{"id":4241,"date":"2019-03-27T03:24:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.incirliseviye.com\/?p=4241"},"modified":"2019-03-27T03:24:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T03:24:40","slug":"the-good-provider-by-fannie-hurst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=4241","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Good Provider\u201d by Fannie Hurst"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fannie Hurst\u2019s writing career began in the pages of The Saturday Evening Post. The all-but-forgotten author was one of the highest paid writers in the United States after World War I. Of Hurst, it was said that \u201cno other living American woman has gone so far in fiction in so short a time.\u201d Her novels Back Street and Imitation of Life were best-sellers of their day, but now her work is mostly out of print.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Published on August 15, 1914<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like a suckling to the warmth of the mother, the township of Newton nestled pat against the flank of the city and drew from her through the arteries of electric trains and interurban, elevated roads and motor cars.<\/p>\n

Such clots coagulate round the city in the form of Ferndales and Glencoves, Yorkvilles and Newtons; and from them have sprung, full-grown, the joke paper and the electric lawn mower and the five-hundred-dollars down bungalow.<\/p>\n

The instinct to return to Nature lies deep in men like music that slumbers in harpstrings, but the return to Nature via the five-forty-six accommodation is fraught with chance.<\/p>\n

Nature cannot abide the haunts of men \u2014 she faints on the asphaltic bosom of the city; but to abide the haunts of Nature men\u2019s hearts bleed. Behind that asphaltic bosom and behind faces too tired to smile, hearts bud and leaf when millinery and open street cars announce the spring. Behind that asphaltic bosom the murmur of the brook is like an insidious underground stream; and when for a moment it gushes to the surface men pay the five hundred dollars down and enclose return postage for a flower-seed catalogue.<\/p>\n

The commuter lives with his head in the rarefied atmosphere of his thirty-fifth-story office, his heart in the five-hundred-dollars-down plot of improved soil, and one eye on the timetable.<\/p>\n

For longer than its most unprogressive inhabitant dared hope, the township of Newton lay comfortable enough without the pale, until one year the interurban reached out steel arms and scooped her unto the bosom of the city. Overnight, as it were, the inoculation was complete. Bungalows and one-story, vine-grown real estate offices sprang up on large light-brown tracts of improved property; traffic sold by the book.<\/p>\n

The New Banner Store, stirred by the heavy three-trolley interurban cars and the new proximity of the city, swung a three-color electric sign across the sidewalk and instituted a trading-stamp system; but, in spite of the three-color electric sign and double the advertising space in the Newton Weekly Gazette, Julius Binswanger felt the suction of the city drawing at his strength, and at the close of the second summer took an inventory and frowned at what he saw there.<\/p>\n

The frown remained an indelible furrow between his eyes. Mrs. Binswanger observed it across the family table one Saturday and paused in the epic rite of ladling soup out of a tureen, a slight pucker on her large, soft-fleshed face.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonest, Julius, when you come home from the store nights, right away I get the blues!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger glanced up from his soup and regarded his wife. Late sunshine percolated into the dining room through a vine that clambered up the screen door and flecked a design like coarse lace across his inquiring features.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight away you get what, Becky?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight away I get the blues. A long face you\u2019ve had for so long I can\u2019t remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya, Becky; something you got to have to talk about! A long face she puts on me yet, children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t I right, Poil? Ain\u2019t I, Izzy? Ask your own children!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Isadore Binswanger shrugged his custom-made shoulders until the padding bulged like the muscles of a heavyweight champion and tossed backward the mane of his black pompadour.<\/p>\n

\u201cMa, I keep my mouth closed. Every time I open it I put my foot in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger waggled a rheumatic forefinger.<\/p>\n

\u201cA dude like you, with a red-and-white shirt like I wouldn\u2019t keep in stock, ain\u2019t \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, ma; you started something!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h-h, Julius! For your own children I\u2019m ashamed! Once a week Izzy comes out to supper, and like a funeral it is! For your own children to be afraid to open their mouths ain\u2019t nothing to be proud of. Right now your own daughter is afraid to begin to tell you something \u2014 something what\u2019s happened. Ain\u2019t it, Poil?\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Pearl Binswanger tugged a dainty bite out of a slice of bread and showed the white of her teeth against the clear gold-olive of her skin. The same scarf of sunshine fell across her shoulders and lay warm on her little bosom and across her head, which was small and dark as La Gioconda\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t saying nothing, am I, mamma? The minute I try to talk to papa about \u2014 about moving to the city or anything, he gets excited like the store was on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya; more as that I get excited over such nonsenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo; to your papa you children say nothing. It\u2019s me that gets my head dinned full. Your children, Julius, think that for me you do everything what I ask you; but I don\u2019t see it. Pass your papa the dumplings, Poil. Can I help it that he carries on him a face like a funeral?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNa, na, Becky; for why should I have a long face? Tomorrow I buy me a false face like on Valentine\u2019s Day and then you don\u2019t have to look at me no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, right away mad he gets with me! Izzy, them noodles I made only on your account. In the city you don\u2019t get \u2019em like that, huh? Some more Kartoffelsalat<\/em>, Julius?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa; but not so much! My face don\u2019t suit my wife and children yet \u2014 that\u2019s the latest!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree times a day, Izzy, I ask your papa if he don\u2019t feel right. \u2018Yes,\u2019 he says; always \u2018Yes.\u2019 Like I says to Poil, what\u2019s got him since he\u2019s in the new store I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, you \u2014 the whole three of you make me sick! What you want me to do \u2014 walk the tight rope to show what a good humor I got?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo; we want, Julius, that you should come home with a long face on you till for the neighbors I\u2019m ashamed!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA little more Kartoffelsalat<\/em>, Becky. Not so much!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike they don\u2019t talk enough about us already! With a young lady in the house, we live out here where the dogs won\u2019t bark at us!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI only wish all girls had just so good a home as Pearlie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, papa. I\u2019 d rather live in a coop in the city, where a girl can have some life, than in a palace out in this hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHole, she calls a room like this, when a dining room set she sits on what her grandfather made with his own hands out of the finest cherry wood, a \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a young girl, can you blame her? She feels like, if she lived in the city, she would meet people and Izzy\u2019s friends. Talk for yourself, Poil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoys like Ignatz Landauer and Max Teitlebaum, what he meets at the Young Men\u2019s Association. Talk for yourself, Poil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoil\u2019s got a tenant for the house, Julius. I ain\u2019t afraid to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t listen to such nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the real estate office they sent \u2019em, Julius, and Poil took \u2019em through. Furnished off our hands they take it for three months, Julius, till their bungalow is done for \u2019em. Forty dollars for a house like ours on the wrong side of town, away from the improvements, ain\u2019t so bad. A grand young couple; no children. Izzy thinks it\u2019s a grand idea, too, Julius. He says if we move to the city he don\u2019t have to live in such a dark little hall room no more. To the hotel he can come with us on family rates just so cheap. Ain\u2019t it, Izzy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Isadore Binswanger broke his conspiracy of silence gently, as a skeptic at breakfast taps his candle-blown egg with the tip of a silver spoon \u2014 once, twice, thrice;, then opens it slowly and suspiciously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, pa, that with forty dollars a month rent from the house and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my own house where I belong and can afford, I stay! I\u2019m an old man and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot so fast, pa; not so fast! I only said that with forty dollars from the house for three months, this winter you can live almost as cheap in the city as here. And for me to come out every Saturday night to take Pearlie to the theater ain\u2019t such a cinch, neither. Take a boy like Max Teitlebaum: he likes her well enough to take her to the theater hisself; but by the time he gets out here for her he ain\u2019t got no enjoyment left in him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a young man likes well enough a young lady a forty-five minutes\u2019 street-car ride is like nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, papa, in storybooks such talk is all right; but when a young man has got to change cars at Low Bridge and wait for the Owl going home, it don\u2019t work out so easy \u2014 does it, Izzy? Does it, mamma?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor three years, pa, even before I got my first job in the city, always mamma and Pearlie been wantin\u2019 a few months away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith my son in the city, losing every two months his job, I got enough city to last me so long as I live! When in my store I need so bad a good young man for the advertising and stock, to the city he has to go for a salesman\u2019s job. When a young man can\u2019t get along in business with his old father I don\u2019t go running after him in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPa, for heaven\u2019s sakes, don\u2019t begin that! I\u2019m sick of listening to it. Newton ain\u2019t no place for a fellow to waste his time in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else you do in the city I like to know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJulius, leave Izzy alone, when one night a week he comes home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor my part, you don\u2019t need to move to the city. I only said to Pearlie and ma when they asked me, that a few months in a family hotel like the Wellington can\u2019t bust you. For me to come out home every Saturday night to take Pearlie in to the theater ain\u2019t no cinch. In town there\u2019s plenty grand boys who live at the Wellington-Ignatz Landauer, Max Teitlebaum, and all that crowd. Yourself I\u2019ve heard you say how much you like Max.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor why, when everybody is moving out to Newton, we move away?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just it, papa; now with the interurban boom you got the chance to sublet. Ain\u2019t it, mamma and Izzy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure it \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya; I know just what\u2019s coming, but for me Newton is good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about your children, Julius? You ain\u2019t the only one in the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-five years I\u2019ve lived in this one place, since the store was only so big as this room; and on this house we didn\u2019t have a second story. A home that I did everything but build with my own hands I don\u2019t move out of so easy. Such ideas you let your children pump you up with, Becky!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, children! You say he can\u2019t never refuse me nothing. Listen how he won\u2019t let me get in a word crossways before he snaps me off! If we sublet, Julius, we \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSublet we don\u2019t, neither! I should ride forty-five minutes into the city after my hard day\u2019s work, when away from the city forty-five minutes everyone else is riding! My house is my house; my yard is my yard. I don\u2019t got no ideas like my high-toned son and daughter for a hotel, where to stretch your feet you got to pay for the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen to your papa, children! Even before I got my mouth open good how he talks back to a wife that nursed him through ten years of bronchitis! All he thinks I\u2019m good enough for is to make poultices and rub on his chest goose grease.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, Billy! Here, Kitty! Kitty! See, Becky; even the cat won\u2019t come, so fussy with me you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t I asked you often enough, Julius, not to feed on the carpet a piece of meat to the cat? Sh-h, Billy! Scat! All that I\u2019m good enough for is to clean up. How he talks to his wife yet!\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Binswanger caught her breath on the crest of a sob and pushed her untouched plate toward the center of the table; tears swam in a heavy film across her eyes and thickened her gaze and voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis \u2014 ain\u2019t \u2014 no \u2014 hole for \u2014 for a girl to live in!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I wish is you should never live in a worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t got nothin\u2019 here, papa, but to sit and sit and sit on the porch every night with you and mamma. When Izzy comes out once a week to take me to a show how he fusses and fusses you hear for yourselves. For a girl nearly \u2014 twenty \u2014 it ain\u2019t no joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t, papa; it ain\u2019t no joke for me to have to take her in and out every week, lemme tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEat your supper, Poil; not eating don\u2019t get you nowheres with your papa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I don\u2019t want nothin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

