Dinner:
Dinner times with the Harpers varied slightly according to the way
Mattie had spent the afternoon, the amount of work at Joe’s office and
where the Harpers were dining. They usually dined at home, but, once a
week, usually Saturday, when they followed the feast with a visit to
the theatre, they ate at one of the table d’hote restaurants some place
within ten blocks of Broadway and Forty-second Street.
They thought themselves quite cosmopolitan because they had been to
Italian, Greek, French, Chinese, Russian and Armenian restaurants,
choosing in each the dish prepared for the curious—and eating it
according to American table customs as they practised them.
This particular Tuesday they were dining at home.
Joe reached the apartment exactly at six-thirty, the trip home taking
nearly an hour. Joe had been watching the clock for the last twenty
minutes of his business day so as to escape at the first possible
opportunity.
Mattie, in the kitchen, heard his key in the lock and hurried to greet
him. They kissed quite as fondly as they had in the morning, Floppit
gave a little yip of welcome and received a pat on the head in reply.
Dinner was nearly ready, Mattie informed Joe, table set and all.
Joe hurried with his ablutions and reached the dining-room, accompanied
by his newspaper, the _Journal_ this time, at a quarter of seven. He
divided the paper so that Mattie might have the last page, where are
shown the strips of comics—he had read them hanging to a strap in the
subway. Then he helped Mattie to bring in the hot dishes from the
kitchen.
There was a small platter of five chops, fried quite brown, two for
each one of them and one—to be cut into bits later—for Ikkle Floppit.
Mattie always fried chops or steaks the days she went down-town, and
sometimes other days besides.
There were potatoes, in their jackets to save her the trouble of
peeling them, a dish of canned corn. There was a neat square of butter,
too, and some thinly sliced bread on a silver-plated bread plate—a last
year’s Christmas present from one of Mattie’s aunts—and a small dish of
highly-spiced pickles.
Besides this, on the new tea wagon stood two pieces of bakery pastry,
of a peculiarly yellow colour that had aimed at but far surpassed the
result of eggs in the batter.
They sat down. Joe served the chops, Mattie the potatoes and corn.
Mattie had put on her bungalow apron as soon as she returned
home—so as to save her suit from the spots and wear incidental to
dinner-getting. Joe looked just as he had in the morning, plus a small
amount of beard and minus his coat and vest.
Yet, as the morning’s conversation had been spontaneous and
enthusiastic and happy, this evening’s meal had a curious cloud of
restraint over it.
“Good dinner,” said Joe, after his first mouthful.
“Yes, it does taste good,” agreed Mattie.
“Go down-town?”
“Uh-huh, I went down about eleven. Just got home an hour ago. I looked
at the waists, but didn’t get any—they seemed awfully high. I may go
down and get one to-morrow or Thursday. Any news in the paper?”
“Not much doing,” Joe rustled his own sheets.
He never really read at dinner but he liked to have the paper near him.
“Look at Floppit, Joe. Isn’t he cute, standing up that way? I’ve just
got to give him a bite. It won’t make him too-fat, not what I give him.
Come here, Missus’ lamb.”
Silence, then, save for the sound of knife against plate, a curious
silence, a silence of avoidance. Then meaningless sentences, bits about
anything, a struggle to appear happy, indifferent.
Joe, then,
“See any one down-town you know? Where’d you have lunch? Thought maybe
you’d call up and have lunch with me.”
“I did think of it, but I didn’t come down your way. I stopped at
Loft’s and had chocolate cake and a cherry sundae. No—I didn’t see any
one I knew—exactly.... Anything happen at the office?”
“Well, nothing much. We got that Detroit order.”
“Did you, Joe? I’m sure glad of that.”
A silence. Then, Joe, suddenly, enthusiastically, as if some barrier
had broken, as if he could no longer stay repressed, upon the path he
had set for himself.
“Say, Mattie, guess what happened this afternoon! You know Ferguson,
the fellow who used to be in our office, whose brother is in the
show business? Well, he came in and gave me a couple of seats to see
‘Squaring the Triangle’ for Friday night. They say it’s a good show and
in for a long run, but they want to keep the house filled while the
show is new, till it gets a start.”
“Did he, honestly? Say, that’s great, isn’t it? Where are they,
downstairs?”
“Sure. You don’t think he’d give away balcony seats, or at least offer
them to me, do you? Remember, he gave us some last Spring. That makes
three times this year we’ve been to shows on passes. Pretty good, eh,
Mattie?”
“Well, I guess yes. We’re some people, knowing relatives of managers. I
tell you, I think—”
A pause, then.
Mattie’s face lost its sudden smile and resumed its sadness of the
earlier part of the meal.
“What’s the matter?” asked Joe.
“Nothing the matter with me.”
“Something else happened, too,” Joe went on, enthusiastically, “at
noon, I’d just left Childs’—and guess who I passed on the street?”
“Some one we know?”
“We don’t know him exactly.”
“Oh, I can’t guess. Tell me.”
“I know you can’t—well, it was—William Gibbs McAdoo! Honest to
goodness—McAdoo. It sure seemed funny. There he was, walking down the
street, just like I’ve seen him in the movies half a dozen times. It
sure gives you a thrill, seeing people like that.”
Why the mention of William G. McAdoo should bring tears to the eyes of
a woman who had never met him may be inexplicable to some. But tears
came into the eyes of Mattie Harper. She wiped her eyes on the corner
of her bungalow apron, sniffed a little, came over to Joe, put her arms
around him.
“I just—just can’t stand it,” she sobbed. “I’ve been worrying and
worrying. Your seeing McAdoo seems the strangest thing, after what
happened to me.”
“What was it, Mattie?”
Quite kindly and understandingly, Joe pushed his chair back from the
table, gathered his wife on his knee.
