"A real, made-to-order white Christmas for you and me, Doll. The kind
you read about."
"It--it don't mean nothing to me, but--"
"Sure, it does; I'm goin' to blow you right, Doll. Half the money is
yourn, anyways. You made that winning down in Atlanta yesterday as much
as me, girlie. If I hadn't named that filly after you she'd 'a' been
left at the post."
"You--you never had the right to name one of your race-horses after me.
There ain't a girl ever went out with you that you 'ain't named one
after. You--you never had the right to!"
"I took it, kiddo, 'cause I like you! Gad! I like you! Nix, it ain't
every little girl I'd name one of my stable after. 'Violet!'--some
little pony that, odds ag'in her and walks off with the money."
"I--honest, I sometimes--I--just wish I was dead!"
"No, you don't, Doll. You know you just wanna go to-night, but you
'ain't got the nerve. I wanna show you a Christmas Eve that'll leave any
Christmas Eve you ever spent at the post. Gad! look out there, will you?
I'm going to taxicab you right through the fuzz of that there snow-storm
if it costs every cent the filly won for us!"
Mrs. Smith leaned back against the shelves limp, as if the blood had run
from her heart, weakening her, but her eyes the color of lake-water
when summer's moment is bluest. Her lips, that were meant to curve,
straightened in a line of decision.
"I'll go, Jimmie."
"That's the goods!"
"A girl's just gotta have something to hold herself together, don't
she? It--it ain't like the kid and Harry was layin' awake for me--last
Tuesday they was both asleep when I got home. They don't let each other
get lonesome, and Harry--he--There ain't nothing much for me to do round
home."
"Now you're talkin' the English language, Doll."
"I'll go, Jimmie."
He extended his cane at a sharper angle until it bent in upon itself,
threatening to snap, and flung one gray-spatted ankle across the other.
"Sure, you're going! A poor little filly like you, sound-kneed,
sound-winded, and full of speed, and no thin' but trouble for your
Christmas stockin'. A poor little blue-eyed doll like you!"
"A girl's gotta have something! You knew me before I was married,
Jimmie, and there never was a girl more full of life."
"Sure I knew you. But you was a little cold-storage queen and turned me
down."
"He--Harry, he never asks me nothing when I come in, and the kid's
asleep, anyways."
"Color up there a little, Doll. Where I'm going to take you there ain't
nothing but live ones. I'm going to take you to a place where the color
scheme of your greenbacks has got to be yellow. Color up there, Doll.
You ain't going dead, are you?"
She stretched open her eyes to wide, laughing pools, plowed through the
rear-counter debris of pasteboard boxes and tissue-paper, reached for
her jacket and tan, boyish hat. A blowy, corn-colored curl caught like a
tendril and curled round the brim.
"Going dead! Say, my middle name is Speed! It's like Harry used to
tell me when we wasn't no farther along in the marriage game than his
sneaking over here from the gents' furnishing three times a day to price
bill-folders--he used to say that I was a live wire before Franklin flew
his kite."
"Doll!"
"I ain't tired, Jimmie. Not countin' the year and a half I was home
before Harry took sick, I been through the Christmas hell just six
times. The seventh don't mean nothing in my life. I've seen 'em behind
these very counters cursing Christmas with tears in their eyes and
spending their merry holiday in bed trying to get some of the soreness
out. It takes more than one Christmas to put me out of business."
"Here, lemme tuck that curl in for you, Doll."
"Quit!"
"Doll!"
"Quit, I say!"
"Color up there, girlie. Look live!"
She rubbed her palms briskly across her cheeks to generate a glow, and
they warmed to color as peaches blush to the kiss of the sun.
"See!"
"Pink as cherries!"
"That's right, kid me along."
"Tried to dodge me to-night, didn't you, kitten?"
"I--I didn't think I ought to go to-night."
"It's a good thing my feelings ain't hurt easy."
"Honest, Jimmie, I didn't try to dodge you. I--I only thought, with
the girls here gabbling so much about last Tuesday night and all, it
wouldn't look right. And he had a spell last night again, and the doctor
said we--we ought to get him South before the first snow--South, where
the sun shines. But he's got as much chance of gettin' South as I have
of climbing the South Pole!"
"A pretty little thing like you climbing the South Pole! I'd be there
with field-glasses all-righty!"
"I--I went up and talked and begged and begged and talked to old Ingram
up at the Aid Society to-day, but the old skinflint says they can't do
nothing for an employee after he's been out of his department more'n
eight weeks, and--and Harry's been out twelve. He says the Society can't
do nothing no more, much less send him South. Just like a machine he
talked. I could have killed him!"
"Poor little filly! I was that surprised when I seen you was back in the
store again! There ain't been a classy queen behind the counter since
you left."
"Aw, Jimmie, no wonder the girls say you got your race-horses beat for
speed."
"That's me!"
Aisles thinned and the store relaxed into a bacchanalian chaos of
trampled débris, merchandise strewn as if a flock of vultures had left
their pickings--a battlefield strewn with gewgaws and the tinsel of
Christmastide, and reeking with foolish sweat.
"Button up there, Doll, and come on; it's a swell night for Eskimos."
Mr. Fitzgibbons folded over his own double-breasted coat, fitted his
flat-brimmed derby hat on his well-oiled hair, drew a pair of gray suede
gloves over his fingers, and hooked his slender cane to his arm.
"Ready, Doll?"
"The girls, Jimmie--look at 'em rubbering and gabbling like ducks!
It--it ain't like I could do any good at home, it ain't."
"I'd be the first to ship you there if you could. You know me, Doll!"
His words deadened her doubts like a soporific. She glanced about for
the moment at the Dionysian spectacle of the Mammoth Store ravished
to chaos by the holiday delirium; at the weary stream of shoppers and
workers bending into the storm as they reached the doors; at the swift
cancan of snowflakes dancing whitely and swiftly without; at Mr. Jimmie
Fitzgibbons standing attendant. Then she smiled.
"Come on, Jimmie!"
"Come on yourself, Doll!"
Snow beat in their faces like shot as they emerged into the merry night.