A tear wiggle-waggled down Miss Binswanger\u2019s smooth cheek and she fumbled at her waistline for her handkerchief.<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I \u2014 I just wish sometimes I \u2014 was dead!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger shot his bald head outward suddenly, as a turtle darts forward from its case, and rapped the table noisily, his tight fist clutched round an upright fork and his voice climbing to a falsetto:<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I wish in my life I had never heard the name of the city!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, Julius, don\u2019t begin!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRuination it has brought me! My boy won\u2019t stay by me in the store so he can galavant in the city; my girl won\u2019t talk to me no more, for madness because we ain\u2019t in the city; my wife eats out of me my heart because we ain\u2019t in the city! For supper every night when I come home tired from the store all I get served to me is the city! I can\u2019t swallow no more! Money you all think I got what grows on trees just because I give all what I got. You should know how tight \u2014 how tight I got to squeeze for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger threw her arms apart in a wide gesture of helplessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, children; just so soon as I say a word mad like a wet hen he gets, and right away puts on a poor mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMad yet I shouldn\u2019t get with such nonsense. Too good they both got it. Always I told you how we spoilt \u2019em!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t holler so, pa!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t tell me what to do! You with your pretty-man suit and your hair and finger nails polished like a shoeshine! You go to the city, and I stay home where I belong, in my own house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis house \u2014 always his house!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa; a eight-room house and running water she\u2019s got if she wants to have company. Your mamma didn\u2019t have no eight rooms and finished attic when she was your age. In back of a feed store she sat me. Too good you got it, I say! New hardwood floors downstairs didn\u2019t I have to put in and electric light on the porch, so your company don\u2019t break his neck? Always something new; and now no more I can\u2019t eat a meal in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h-h, Julius!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI should worry that the Teitlebaums and the Landauers live in a fine family hotel in Seventy-second Street. Such people with big stores in Sixth Avenue can buy and sell us! Not even if I could afford it would I want to give up my house and my porch, where I can smoke my pipe, and my comforts that I worked for all my life, and move to the city in rooms so little and so far up I can\u2019t afford to pay for \u2019em. I should give up my chickens and my comforts!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour comforts \u2014 always your comforts! Do I think of my<\/em> comforts?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMa, don\u2019t you and pa begin now with your fussing. Like cats you are one minute and the next like doves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t boss me in my own house, Izzy! So afraid your papa is that he won\u2019t get all the comforts what\u2019s coming to him! I wish you was so good to me as you are to that cat, Julius! Twice I asked you not to feed him on the carpet. Scat, Billy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPass me some noodles, ma.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood ones, eh, Izzy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFine, maw!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ask you, is it more comfortable, Julius, for me to be cooped up in the city in a room that all together ain\u2019t so big as my kitchen? No; but of my children I think, too, besides my own comforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya! Becky, don\u2019t get excited. Look at your mamma, Pearlie! Shame on her, eh? How mad she gets at me till blue like her wrapper her face gets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy house and my yard so smooth like your hand, and my big porch and my new laundry, with patent wringer, is more to me as a hotel in the city; but when I got a young lady daughter with no attentions and no prospects I can\u2019t think always of my own comforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya, Becky; don\u2019t get excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ya-ya me, neither!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, old lady, don\u2019t you know that only means how much I love you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a young-lady daughter. Do you want that she should sit and sit and sit till forever we got a daughter \u2014 only she ain\u2019t young no more? I tell you out here ain\u2019t no place for a young goil. What has she got?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, papa, what have I got? The trees for company!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you see, Julius, in the new bungalows any families moving.in with young ladies? Would even your son Isadore, what ain\u2019t a young lady, stay out here when he was old enough to get hisself a job in the city?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat a boy should leave his old father like that!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWasn\u2019t you always kickin\u2019 to me, pa, that there wasn\u2019t a future in the business after the traction came \u2014 wasn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo more arguments you get with me!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat chance, Julius, I ask you, has a goil like Poil got out here in Newton? To sit on the front porch nights with Meena Schlossman don\u2019t get her nowheres; to go to the moving pictures with Eddie Goldstone, what can\u2019t make salt for hisself, ain\u2019t nothing for a goil that hopes to do well for herself. If she only looks out of the corner of her eye at Mike Donnelly three fits right away you take!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGott! That\u2019s what we need yet!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee! Even when I mention it, look at him, Poil, how red he gets! But should she sit and sit?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, such talk makes me sick! Plenty girls outside the city gets better husbands as in it. Na, na, mamma! Did you find me in the city?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, Julius, stop foolin\u2019. When I got you for a husband enough trouble I found for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my business, like it goes down every day, Becky, I ain\u2019t got the right to make a move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, the poor mouth again! Just so soon as we begin to talk about things! A man that can afford only last March to take out a new five-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h-h, Becky!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor why shouldn\u2019t your children know it. Yes; upstairs in my little green box, along with my cameo earrings and gold watch chain, I got it put away. A new life-insurance policy, children, on light blue paper, with a red seal, I put away only last week. When a man that never had any insurance before takes it out so easy, he can afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot \u2014 not because I could afford it I took it, Becky; but, with business low, I squeeze myself a little to look ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly since we got the new store you got so tight. Now you got more, you don\u2019t let it go so easy. A two-story brick, with plate-glass fronts now, and always a long face!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA long face! You should be worried like I with big expenses and big stock and little business! Why do you think I take out a policy so late at such a terrible premium? Why? So when I\u2019m gone you got something besides debts!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust such a poor mouth you had, Julius, when we wanted on the second story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ask you, Becky, one thing that you and the children ever wanted ain\u2019t I found a way to get it for you? I ask you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa; but a woman that was always economical like me you didn\u2019t need to refuse. Never for myself I asked for things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, ma and pa, don\u2019t begin that on the one night a week I\u2019m home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo economical all my life I been, till Izzy was ashamed to go to school in \u2019em I made him pants out of yours. You been a good husband, but I been just so good a wife \u2014 and don\u2019t you forget it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNa, na, old lady; don\u2019t get excited again. But right here at my own table, even though I hate you should have to know it, Becky, in front of your children I say it: I \u2014 I\u2019m all mortgaged up! Even on this house I\u2019m \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the old store you was mortgaged too. In a business a man has got to raise money on his assets. Didn\u2019t you always say that yourself? Business is business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I ain\u2019t got the business no more, Becky. I \u2014 I ain\u2019t said nothing, but \u2014 but next week I close out the trimmed hats, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPapa!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrimmed hats! Julius, your finest department!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor why should I keep a department that don\u2019t pay its salt? I ain\u2019t like you three; looks ain\u2019t everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know! I know! Ten years ago, the biggest year what we ever had, you closed out the rubber coats, too, right in the middle of the season. A poor mouth you\u2019d have, Julius, if right now you was eating gold dumplings instead of chicken dumplings!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNa, na, Becky; don\u2019t pick on your old man!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince we been married I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, ma and pa, go hire a hall!\u201d<\/p>\n

