"I thought you didn't have any," Jo would say.
"I haven't. I never wear evening clothes."
Jo would pass a futile hand over the top of his head, as was his way
when disturbed. "I just thought you'd like them. I thought every girl
liked long white gloves. Just," feebly, "just to--to have."
"Oh, for pity's sake!"
And from Eva or Babe, "I've GOT silk stockings, Jo." Or, "You brought
me handkerchiefs the last time."
There was something selfish in his giving, as there always is in any
gift freely and joyfully made. They never suspected the exquisite
pleasure it gave him to select these things, these fine, soft, silken
things. There were many things about this slow-going, amiable brother
of theirs that they never suspected. If you had told them he was a
dreamer of dreams, for example, they would have been amused.
Sometimes, dead-tired by nine o'clock after a hard day downtown, he
would doze over the evening paper. At intervals he would wake,
red-eyed, to a snatch of conversation such as, "Yes, but if you get a
blue you can wear it anywhere. It's dressy, and at the same time it's
quiet, too." Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem
of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man
in the frayed old smoking jacket had banished them all from the room
long ago; had banished himself, for that matter. In his place was a
tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock
spelled evening clothes. The kind of man who can lean up against a
mantel, or propose a toast, or give an order to a manservant, or
whisper a gallant speech in a lady's ear with equal ease. The shabby
old house on Calumet Avenue was transformed into a brocaded and
chandeliered rendezvous for the brilliance of the city. Beauty was
here, and wit. But none so beautiful and witty as She. Mrs.--er--Jo
Hertz. There was wine, of course; but no vulgar display. There was
music; the soft sheen of satin; laughter. And he, the gracious, tactful
host, king of his own domain----
"Jo, for heaven's sake, if you're going to snore, go to bed!"
"Why--did I fall asleep?"
"You haven't been doing anything else all evening. A person would
think you were fifty instead of thirty."
And Jo Hertz was again just the dull, gray, commonplace brother of
three well-meaning sisters.
Babe used to say petulantly, "Jo, why don't you ever bring home any of
your men friends? A girl might as well not have any brother, all the
good you do."
Jo, conscience-stricken, did his best to make amends. But a man who
has been petticoat-ridden for years loses the knack, somehow, of
comradeship with men.
One Sunday in May Jo came home from a late-Sunday-afternoon walk to
find company for supper. Carrie often had in one of her schoolteacher
friends, or Babe one of her frivolous intimates, or even Eva a staid
guest of the old-girl type. There was always a Sunday-night supper of
potato salad, and cold meat, and coffee, and perhaps a fresh cake. Jo
rather enjoyed it, being a hospitable soul. But he regarded the guests
with the undazzled eyes of a man to whom they were just so many
petticoats, timid of the night streets and requiring escort home. If
you had suggested to him that some of his sisters' popularity was due
to his own presence, or if you had hinted that the more kittenish of
these visitors were probably making eyes at him, he would have stared
in amazement and unbelief.
This Sunday night it turned out to be one of Carrie's friends.
"Emily," said Carrie, "this is my brother, Jo."
Jo had learned what to expect in Carrie's friends. Drab-looking women
in the late thirties, whose facial lines all slanted downward.
"Happy to meet you," said Jo, and looked down at a different sort
altogether. A most surprisingly different sort, for one of Carrie's
friends. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy, and blue-eyed,
and crinkly looking. The corners of her mouth when she smiled, and her
eyes when she looked up at you, and her hair, which was brown, but had
the miraculous effect, somehow, of looking golden.
Jo shook hands with her. Her hand was incredibly small, and soft, so
that you were afraid of crushing it, until you discovered she had a
firm little grip all her own. It surprised and amused you, that grip,
as does a baby's unexpected clutch on your patronizing forefinger. As
Jo felt it in his own big clasp, the strangest thing happened to him.
Something inside Jo Hertz stopped working for a moment, then lurched
sickeningly, then thumped like mad. It was his heart. He stood
staring down at her, and she up at him, until the others laughed. Then
their hands fell apart, lingeringly.
"Are you a schoolteacher, Emily?" he said.
"Kindergarten. It's my first year. And don't call me Emily, please."
"Why not? It's your name. I think it's the prettiest name in the
world." Which he hadn't meant to say at all. In fact, he was perfectly
aghast to find himself saying it. But he meant it.
At supper he passed her things, and stared, until everybody laughed
again, and Eva said acidly, "Why don't you feed her?"
It wasn't that Emily had an air of helplessness. She just made him
feel he wanted her to be helpless, so that he could help her.
Jo took her home, and from that Sunday night he began to strain at the
leash. He took his sisters out, dutifully, but he would suggest, with
a carelessness that deceived no one, "Don't you want one of your girl
friends to come along? That little What's-her-name-Emily, or
something. So long's I've got three of you, I might as well have a
full squad."
For a long time he didn't know what was the matter with him. He only
knew he was miserable, and yet happy. Sometimes his heart seemed to
ache with an actual physical ache. He realized that he wanted to do
things for Emily. He wanted to buy things for Emily--useless, pretty,
expensive things that he couldn't afford.
