that wonderful window was an oddly woven
basket. In the basket were brown things that looked like sweet potatoes.
One knew that they were not. A sign over the basket informed the puzzled
gazer that these were maymeys from Cuba.
Maymeys from Cuba. The humor of it might have struck Jennie if she had
not been so Scotch, and so hungry. As it was, a slow, sullen, heavy
Scotch wrath rose in her breast. Maymeys from Cuba.
The wantonness of it! Peaches? Yes. Grapes, even, and pears and
cherries in snow time. But maymeys from Cuba--why, one did not even know
if they were to be eaten with butter, or with vinegar, or in the hand,
like an apple. Who wanted maymeys from Cuba? They had gone all those
hundreds of miles to get a fruit or vegetable thing--a thing so
luxurious, so out of all reason that one did not know whether it was to
be baked, or eaten raw. There they lay, in their foreign-looking basket,
taunting Jennie who needed a quarter.
Have I told you how Jennie happened to be hungry and jobless? Well, then
I sha'n't. It doesn't really matter, anyway. The fact is enough. If
you really demand to know you might inquire of Mr. Felix Klein. You will
find him in a mahogany office on the sixth floor. The door is marked
manager. It was his idea to import Scotch lassies from Dunfermline for
his Scotch linen department. The idea was more fetching than feasible.
There are people who will tell you that no girl possessing a grain of
common sense and a little nerve need go hungry, no matter how great the
city. Don't you believe them. The city has heard the cry of wolf so
often that it refuses to listen when he is snarling at the door,
particularly when the door is next door.
Where did we leave Jennie? Still standing on the sidewalk before the
fruit and fancy goods shop, gazing at the maymeys from Cuba. Finally her
Scotch bump of curiosity could stand it no longer. She dug her elbow
into the arm of the person standing next in line.
"What are those?" she asked.
The next in line happened to be a man. He was a man without an overcoat,
and with his chin sunk deep into his collar, and his hands thrust deep
into his pockets. It looked as though he were trying to crawl inside
himself for warmth.
"Those? That sign says they're maymeys from Cuba."
"I know," persisted Jennie, "but what are they?"
"Search me. Say, I ain't bothering about maymeys from Cuba. A couple of
hot murphies from Ireland, served with a lump of butter, would look good
enough to me."
"Do you suppose any one buys them?" marveled Jennie.
"Surest thing you know. Some rich dame coming by here, wondering what
she can have for dinner to tempt the jaded palates of her dear ones, see?
She sees them Cuban maymeys. 'The very thing!' she says. 'I'll have 'em
served just before the salad.' And she sails in and buys a pound or two.
I wonder, now, do you eat 'em with a fruit knife, or with a spoon?"
Jennie took one last look at the woven basket with its foreign contents.
Then she moved on, slowly. She had been moving on for hours--weeks.
Most people have acquired the habit of eating three meals a day. In a
city of some few millions the habit has made necessary the establishing
of many thousands of eating places. Jennie would have told you that
there were billions of these. To her the world seemed composed of one
huge, glittering restaurant, with myriads of windows through which one
caught maddening glimpses of ketchup bottles, and nickel coffee heaters,
and piles of doughnuts, and scurrying waiters in white, and people
critically studying menu cards. She walked in a maze of restaurants,
cafes, eating-houses. Tables and diners loomed up at every turn, on
every street, from Michigan Avenue's rose-shaded Louis the Somethingth
palaces, where every waiter owns his man, to the white tile mausoleums
where every man is his own waiter. Everywhere there were windows full of
lemon cream pies, and pans of baked apples swimming in lakes of golden
syrup, and pots of baked beans with the pink and crispy slices of pork
just breaking through the crust. Every dairy lunch mocked one with the
sign of "wheat cakes with maple syrup and country sausage, 20 cents."
There are those who will say that for cases like Jennie's there are soup
kitchens, Y. W. C. A.'s, relief associations, policemen, and things like
that. And so there are. Unfortunately, the people who need them aren't
up on them. Try it. Plant yourself, penniless, in the middle of State
Street on a busy day, dive into the howling, scrambling, pushing
maelstrom that hurls itself against the mountainous and impregnable form
of the crossing policeman, and see what you'll get out of it, provided
you have the courage.
Desperation gave Jennie a false courage. On the strength of it she made
two false starts. The third time she reached the arm of the crossing
policeman, and clutched it. That imposing giant removed the whistle from
his mouth, and majestically inclined his head without turning his gaze
upon Jennie, one eye being fixed on a red automobile that was showing
signs of sulking at its enforced pause, the other being busy with a
cursing drayman who was having an argument with his off horse.
Jennie mumbled her question.