Suddenly Miss Binswanger clattered down her fork and pushed backward from the table. Tears streamed toward the corners of her mouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s always the way! What\u2019s the use of getting off the track? All we want to say, papa, is, we got a chance like we never had before to sublet. Forty dollars a month and no children! For three months we could live in the city on family rates, and maybe for three months I\u2019d know I was alive. A \u2014 a girl\u2019s got feeling, papa! And, honest, it \u2014 it ain\u2019t no trip, papa. What\u2019s forty-five minutes on the car with your newspaper? Honest, papa, it ain\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Isadore Binswanger drained a glass of water.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive \u2019er a chance, pa! The boys\u2019ll show her a swell time in the city \u2014 Max Teitlebaum and all that crowd. It ain\u2019t no fun for me traipsin\u2019 out after her, lemme tell you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger pushed back his chair and rose from the table. His eyes, the wet-looking, red-rimmed eyes of age and asthma, retreated behind a network of wrinkles as intricate as overhead wiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish,\u201d he cried, \u201cI was so far as the bottom of the ocean away from such nonsense as I find in my own family. Up to my neck I\u2019m full. Like wolfs you are! On my neck I can feel your breath hot like a furnace. Like wolfs you drive me till I \u2014 I can\u2019t stand it no more. All what I ask is my peace \u2014 my little house; my little pipe; my little porch \u2014 and not even my peace can I have! You \u2014 you\u2019re a pack of wolfs, I tell you! Even your fangs I can see; and \u2014 and I \u2014 I wish I was so far away as the bottom of the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shambled toward the door on legs bent to the cruel curve of rheumatism. The sun had dropped into a bursting west that was as red as a mist of blood. Its reflection lay on the smooth lawn and hung in the dark shadows of quiet trees, and through the fulvous haze of evening\u2019s first moment came the chirruping of crickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I was so far away as the bottom of the ocean!\u201d<\/p>\n

The tight-springed screen door sprang shut on his words and his footsteps shambled across the wide ledge of porch. A silence fell across the little dining table and Miss Binswanger wiped at fresh tears; but her mother threw her a confident gesture of reassurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t say no more now for a while, children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Isadore Binswanger inserted a toothpick between his lips and stretched his limbs out at a hypotenuse from the chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m done! I knew the old man would jump on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy, you and Poil go on now; for the theater you won\u2019t catch the seven-ten car if you don\u2019t hurry. Leave it to me, Poil. I can tell by your papa\u2019s voice we got him won. How he fusses like just now don\u2019t make no difference. You know how your papa is. Here, Poil; lemme help you with your coat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I don\u2019t want to go, mamma.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, now, Poil, you \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re coming with me you\u2019d better get a hustle on. I ain\u2019t going to hang round this graveyard all evening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her brother rose to his slightly corpulent five-feet-five and shook his trousers into their careful creases. His face was a soft-fleshed, rather careless replica of his mother\u2019s, with a dimple-cleft chin and a delicate down of beard that made his shaving a manly accomplishment rather than a necessity.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere on the sideboard is your hat, Poil. Powder a little round your eyes. Just leave papa to me, Poil. Ach, how sweet that hat, with them roses out of stock, looks on you. Come out here \u2014 the side way. Ach, how nice it is out here on the porch! How short the days get; dark nearly already at seven. Goodbye, children. Izzy, take your sister by the arm; the whole world don\u2019t need to know you\u2019re her brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave the door on the latch, mamma.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a good time, children. Ain\u2019t you going to say goodbye to your papa, Poil? Your worst enemy he ain\u2019t. Julius, leave Billy alone \u2014 honest, he likes that cat better as his family! Tell your papa goodbye, Poil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe should say goodbye to me only if she wants to. Izzy, when you go out the gate drive back that rooster out of that mulberry tree. I\u2019ll wring his little galavantin\u2019 neck!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGoodnight, children. Take good care on the cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGoodnight, mamma \u2014 papa!\u201d<\/p>\n