He wanted to buy everything that Emily needed, and everything that
Emily desired. He wanted to marry Emily. That was it. He discovered
that one day, with a shock, in the midst of a transaction in the
harness business. He stared at the man with whom he was dealing until
that startled person grew uncomfortable. "What's the matter, Hertz?"
"Matter?" "You look as if you'd seen a ghost or found a gold mine. I
don't know which." "Gold mine," said Jo. And then, "No. Ghost." For
he remembered that high, thin voice, and his promise. And the harness
business was slithering downhill with dreadful rapidity, as the
automobile business began its amazing climb. Jo tried to stop it. But
he was not that kind of businessman. It never occurred to him to jump
out of the down-going vehicle and catch the up-going one. He stayed
on, vainly applying brakes that refused to work. "You know, Emily, I
couldn't support two households now. Not the way things are. But if
you'll wait. If you'll only wait. The girls might--that is, Babe and
Carrie--"
She was a sensible little thing, Emily. "Of course I'll wait. But we
mustn't just sit back and let the years go by. We've got to help."
She went about it as if she were already a little matchmaking matron.
She corralled all the men she had ever known and introduced them to
Babe, Carrie, and Eva separately, in pairs, and en masse. She got up
picnics. She stayed home while Jo took the three about. When she was
present she tried to look as plain and obscure as possible, so that the
sisters should show up to advantage. She schemed, and planned, and
contrived, and hoped; and smiled into Jo's despairing eyes.
And three years went by. Three precious years. Carrie still taught
school, and hated it. Eva kept house more and more complainingly as
prices advanced and allowance retreated. Stell was still Babe, the
family beauty. Emily's hair, somehow, lost its glint and began to look
just plain brown. Her crinkliness began to iron out.
"Now, look here!" Jo argued, desperately, one night. "We could be
happy, anyway. There's plenty of room at the house. Lots of people
begin that way. Of course, I couldn't give you all I'd like to, at
first. But maybe, after a while--" No dreams of salons, and brocade,
and velvet-footed servitors, and satin damask now. Just two rooms, all
their own, all alone, and Emily to work for. That was his dream. But
it seemed less possible than that other absurd one had been.
Emily was as practical a little thing as she looked fluffy. She knew
women. Especially did she know Eva, and Carrie, and Babe. She tried to
imagine herself taking the household affairs and the housekeeping
pocket-book out of Eva's expert hands. So then she tried to picture
herself allowing the reins of Jo's house to remain in Eva's hands. And
everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she'd want
to put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it.
She was that kind of woman. She knew she'd want to do her own
delightful haggling with butcher and grocer. She knew she'd want to
muss Jo's hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if
necessary, without the awareness of three ever-present pairs of maiden
eyes and ears.
"No! No! We'd only be miserable. I know. Even if they didn't
object. And they would, Jo. Wouldn't they?"
His silence was miserable assent. Then, "But you do love me, don't
you, Emily?"
"I do, Jo. I love you--and love you--and love you. But, Jo, I--can't."
"I know it, dear. I knew it all the time, really. I just thought,
maybe, somehow----"
The two sat staring for a moment into space, their hands clasped.
Then they both shut their eyes with a little shudder, as though what
they saw was terrible to look upon. Emily's hand, the tiny hand that
was so unexpectedly firm, tightened its hold on his, and his crushed
the absurd fingers until she winced with pain.
That was the beginning of the end, and they knew it.
Emily wasn't the kind of girl who would be left to pine. There are too
many Jos in the world whose hearts are prone to lurch and then thump at
the feel of a soft, fluttering, incredibly small hand in their grip.
One year later Emily was married to a young man whose father owned a
large, pie-shaped slice of the prosperous state of Michigan.
That being safely accomplished, there was something grimly humorous in
the trend taken by affairs in the old house on Calumet. For Eva
married. Married well, too, though he was a great deal older than she.
She went off in a hat she had copied from a French model at Field's,
and a suit she had contrived with a home dressmaker, aided by pressing
on the part of the little tailor in the basement over on Thirty-first
Street. It was the last of that, though. The next time they saw her,
she had on a hat that even she would have despaired of copying, and a
suit that sort of melted into your gaze. She moved to the North Side
(trust Eva for that), and Babe assumed the management of the household
on Calumet Avenue. It was rather a pinched little household now, for
the harness business shrank and shrank.
"I don't see how you can expect me to keep house decently on this!"
Babe would say contemptuously. Babe's nose, always a little inclined
to sharpness, had whittled down to a point of late. "If you knew what
Ben gives Eva."
"It's the best I can do, Sis. Business is something rotten."
"Ben says if you had the least bit of----" Ben was Eva's husband, and
quotable, as are all successful men.
"I don't care what Ben says," shouted Jo, goaded into rage. "I'm sick
of your everlasting Ben. Go and get a Ben of your own, why don't you,
if you're so stuck on the way he does things."