Said the crossing policeman:
"Getcher car on Wabash, ride to 'umpty-second, transfer, get off at Blank
Street, and walk three blocks south."
Then he put the whistle back in his mouth, blew two shrill blasts, and
the horde of men, women, motors, drays, trucks, cars, and horses swept
over him, through him, past him, leaving him miraculously untouched.
Jennie landed on the opposite curbing, breathing hard. What was that
street? Umpty-what? Well, it didn't matter, anyway. She hadn't the
nickel for car fare.
What did you do next? You begged from people on the street. Jennie
selected a middle-aged, prosperous, motherly looking woman. She framed
her plea with stiff lips. Before she had finished her sentence she found
herself addressing empty air. The middle-aged, prosperous, motherly
looking woman had hurried on.
Well, then you tried a man. You had to be careful there. He mustn't be
the wrong kind. There were so many wrong kinds. Just an ordinary
looking family man would be best. Ordinary looking family men are
strangely in the minority. There are so many more bull-necked, tan-shoed
ones. Finally Jennie's eye, grown sharp with want, saw one. Not too
well dressed, kind-faced, middle-aged.
She fell into step beside him.
"Please, can you help me out with a shilling?"
Jennie's nose was red, and her eyes watery. Said the middle-aged family
man with the kindly face:
"Beat it. You've had about enough I guess."
Jennie walked into a department store, picked out the oldest and most
stationary looking floorwalker, and put it to him. The floorwalker bent
his head, caught the word "food," swung about, and pointed over Jennie's
head.
"Grocery department on the seventh floor. Take one of those elevators
up."
Any one but a floorwalker could have seen the misery in Jennie's face.
But to floorwalkers all women's faces are horrible.
Jennie turned and walked blindly toward the elevators. There was no
fight left in her. If the floorwalker had said, "Silk negligees on the
fourth floor. Take one of those elevators up," Jennie would have ridden
up to the fourth floor, and stupidly gazed at pink silk and val lace
negligees in glass cases.
Tell me, have you ever visited the grocery department of a great store on
the wrong side of State Street? It's a mouth-watering experience. A
department store grocery is a glorified mixture of delicatessen shop,
meat market, and vaudeville. Starting with the live lobsters and crabs
you work your hungry way right around past the cheeses, and the sausages,
and the hams, and tongues, and head-cheese, past the blonde person in
white who makes marvelous and uneatable things out of gelatine, through a
thousand smells and scents--smells of things smoked, and pickled, and
spiced, and baked and preserved, and roasted.
Jennie stepped out of the elevator, licking her lips. She sniffed the
air, eagerly, as a hound sniffs the scent. She shut her eyes when she
passed the sugar-cured hams. A woman was buying a slice from one, and
the butcher was extolling its merits. Jennie caught the words "juicy"
and "corn-fed."
That particular store prides itself on its cheese department. It boasts
that there one can get anything in cheese from the simple cottage variety
to imposing mottled Stilton. There are cheeses from France, cheeses from
Switzerland, cheeses from Holland. Brick and parmesan, Edam and
limburger perfumed the atmosphere.
Behind the counters were big, full-fed men in white aprons, and coats.
They flourished keen bright knives. As Jennie gazed, one of them, in a
moment of idleness, cut a tiny wedge from a rich yellow Swiss cheese and
stood nibbling it absently, his eyes wandering toward the blonde gelatine
demonstrator. Jennie swayed, and caught the counter. She felt horribly
faint and queer. She shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them a
woman--a fat, housewifely, comfortable looking woman--was standing before
the cheese counter. She spoke to the cheese man. Once more his sharp
knife descended and he was offering the possible customer a sample. She
picked it off the knife's sharp tip, nibbled thoughtfully, shook her
head, and passed on. A great, glorious world of hope opened out before
Jennie.
Her cheeks grew hot, and her eyes felt dry and bright as she approached
the cheese counter.
"A bit of that," she said, pointing. "It doesn't look just as I like it."
"Very fine, madam," the man assured her, and turned the knife point
toward her, with the infinitesimal wedge of cheese reposing on its blade.
Jennie tried to keep her hand steady as she delicately picked it off,
nibbled as she had seen that other woman do it, her head on one side,
before it shook a slow negative. The effort necessary to keep from
cramming the entire piece into her mouth at once left her weak and
trembling. She passed on as the other woman had done, around the corner,
and into a world of sausages. Great rosy mounds of them filled counters
and cases. Sausage! Sneer, you pate de foies grasers! But may you know
the day when hunger will have you. And on that day may you run into
linked temptation in the form of Braunschweiger Metwurst. May you know
the longing that causes the eyes to glaze at the sight of Thuringer
sausage, and the mouth to water at the scent of Cervelat wurst, and the
fingers to tremble at the nearness of smoked liver.