The gate clicked shut and the two figures moved into the mist of growing gloom. Over their heads the trees met and formed across the brick sidewalk a roof as softly dark as the ceiling of a church. Birds chirped.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger leaned her wide uncorseted figure against a pillar and watched them until a curve in the avenue cut off her view; then she dragged a wicker chair across the veranda.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can sit out on the porch a while yet, Julius. Hot like midsummer it is for your rheumatism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya. My slippers, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook across the yard, will you, Julius? The Schlossmans still at the supper table! Fruit gelatin they got; I seen it cooling on the fence. We got new apples on the side-yard tree \u2014 you wouldn\u2019t believe, Julius! Tomorrow I make pies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The light of early evening hung like a veil, and through it the sad fragrance of burning leaves, which is autumn\u2019s incense, drifted from an adjoining lawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h-h, chicky! Sh-h-h! Back in the yard I can\u2019t keep that rooster roost, Julius. And today for thirty cents I had that paling in the garden fence fixed too. Honest, to keep a yard like ours going is expense all the time. People in the city without yards is lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all Newton there ain\u2019t one like ours! Look, Becky, at that white rosebush flowering so late, just like she was a bride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Izzy was home at least we didn\u2019t have the expense of weeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow when he comes home all he does is to change neckties and make trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, my moon vines! Look how those white flowers open right in your face \u2014 one by one, like big stars coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUm-m-m-m! And smell, Becky, how good!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, lemme pull them heavy shoes off for you, papa. Listen! There goes that oriole up in the cherry tree again. Listen to the trills he\u2019s got in him. Pull, Julius; I ain\u2019t no derrick!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh-h, how good it feels to get \u2019em off! Now light my pipe, Becky. Always when you light it better it tastes. Hold! There \u2014 make out of your hand a cup \u2014 there! [Pu-pu-pu] There! Now sit down by me, Becky!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMove over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, Becky, when we got our little home like this, with a yard so smooth as my hand, where we don\u2019t need shoes or collars, and with our own fruit right under our noses \u2014 for why ain\u2019t you satisfied?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor myself, Julius, believe me, it\u2019s too good; but Poil, we \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at all what you can see right here from our porch! Look there, through the trees at the river; right in front of our eyes it bends for us. Look, what a street we live on! We should worry it ain\u2019t in the booming part! Quiet like a temple, with trees on it older as you and me together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe caterpillars is bad this year, Julius. Trees ain\u2019t so cheap, neither. In the city such worries they ain\u2019t got.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor what, with a place like this, Becky? With running water and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Poil, Julius; not a thing a beau-ti-fool girl like Poil has out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNonsense! It\u2019s a sin she should want a better place as this. Ain\u2019t she got a plush parlor and a piano, and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like Izzy says, Julius \u2014 there\u2019s too many fine goils in the city for the boys to come out here on a forty-five-minute ride. What boys has she got out here? Mike Donnelly and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we need \u2014 just something like that should happen to us. But, believe me, it\u2019s happened before when a girl ain\u2019t got no better to pick from. How I worry about it, you should know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecky, with even such talk you make me sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMark my word, it\u2019s happened before, Julius! That\u2019s why I say, Julius, a few months in the city this winter and she could meet the right young men. Take a boy like Max Teitlebaum. Yourself you said how grand and steady he is. Twice, with Izzy, he\u2019s been out here; and not once his eyes off Poil did he take.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTeitlebaums, with a store twice so big as ours, on Sixth Avenue, don\u2019t need to look for us \u2014 twice they can buy and sell us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that so! To me that makes not one difference. Put Poil in the city, where it don\u2019t take an hour to get to her and \u2014 ach! \u2014 almost anything could happen. Not once did he take his eyes off her; such a grand, quiet boy too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a young man\u2019s got thoughts a forty-five-minutes street-car ride don\u2019t keep him away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNonsense! I always say I never feel hungry till I see in front of me a good meal. If I have to get dressed and go out and market for it I don\u2019t want it. It\u2019s the same with marriage. You got to work up in the young man the appetite. What they don\u2019t see they don\u2019t get hungry for. They got to get eyes bigger as their stomachs first.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch talk makes me sick! Suppose she don\u2019t get married, ain\u2019t she got a good home and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn old maid you want yet! A beau-ti-fool goil like our Poil he wants to make out of her an old maid! Or she should break her parents\u2019 hearts with a match like Mike Donnelly \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecky!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, Julius, now we got the chance to rent for three months! Say we live there three months at the Wellington Hotel! Say it costs us a little more \u2014 everybody always says what a grand provider you are, Julius. Let them say a little more, Julius.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I ain\u2019t got the money, Becky, I tell you. For me to refuse what you want is like I stick a knife in my heart; but I got poor business, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe in the end, Julius, it\u2019s the cheapest thing we ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t afford it, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor only three months we can go, Julius. What\u2019s three months?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI got notes, Becky \u2014 notes already twice extended. If I don\u2019t meet \u2019em in March, God knows where \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya, Julius; all that talk I know by heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t getting no younger, neither, Becky: Hardly through the insurance examination I could get. I ain\u2019t so strong no more. When I get big worries I don\u2019t sleep so good. I ain\u2019t so well nights, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways the imagination sickness, Julius!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t so well, I tell you, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLast time, when all you had was the neuralgia and you came home from the store like you was dying, Doctor Ellenburg told me hisself right here on this porch that never did he know a man so nervous of dying like you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t help it, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was so afraid like you of dying, Julius, not one meal could I enjoy. A healthy man like you, with nothing but the rheumatism and a little asthma! Only last week you came home pale like a ghost, with a pain in your side, when it wasn\u2019t nothing but where your pipe burnt a hole in your pants pocket to give me some more mending to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust for five minutes you should have felt that pain!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHonest, Julius, to be a coward like you for dying, it ain\u2019t nice \u2014 honest, it ain\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways, Becky, when I think I ain\u2019t always going to be with you and the children, such a feeling comes over me!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, Julius, be quiet! Without you I might just as well be dead too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting old, Becky \u2014 sixty-six ain\u2019t no spring chicken no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, Julius \u2014 stick knives in me!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is short, Becky \u2014 we must be happy while we got each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is short, Julius; and for our children we should do all what we can. We can\u2019t always be with them, Julius. We \u2014 we must do the right thing by \u2019em, you and me, Julius. Like you say, we \u2014 we\u2019re getting old \u2014 together, Julius. We don\u2019t want nothing to reproach ourselves with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darkness fell thickly, like blue velvet porti\u00e8res swinging together, and stars sprang out in a clear sky. They sat in silence. The gray cat, with eyes like opals, sprang into the hollow of Mr. Binswanger\u2019s arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cBilly, you come to sit by mamma and me? N-i-c-e Bil-ly!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go in now, papa; in the damp you get rheumatism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya, Becky. Hear how he purrs, like an engine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on, papa; damper every minute it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n

He rose, with his rheumatic jerkiness, placed the cat gently on all fours on the floor and closed his fingers round his wife\u2019s outstretched arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen \u2014 when we go \u2014 go to the city, Becky, we don\u2019t sublet Billy; we \u2014 we take him with us \u2014 not, Becky?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, papa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chief sponsors for the family hotel are neurasthenia and bridge whist \u2014 the inability of the homemaker and the debility of the housekeeper. Under these invasions, Hestia turns out the gas logs, pastes a To Let sign on the windows, locks the front door behind her and gives the key to the auctioneer.<\/p>\n

The family holds out the dining room clock and a pair of silver candlesticks that came over in the stupendously huge cargo that time and curio dealers have piled on the good ship Mayflower, engages a three-room suite on the ninth floor of a family hotel, and inaugurates the sly American paradox of housekeeping in non-housekeeping apartments.<\/p>\n