“What was it, honey? Come tell Joe.”
“It wasn’t anything—anything to cry about. I—don’t know what’s the
matter with me. It—it was in Lord & Taylor’s, this afternoon. I was
looking at gloves—and I looked up—and there, right beside me, not two
feet away, stood Billie Burke. Honestly! I know it was her. She looked
exactly like her pictures—and I saw her in ‘The Runaway’ years ago, and
not long ago in the movies. Yes, sir, Billie Burke. Joe, she’s simply
beautiful.”
“Well, well, think of seeing Billie Burke!”
“And Joe, when I saw her, the awfulest feeling came over me. I tried
not to tell you about it—after the letter this morning. I’d been
thinking about Burton Center—but seeing Billie Burke just knocked it
all out. Joe, you know I love you and want to do what you want—but,
I—I just can’t move to Burton Center—unless you’ve got your heart set
on it. I’d go then, of course—any place. But I don’t want to be—buried
alive in that little town. Imagine those people—never seeing or doing
anything—no new shows or famous people—nor any kind of life. And here I
went down-town and saw Billie Burke and you—”
Joe’s pats became even fonder. He smoothed her hair with his too-pale
hand.
“There, there, don’t cry. It’s all right. Nobody’s asking or expecting
you to go to Burton Center. Funny thing, that. I had the same feeling.
First, passing McAdoo—and then those theatre tickets. I guess there’s
something about New York that gets you. They’ve got to forget that
stuff about Burton Center, I can tell you that.”
Mattie jumped off Joe’s lap, took the used dishes from the table, put
on the pastry and sat down in her own place, across from Joe.
“This is good,” said Joe, taking a bite; “where’d you get it?”
“At that little new French pastry shop we passed the night the black
dog tried to bite Floppit.”
“Oh, yes, looked nice and clean in there.”
They ate their pastry slowly. Mattie dried her eyes. Joe spoke to her:
“Say, Mattie, don’t worry for a minute more about that Burton Center
stuff. After eight years of living in the city, seeing famous people,
living right in the center of things—didn’t we see all the warships
and airplanes nearly every day? They can’t expect us to live in a rube
place like Burton Center. We’re used to more, that’s all there is to
it.”
“I know,” said Mattie, “I’d just die if I couldn’t walk down Fifth
Avenue and see what people wore. It’s just weighed on me, terribly. I
just saw us on the train going out there, and living in an awful little
house without hot water or steam heat—and seeing Billie Burke just—”
The ’phone burred into the conversation.
Mattie answered it, as usual, assuming a nonchalant, society air.
“Yes, this is the Harpers’ apartment. Yes, this is Mrs. Harper
speaking. Who? Oh, Mrs. Taylor. How do you do. I haven’t heard your
voice in ages. We’re fine, thank you.... No, I don’t know much news. A
friend of Mr. Harper’s, a brother of Ferguson, the theatrical producer,
invited us to see ‘Squaring the Triangle’ as his guests on Friday. They
say it’s a wonderful show. We saw ‘The Tattle-tale’ last Saturday. Yes,
we liked it a great deal.... Saturday afternoon? Wait and I’ll ask Mr.
Harper if he has an engagement.”
Hand over telephone mouthpiece, then:
“Want to go riding with the Taylors in their new car Saturday afternoon
and stop at some road house for supper?”
Resuming the polite conversational tone of the telephone:
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Harper and I will be delighted to go. Awfully
nice of you. At four? Fine. By the way, did I tell you I saw Billie
Burke to-day? I did. She looked simply beautiful, not a day older than
she looked last year. Wonderful hair, hasn’t she? And Mr. Harper passed
William G. McAdoo on the street. Yes, New York is a wonderful city.
You did? Isn’t that nice! All right, we’ll be ready on Saturday—don’t
bother coming up, just honk for us, that’s what all our friends do.
Thanks so much, good-bye.”
Mattie sat down at the table again.
“Well,” she said, “it’s time they asked us—they’ll take us now and be
through for a year. Still, we may have a nice time. But—what we were
talking about—you sure you are in earnest about Burton Center?”
“You bet I am. The folks at home had the wrong dope, that’s all. Why,
I’ve got my position here, too important to give up at any one’s beck
and call. Didn’t the boss congratulate me to-day on the way I wrote
those Detroit letters? I bet I get a raise in another three months.”
They folded their napkins into their silver-plated napkin-rings, rose
from the table, walked together into the living-room, stood looking out
into the drab bleakness of One Hundred and Thirty-second Street, across
to the factory-like, monotonous row of apartment houses opposite, where
innumerable lights twinkled from other little caves, where other little
families lived, humdrum, unmarked, inconsequential, grey. And from the
minds of Mattie and Joe faded the visions of little white houses and
cool, green lanes.
They remembered, instead, the city, their city—Mattie had seen a
moving picture taken, once, from a Fifth Avenue bus—three years ago
Joe had been introduced to—actually taken the hand of—William Jennings
Bryan—they had both seen James Montgomery Flagg draw a picture for the
Liberty Loan on the Public Library steps—a woman in a store had pointed
out Lady Duff Gordon to Mattie—they had seen, on the street, a man who
looked exactly like Charles M. Schwab—it might easily have been....
“I’ll write that letter right away and have it over with,” said Joe, “I
won’t hurt ma’s feelings—she and Dad mean all right. Living in Burton
Center all their lives we can’t expect them to understand things. It’s
ridiculous, of course. I don’t know what came over us for a minute this
morning. Of course we’ve got the crowded subways, here, and it costs a
lot to live and—and all that. You can’t expect a place to be perfect.
But—New Yorkers like us couldn’t stand that dead Burton Center stuff
for five minutes. Why, we’re, we’re—city folks!”