And Babe did. She made a last desperate drive, aided by Eva, and she
captured a rather surprised young man in the brokerage way, who had
made up his mind not to marry for years and years. Eva wanted to give
her her wedding things, but at that Jo broke into sudden rebellion.
"No, sir! No Ben is going to buy my sister's wedding clothes,
understand? I guess I'm not broke--yet. I'll furnish the money for her
things, and there'll be enough of them, too." Babe had as useless a
trousseau, and as filled with extravagant pink-and-blue and lacy and
frilly things, as any daughter of doting parents. Jo seemed to find a
grim pleasure in providing them. But it left him pretty well pinched.
After Babe's marriage (she insisted that they call her Estelle now) Jo
sold the house on Calumet. He and Carrie took one of those little
flats that were springing up, seemingly overnight, all through
Chicago's South Side.
There was nothing domestic about Carrie. She had given up teaching two
years before, and had gone into social-service work on the West Side.
She had what is known as a legal mind--hard, clear, orderly--and she
made a great success of it. Her dream was to live at the Settlement
House and give all her time to the work. Upon the little household she
bestowed a certain amount of grim, capable attention. It was the same
kind of attention she would have given a piece of machinery whose
oiling and running had been entrusted to her care. She hated it, and
didn't hesitate to say so.
Jo took to prowling about department-store basements, and household
goods sections. He was always sending home a bargain in a ham, or a
sack of potatoes, or fifty pounds of sugar, or a window clamp, or a new
kind of paring knife. He was forever doing odd jobs that the janitor
should have done. It was the domestic in him claiming its own.
Then, one night, Carrie came home with a dull glow in her leathery
cheeks, and her eyes alight with resolve. They had what she called a
plain talk.
"Listen, Jo. They've offered me the job of first assistant resident
worker. And I'm going to take it. Take it! I know fifty other girls
who'd give their ears for it. I go in next month."
They were at dinner. Jo looked up from his plate, dully. Then he
glanced around the little dining room, with its ugly tan walls and its
heavy, dark furniture (the Calumet Avenue pieces fitted cumbersomely
into the five-room flat).
"Away? Away from here, you mean--to live?"
Carrie laid down her fork. "Well, really, Jo! After all that
explanation."
"But to go over there to live! Why, that neighborhood's full of dirt,
and disease, and crime, and the Lord knows what all. I can't let you
do that, Carrie."
Carrie's chin came up. She laughed a short little laugh. "Let me!
That's eighteenth-century talk, Jo. My life's my own to live. I'm
going."
And she went.
Jo stayed on in the apartment until the lease was up. Then he sold
what furniture he could, stored or gave away the rest, and took a room
on Michigan Avenue in one of the old stone mansions whose decayed
splendor was being put to such purpose.
Jo Hertz was his own master. Free to marry. Free to come and go. And
he found he didn't even think of marrying. He didn't even want to come
or go, particularly. A rather frumpy old bachelor, with thinning hair
and a thickening neck.
Every Thursday evening he took dinner at Eva's, and on Sunday noon at
Stell's. He tucked his napkin under his chin and openly enjoyed the
homemade soup and the well-cooked meats. After dinner he tried to talk
business with Eva's husband, or Stell's. His business talks were the
old-fashioned kind, beginning:
"Well, now, looka here. Take, f'rinstance, your raw hides and
leathers."
But Ben and George didn't want to take, f'rinstance, your raw hides and
leathers. They wanted, when they took anything at all, to take golf,
or politics, or stocks. They were the modern type of businessman who
prefers to leave his work out of his play. Business, with them, was a
profession--a finely graded and balanced thing, differing from Jo's
clumsy, down-hill style as completely as does the method of a great
criminal detective differ from that of a village constable. They would
listen, restively, and say, "Uh-uh," at intervals, and at the first
chance they would sort of fade out of the room, with a meaning glance
at their wives. Eva had two children now. Girls. They treated Uncle
Jo with good-natured tolerance. Stell had no children. Uncle Jo
degenerated, by almost imperceptible degrees, from the position of
honored guest, who is served with white meat, to that of one who is
content with a leg and one of those obscure and bony sections which,
after much turning with a bewildered and investigating knife and fork,
leave one baffled and unsatisfied.
Eva and Stell got together and decided that Jo ought to marry.
"It isn't natural," Eva told him. "I never saw a man who took so
little interest in women."
"Me!" protested Jo, almost shyly. "Women!"
"Yes. Of course. You act like a frightened schoolboy."
So they had in for dinner certain friends and acquaintances of fitting
age. They spoke of them as "splendid girls." Between thirty-six and
forty. They talked awfully well, in a firm, clear way, about civics,
and classes, and politics, and economics, and boards. They rather
terrified Jo. He didn't understand much that they talked about, and he
felt humbly inferior, and yet a little resentful, as if something had
passed him by. He escorted them home, dutifully, though they told him
not to bother, and they evidently meant it. They seemed capable not
only of going home quite unattended but of delivering a pointed lecture
to any highwayman or brawler who might molest them.