The Wellington Hotel was a rococo haven for such refugees; its doors flew open and offered them family rates and an excellent cuisine. Excellent cuisine, however, is a clever but spiceless parody on home cookery.<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger read his evening menu with the furrow deepening between his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a soup they got! Mulli-ga-what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, papa \u2014 mulligatawny! Barley soup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMulligatawnee! Fine mess!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, Julius! Don\u2019t talk so loud. Does the whole dining room got to know you don\u2019t know nothing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger took a nervous resume of the red-and-gold, bright-lighted dining room.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a plate of noodles soup, Becky, they can have all their mulligatawny! Fifteen cents for a plate of soup, Becky, and at home for that you could make a whole potful twice so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, papa!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t sh-h-h me no more, neither, Pearlie! Five months, from October to February, I been shooed like I was one of our roosters at home got over in Schlossman\u2019s yard. There! You read for me, Izzy; such language I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isadore took up a card and crinkled one eye in a sly wink toward his mother and sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cRinderbrust und Kartoffelsalat, pa, mit Apfelkuchen und Kalteraufschnitt<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya! Make fun yet! A square meal should happen to me yet in a highway-robbery place like this!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger straightened her large-bosomed, stiff-corseted figure in its black basque, and pulled gently at her daughter\u2019s flesh-colored chiffon sleeve, which fell from her shoulder like an angel\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook across the room, Poil. There\u2019s Max just coming in the dining room with his mother. Always the first thing he looks over at our table. Bow, Julius! Don\u2019t you see across the room the Teitlebaums coming in? I guess old man Teitlebaum is out on the road again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Binswanger flushed the same delicate pink as her chiffon and showed her teeth in a vivid smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t he silly, though, tonight, mamma? Look When he holds up two fingers at me it means first he takes his mother up to her pinochle club and then by nine o\u2019clock he comes back to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow good that woman has got it! Look, Poil \u2014 another waist she\u2019s wearing again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook how he pulls out the chair for his mother, Izzy. It would hurt you to do that for mamma, wouldn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSay, missy, I learnt manners two years before you ever done anything but hold down the front porch out on Newton Avenue! I\u2019d been meetin\u2019 Max Teitlebaum and Ignatz Landauer, and that crowd, over at the Young Men\u2019s Club before you\u2019d ever been to a movie with anybody except Meena Schlossman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see that all your good start got you anywheres.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t let swell society go to your head, missy. You ain\u2019t got Max yet, neither. You ought to be ashamed to be so crazy about a boy! Wait till I tell you something when we get upstairs that\u2019ll take some of your kink out, missy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren, children! Hush your fussing. Julius, don\u2019t read all the names off the bill of fare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Binswanger regarded her brother under level brows and threw him a retort that sizzed across the table like drops of water on a hot stove top.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyways, if I was a fellow that couldn\u2019t keep a job more than two months at a time I\u2019d lay quiet! I wouldn\u2019t be out of a job all the time and beggin\u2019 my father to set me up in business when I was always getting fired from every place I worked!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he always starts with me, mamma.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy, ain\u2019t you got no respect for your sister? For heaven\u2019s sakes, take that bill of fare away from your papa, Izzy! He\u2019ll burn a hole in it. Always the prices he reads out loud, till so embarrassed I get. No ears and eyes he has for anything else. He reads and reads, but enough he don\u2019t eat to keep alive a bird.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger drew his spectacles off his nose, snapped them into a worn leather case and into his vest pocket; a wan smile lay on his lips.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got only eyes for you, Becky, eh? All dressed up, ain\u2019t you? \u2014 black lace yet! What you think of your mamma, children? Young she gets \u2014 not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, Julius!\u201d<\/p>\n

The little bout of tenderness sent a smile round the table, and behind the veil of her lashes Miss Binswanger sent the arrow of a glance across the room. \u201cHonest, mamma, I wonder if Max sees anything green on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe sees something sweet on you, maybe, Poil. Izzy, pass your pa some radishes. Not a thing does that man eat, and such an appetite he used to have!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRadishes better as these we get in our yard at home. Ten cents for six radishes! Against my appetite it goes to eat \u2019em when in my yard at home \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHome \u2014 always home!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPapa, please don\u2019t put your napkin in your collar like a bib. Mamma, make him take it out. Honest, even for the waiter I\u2019m ashamed. How he watches us, too, and laffs behind the tray!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave me alone, Pearlie. My shirt front I don\u2019t use for no bib! Laundry rates in this hold-up place ain\u2019t so cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMamma, please make him take it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJulius!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, papa, at the Teitlebaums and Schoenfeldts laughing at us. Look now at him, mamma! Just to spite me he bends over and drinks his soup out loud out of the tip of his spoon \u2014 please, papa!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger jerked his napkin from its moorings beneath each ear and peered across at his daughter, with his face as deeply creased as a raisin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish,\u201d he said low in his throat and with angry emphasis, quivering his lips behind the gray and black bristles of his mustache, \u201cten times a day I wish I was back in my little house in Newton, where I got my comfort and my peace. You children I got to thank for this \u2014 you children!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Isadore Binswanger replaced his spoon in his soup plate and leaned back against his chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cAw now, papa, don\u2019t begin!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou good-for-nothing, you! With your hair combed up straight on your head like a girl\u2019s, and a plaited shirt like I\u2019d be ashamed to carry in stock \u2014 you got no putin! If I give you five thousand dollars for a business for yourself, you don\u2019t care so much what kind of manners I got. Five thousand dollars he asks me for to go in business when he ain\u2019t got it in him to keep a job for six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last job wasn\u2019t \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, in this highway-robbery hotel you got me into, I got to pay your board for you. If you want five thousand dollars from me you got to get rid of me some way for my insurance policy, is all I can say. And sometimes I wish you would \u2014 easier for me it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJulius!\u201d<\/p>\n

His son crumpled his napkin and tossed it toward the center of the table. His soft, moist lips were twisted in anger, and his voice, under cover of a whisper, trembled with that same anger.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor what little board you\u2019ve paid for me I can\u2019t hear about it no more. I\u2019ll go out and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, Izzy! Sh-h, papa! All over the dining room they can hear you. Sh-h!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHome I ain\u2019t never denied my children \u2014 open doors they got always in my house; but in a highway-robbery hotel, where I can\u2019t afford \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got the cheapest family rates here in this hotel. Such rates we get here, children, and highway robbery your father calls it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFive months we been in the city and two months already a empty house standing out there waiting, and nothing from it coming in \u2014 a house I love like my life; a house what me and your mamma wish we was back in every minute of the day!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI only said, Julius, for myself I like my little home best; but \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t got the strength for the streetcar ride no more. I ain\u2019t got appetite for this sloppy American food no more. I can\u2019t breathe no more in that coop upstairs. Right now you should know how my feet hurt for slippers; a collar I got to wear to supper when like a knife it cuts me! I can\u2019t afford this. I got such troubles with business I only wish for one day you should have \u2019em. I want my little house, my porch, my vines and my chickens. I want my comforts. My son ain\u2019t my boss!\u201d<\/p>\n

Isadore pushed back from the table, his jaw low and sullen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t going to sit through a meal and be abused like \u2014 like I was a \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou ain\u2019t got to sit. Stand up then!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy! Hush, Izzy! The people! Julius, so help me if I come down to a meal with you again! Look, Julius! The Teitlebaums are watching us. Smile at me, Poil, like we was joking. Izzy, if you leave this table now I \u2014 I can\u2019t stand it! Laugh, Poil, like we was having our little fun among us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women exchanged the ghastly simulacrum of a smile and the meal was resumed in silence. Only small Leads sprang out on the shiny surface of Mr. Binswanger\u2019s head, like dewdrops on the glossy surface of leaves; and twice his fork slipped and clattered from his hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo excited you get right away, Julius! Nervous like a cat you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I ain\u2019t got the strength no more, Becky. Pink sleeping tablets I got to take yet to make me sleep. I ain\u2019t got the strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, Julius; don\u2019t get excited! In the spring we go home. You don\u2019t want, Julius, to spoil everything right this minute. Ain\u2019t it enough the way our Poil has come out in these five months? Such a grand time that goil has had this winter! Do you want that the Teitlebaums should know all our business, and spoil things?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I wish sometimes that name I had never heard in my life. In my days a young girl \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, Julius; we won\u2019t talk about it now \u2014 we change the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook over there, will you, Poil? Always extras the Teitlebaums have on their table. Paprika and \u2014 what is that red stuff? Chili sauce! Such service we don\u2019t get. Pink carnations on their table too! Tomorrow at the desk I complain. Our money is just so good as theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Binswanger raised her harried eyes from her plate and smiled at her mother; she was like a dark red rose, trembling, titillating, and with dewy eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t stare so, mamma.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy, are you going to be home tonight? One night it won\u2019t hurt you to stay. Like you run round nights to dance halls ain\u2019t nothing to be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow start something, mamma, so papa can jump on me again! If Pearlie and Max are going to use the front room this evening, what shall I do \u2014 sit in a corner till he\u2019s gone and I can go to bed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI should care if he goes to dance halls or not! What I say, Becky, don\u2019t make no difference to my son. Look how I begged him to hold on to his job!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve done your dessert wait till we get upstairs, papa. The dining room knows already enough of our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Binswanger pushed back from the table and got to her feet. Tears rose in a sheer film across her eyes; but she smiled with her lips and led the procession of her family from the gabbling dining room, her small dark head held upward by the check-rein of scorched pride and the corner of her tear-dimmed glance for the remote table with the centerpiece of pink carnations.<\/p>\n

By what seemed demoniac aforethought the Binswanger three-room suite was rigidly impervious to sunlight, air and daylight. Its infinitesimal sitting room, which the jerking backward of a couch cover transformed into Mr. Isadore Binswanger\u2019s bedchamber, afforded a one-window view of a long, narrow air shaft, which rose ten stories from a square of asphalt courtyard, up which the heterogeneous fumes of cookery were wafted like smoke through a flue.<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger dropped into a veteran armchair that had long since finished duty in the suite de luxe<\/em>. He was suddenly old and as withered as an aspen leaf trembling on its rotten stem. Vermiculate cords of veins ran through his flesh like the chirography of pain, written in the blue of an indelible pencil; yellow crow\u2019s-feet rayed outward from his eyes as deep as clawprints in damp clay.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecky, help me off with my shoes; heavy like lead they feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoil, unlace your papa\u2019s shoes. Since I got to dress for dinner I can\u2019t stoop no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Binswanger tugged daintily at her father\u2019s boots, staggering backward at each pull.<\/p>\n

\u201cAch! Go \u2019way, Pearlie. Better than that I can do myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, mamma! Nothing suits him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger regarded her husband\u2019s sallowness with anxious eyes; her large bosom heaved under its showy lace yoke and her short, dimpled hands twirled at their rings.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight, Julius, if you don\u2019t do like the doctor says, I telephone him to come. That a man should be such a coward! It don\u2019t do you no good to take only one sleeping tablet; two he said is what you need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToo much sleeping powder is what killed old man Knauss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, Julius, you heard yourself what Doctor Ellenburg said. Six of the little pink tablets he said it would take to kill a man. How can two of \u2019em hurt you? Already by the bed I got the box of \u2019em waiting, Julius, with an orange, so they don\u2019t even taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ain\u2019t doctors and their gedinks<\/em>, Becky, can do me good. Pink tablets can\u2019t make me sleep. I \u2014 Ach, Becky, I\u2019m tired \u2014 tired!\u201d<\/p>\n

Isadore rose from the couch bed and punched his headprint out of the cushion.<\/p>\n

\u201cLay here, pa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNa, na; I go me to bed. Such a thing full of lumps don\u2019t rest me like a sofa at home. Na; I go me to bed, Becky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isadore relaxed to the couch once more, pillowed his head on interlaced hands, yawned to the ceiling, blew two columns of cigarette smoke through his nostrils and watched them curl upward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ain\u2019t so worse, pa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI go me to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a little while, Julius, can\u2019t you stay up? At nine o\u2019clock comes Max to see Poil. I always say a young man thinks more of a young goil when her parents stay in the room a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isadore fitted his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes and flung one reclining limb over the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Max Teitlebaum thinks of Pearlie I already know. Today he invited me to lunch with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy! Why you been so close-mouthed?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger threw her short heavy arm at full length across the table top and leaned toward her son, so that the table lamp lighted her face with its generous scallop of chin and exacerbated the concern in her eyes. \u201cYou had lunch today with Max Teitlebaum and about Poil you talked?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I said.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miss Binswanger leaned forward in her low rocker, suddenly pink, as though each word had been a fillip to her blood; and a faint terra cotta ran under the olive of her skin, lighting it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike fun you did!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll right then, missy; I\u2019m lyin\u2019 and I won\u2019t say no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t mean it, Izzy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIzzy, tell your sister what he said!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, right to my face she contradicts me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease, Izzy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he \u2014 he likes you all righty \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid he say that about me \u2014 honest, Izz?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her breath came sweet as thyme between her open lips, and her eyes could not meet her mother\u2019s gaze, which burned against her lids.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee, Poil? See, papa? Wake up a minute and listen. When I mentioned Max Teitlebaum you always said a grand boy like one of the Teitlebaum boys, with such prospects, ain\u2019t got no time for a goil like our Poil. Always I told you that you got to work up the appetite. See, papa, how things work out? See, Poil? What else did he have to say, Izzy? He likes her, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n

Isadore turned on his side and flicked a rim of ash off his cigarette with a manicured fourth finger.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get excited too soon, ma. He didn\u2019t come out plain and say anything; but I guess a boy like Max Teitlebaum thinks we don\u2019t need a brick house to fall on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you mean, Izzy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I mean? Say, ain\u2019t it as plain as your nose? You don\u2019t need two brick houses to fall on you, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger admitted to a mental phthisis and threw out her hands in a gesture of helplessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cBelieve me, Izzy, maybe I am dumb, so bad my head works when your papa worries me; but what you mean I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe neither, Izzy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSay, there ain\u2019t much to tell. He likes Pearlie \u2014 that much he wasn\u2019t bashful to me about. He likes Pearlie and he wants to go in the general store and ladies\u2019 furnishing goods business. Just clothing like his father\u2019s store he hates. Why should he stay in a business, he says, like his father\u2019s, that is already built up? His two married brothers and his father, he says, is enough in the one business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch an ambitious boy \u2014 always anxious to do for hisself! I wish, Izzy, you had some of his ambition. You hear, Poil? In the same business as papa he wants to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger rocked complacently, a smile crawled across her lips, and she nodded rhythmically to the tilting of her rocking chair. Her eyes closed softly in the pleasant phantasmagoria of a dream. Mr. Binswanger slumped lower in his chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cA good head for business that Max Teitlebaum has on him. Like your mamma says, Izzy, you should have one just half so good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere you go again, pa \u2014 pickin\u2019, pickin\u2019! If you\u2019d give a fellow a start and lend him a little capital \u2014 I\u2019d have some ambition, too, and start for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Binswanger leaped forward at full stretch, as a jet of flame shoots through a stream of oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor yourself! On what? From where would I get it? Cut it out from my heart? Two months already I begged you to come out by me in the store and see if you can help start something to get back the trade. Now we need young blood in the store to get \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFive thousand dollars I give you for to lose in the ladies\u2019 ready-to-wear! Another white elephant we need in the family yet. Not five thousand dollars outside my insurance I got to my name; and even if I did have it I wouldn\u2019t \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJulius!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean it, so help me! Even if I did have it, not a cent to a boy what don\u2019t listen to his old father!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor heaven\u2019s sakes, pa, quit your hollering! If you ain\u2019t got it to your name I\u2019m sorry for Pearlie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think, pa, a boy like Max Teitlebaum \u2014 a boy that Banker Finburg\u2019s daughter is crazy after \u2014 is getting married only because you got a nice daughter?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean, Izzy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woods are full of \u2019em just as fine. I didn\u2019t need no brick house to fall on me today at lunch. He didn\u2019t come right out and say nothing, but when he said he wanted to get in a business he could build up, I seen what he meant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, I seen it. I guess his father gives him six or seven thousand dollars to get his start, and just so much he wants from the girl\u2019s side. He can get it easy too. If \u2014 if you\u2019d fork over, pa, I \u2014 him and I could start maybe together; and \u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cYou \u2014 you \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour papa, Izzy, can do for his girl just like the best can do for theirs. Julius, can\u2019t you!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGott in Himmel<\/em>! I \u2014 I \u2014 you \u2014 you pack of wolfs, you!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch names you can\u2019t call your wife, Julius. Just let me tell you that! Such names you can\u2019t call me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Anger trembled in Mrs. Binswanger\u2019s vocal cords, like the electric current running over a wire; but Mr. Binswanger sprang suddenly to his feet and crashed the white knuckles of his clenched fists down on the table with a force that broke the flesh. The red lights of anger lay mirrored in the pools of his eyes, as danger lanterns on a dark bridge are reflected in black water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWolfs! Wolfs, all of you! You \u2014 you \u2014 tonight you got me where I am at an end! Tonight you got to know. I \u2014 I can\u2019t keep it in no more! You got to know tonight \u2014 tonight!\u201d His voice caught in a tight knot of strangulation; he was quivering and palsied. \u201cTonight you \u2014 you got to know!\u201d<\/p>\n

A sudden trembling took Mrs. Binswanger.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor heaven\u2019s sakes, know what, Julius? Know what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m done for! I\u2019m gone under! Till it happened you wouldn\u2019t believe me. Two years I seen it coming; two years I been fightin\u2019 and fightin\u2019 \u2014 fightin\u2019 it by myself! And now for yourselves you look in the papers two weeks from tomorrow, the first of March, and see! I\u2019m done for! I\u2019m gone under \u2014 I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJulius! You \u2014 you ain\u2019t, Julius! You ain\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n

His voice rose like a gale:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gone under \u2014 I ain\u2019t got twenty cents on the dollar! I\u2019m gone, Becky! Beat up! Tomorrow two weeks the creditors, they\u2019re on me! My last extension expires and they\u2019re on me. I been fightin\u2019 and fightin\u2019. Twenty cents on the dollar I can\u2019t meet, Becky \u2014 I can\u2019t, Becky; I can\u2019t! I been fightin\u2019 and fightin\u2019, but I can\u2019t, Becky \u2014 I \u2014 can\u2019t! I\u2019m gone!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPa!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJulius! Julius! You \u2014 you don\u2019t mean it, Julius! You \u2014 don\u2019t mean it! You\u2019re fooling us! Julius!\u201d<\/p>\n

Small, cold tears welled to the corners of his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gone, Becky! And now he \u2014 he wants the shirt off my back! He can have it, God knows; but \u2014 but \u2014 ach, Becky! \u2014 I wish I could have saved you! But that a man twice so strong as his father, ach, Gott! What \u2014 what\u2019s the use? I\u2019m gone, Becky \u2014 gone!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Isadore Binswanger swung to his feet and regarded his parent with the dazed eyes of a sleepwalker wakening on a perilous ledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, pa, why didn\u2019t you tell a fellow? I \u2014 we \u2014 aw, pa, I \u2014 I can knuckle down if I got to. Gee-whiz! How was a fellow to know? You \u2014 you been cuttin\u2019 up about everything since \u2014 since we was kids. Aw, pa, please \u2014 gimme a chance, pa! I can knuckle down, pa! Pa!\u201d<\/p>\n

He approached the racked form of his father as though he would throw himself a stepping-stone at his feet; and then, because his voice stuck in his throat and he ached until the tears sprang to his eyes, he turned suddenly and went out of the room, slamming the door behind him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I\u2019m gone, Becky! What you want for Poil I can\u2019t do. I\u2019m gone under! We got to start over again. It was the interurban done it, Becky. I needed new capital to meet the new competition. I \u2014 I could have stood up under it then, Becky; but \u2014 but \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, my husband \u2014 for myself I don\u2019t care. Ach, my husband!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I\u2019m gone, Becky \u2014 gone!\u201d<\/p>\n

He rose to his feet and ambled feebly to his bedroom, his fingers feeling of the furniture for support and his breath coming in the long wheezes of dry tears. And in the cradle of her mother\u2019s arms Miss Binswanger wept the hot tears of black despair.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my baby! Ach, my husband! A good man like him! A good man like him!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t cry, mamma; don\u2019t \u2014 cry!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing he ever refused me \u2014 and now, when we should be able to do for our children, and \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t cry, mamma; don\u2019t cry!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf \u2014 if he had the money \u2014 for a boy like Max \u2014 he\u2019d give it, Poil. Such a good husband! Such \u2014 ach, I go me in to papa now \u2014 poor papa! I\u2019ve been bad, Poil; we must make it up to him. We \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h-h!\u201d \u201cWe got to start over again, Poil \u2014 to the bone I\u2019ll work my fingers. I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, mamma \u2014 sh-h-h! Somebody\u2019s knocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s \u2014 it\u2019s Izzy, baby. See how sorry he gets right away. He ain\u2019t a bad boy, Poil, only always I\u2019ve spoilt him. Come in, my boy \u2014 come in and go in to your papa.\u201d<\/p>\n

The door swung open and fanned backward the stale air in the sharp gust \u2014 and the women sprang apart mechanically as automatons, the sagging, open-mouthed vacuity of surprise on Mrs. Binswanger\u2019s face, the tears still wet on her daughter\u2019s cheeks like dew.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Teitlebaum!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMax!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Teitlebaum hesitated at the threshold, the flavor of his amorous spirit tasty on his lips and curving them into a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my name! Hello, Pearlie-girlie! How-d\u2019ye-do, Mrs. Binswanger? What \u2014 what \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

He regarded them with dark, quiet eyes, the quick red of embarrassment running high in his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, excuse me! I might have known \u2014 I\u2019m too early. Like my mother says, I was in such a hurry to \u2014 to get back here again I \u2014 I nearly got out and pushed the Subway. I \u2014 you must excuse me. I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no; sit down, Mr. Teitlebaum. Pearlie ain\u2019t feelin\u2019 so well this evening; she\u2019s all right now, though. Such a cold she\u2019s got \u2014 ain\u2019t you, Poil?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes \u2014 yes. Such a cold I got. Sit \u2014 sit down, Max.\u201d<\/p>\n

He regarded her, with the rims of his eyes stretched wide in anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cDown at supper so well you looked, Pearlie. I says to my mother like a flower you looked.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fog of tears rose sheer before her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer papa, Mr. Teitlebaum, he ain\u2019t so well, neither. Just now he went to bed and he \u2014 he said to you I should give his excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo! Ain\u2019t that too bad now!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSit down, Max \u2014 there, next to mamma.\u201d<\/p>\n

He leaned across the table toward the little huddle of her figure, his emotion written frankly across his features.<\/p>\n

\u201cPearlie \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll be all right in a minute, Mr. Teitlebaum \u2014 like her papa she is, always so afraid of a little sickness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPearlie, ain\u2019t you going to look at me?\u201d<\/p>\n

She sprang from his light hand on her shoulder and the tears formed in little globules, trembled, fell; and a sudden rod of resolution straightened her back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe \u2014 I been lying to you, Max. I ain\u2019t \u2014 sick!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoil!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I think I know, little Pearlie!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoil!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no; it\u2019s best we tell the truth, mamma.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya! Oh, my \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe \u2014 we\u2019re in big trouble, Max. Business trouble. The store, ever \u2014 ever since the traction \u2014 it ain\u2019t been the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know, little Pearlie. I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWait a minute Max. We \u2014 we ain\u2019t what you maybe think we are. Tomorrow two weeks we got to meet creditors and extension notes. We can\u2019t pay even twenty cents on the dollar. We\u2019re gone under.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ain\u2019t got it to meet them with. Papa \u2014 if a man like papa couldn\u2019t make it go nobody could \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch a man, Mr. Teitlebaum; so honest; so \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, mamma!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our \u2014 my fault, Max. He was afraid even last year; but I \u2014 even then I was the one that wanted the expense of the city. Mamma didn\u2019t want it \u2014 he didn\u2019t. It was me. I \u2014 I \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fault, too, Poil. Ach, Gott, my fault! How I drove him! How I drove him!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe \u2014 we got to go back home, Max. We\u2019re going back and help him to begin all over again. We \u2014 we been driving him like a pack of wolves. He never could refuse nobody nothing. If he thought mamma wanted the moon he was ready to go for it. Even when we was kids, he \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, my husband! Such a grand provider! Such a husband!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways we got our way out of him; but tonight \u2014 tonight, Max, right here in this chair all little he looked, all of a sudden. So little! His back all crooked and all tired; and \u2014 and I done it, Max. I ain\u2019t what you think I am. Oh! I done it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, my \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t cry, mamma. Sh-h! Ain\u2019t you ashamed, with Mr. Teitlebaum standing right here! You must excuse her, Max, so terrible upset she is. Sh-h, mamma!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPearlie!\u201d Max came closer to the circle of light and his large features came out boldly. \u201cPearlie, don\u2019t you cry, neither, little girl \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u2014 I ain\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll what you tell me I know already.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMax!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Teitlebaum!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must excuse me, Mrs. Binswanger; but in nearly the same line of business news like that travels faster than you think. Only today I heard for sure how shaky things stand. You got my sympathies, Mrs. Binswanger; but \u2014 but such a failure don\u2019t need to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger clutched two hands round a throat too dry to swallow.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can\u2019t stand it. He isn\u2019t strong enough. It will kill him!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSh-h, mamma! Do you want papa should hear you in the next room? Sh-h-h! Please! You must excuse her, Max.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPearlie,\u201d he placed his hand lightly on her shoulder \u2014 \u201cPearlie! Mrs. Binswanger, you must excuse me, too, but I got tasay it while \u2014 while I got the courage. Can\u2019t you guess it, little Pearlie? I\u2019m in love with you! I\u2019m in love with you, Pearlie, since the first month you came to this hotel to live!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMax!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAch, Gott!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI only got this to say to you: I love you, little Pearlie! Today when I heard the news I was sorry, Pearlie, and \u2014 and glad too. It made things look easier for me. Right away I invited Izzy to lunch so, like a schoolboy, I could hint. I \u2014 two years I been wanting to get out of the store, Pearlie, where there ain\u2019t a chance for me to build up nothing. Like I told Izzy today, I want to find a run-down business that needs building up, where I can accomplish things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMax!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted him to know what I meant; but, like \u2014 like a schoolboy, so mixed up I got! Eight thousand dollars I got waiting for an opening. This failure \u2014 this failure don\u2019t need to happen, Pearlie. With new capital and new blood we don\u2019t need to be afraid of tractions and competitions. With me and Izzy, and my eight thousand dollars put in out there, we \u2014 we \u2014 But this ain\u2019t no time to talk business. I \u2014 you must excuse me, Mrs. Binswanger. but \u2014 but \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoil, my baby! Max!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love you, Pearlie-girlie! Ever since we been in the same hotel together, when I seen you every day fresh like a flower and so fine, I \u2014 I been heels over head in love with you, Pearlie. You should know how my father and my married brothers tease me! I \u2014 I love you, Pearlie!\u201d<\/p>\n

She relaxed to his approaching arms and let her head fall back to his shoulder, so that her face, upturned to his, was like a dark flower; and he kissed her where the tears lay wet on her petal-smooth cheeks and on her lips that trembled.<\/p>\n

\u201cMax!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy little girlie!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Binswanger groped through tear-blinded eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis \u2014 this \u2014 ain\u2019t no place for a old woman, children. This \u2014 this \u2014 Ach! What I\u2019m sayin\u2019 I don\u2019t know! Like in a dream I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe, too, mamma; me too! Like a dream! Ah, Max!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI tiptoe in and surprise papa, children. I surprise papa. Ach, my children \u2014 my children! Like in a dream I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled at them, with the tears streaming from her face like rain down a windowpane; then opened the door to the room adjoining gently, and closed it more gently behind her. Her face was bathed in a peace that swam deep in her eyes, like reflected moonlight trailing down on a lagoon; her lips trembled in the hysteria of too many emotions. She held the silence for a moment and remained with her wide back to the door peering across the dim-lit room at the curve-backed outline of her husband\u2019s figure, hunched in a sitting posture on the side of the bed.<\/p>\n

Beside him, on the white coverlet, a green tin box, with a convex top like a miniature trunk, lay on one end, its contents \u2014 bits of old-fashioned jewelry and a folded blue document with a splashy red seal \u2014 scattered about the bed.<\/p>\n

She could hear him wheeze out the moany, long-drawn breaths that characterized his sleepless nights, his face the color of old ivory, wry, and etched in the agony of carrying his trembling palm closer, closer to his mouth.<\/p>\n

Suddenly Mrs. Binswanger cried out \u2014 a cry that was born in the unexplored regions of her heart, wild, primordial, full of terror.<\/p>\n

\u201cJul \u2014 Jul \u2014 ius! Jul-ius!\u201d<\/p>\n

His hand jerked from his lips reflexly, so that the six small pink tablets in the trembling palm rolled to the corner of the room. His blood-driven face fell backward against the pillow and he relaxed frankly into short dry sobs, hollow and hacking, like the coughing of a cat.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecky \u2014 it \u2014 it\u2019s all what I \u2014 I could do! It\u2019s \u2014 it \u2014 \u201d<\/p>\n

She dragged her trembling limbs across the room to his side. She held him to her so close that the showy lace yoke transferred its imprint from her bosom to the flesh of his cheek. She could feel his sobs of hysteria beating against her breast, and her own tears flowed.<\/p>\n

They racked her like a storm tearing on the mad wings of a gale; they scalded down her cheeks into the furrows of her neck. She held him tight in the madness of panic and exultation, and his arm crept round her wide waist and his tired head relaxed to her breast; her hands locked tight about him and would not let him go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe \u2014 we\u2019re going home, Julius! We \u2014 we\u2019re going home!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYa, ya, Becky! It\u2019s \u2014 it\u2019s all right. Ya, ya, Becky!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fannie Hurst\u2019s writing career began in the pages of The Saturday Evening Post. The all-but-forgotten author was one of the highest paid writers in the United States after World War I. Of Hurst, it was said that \u201cno other living American woman has gone so far in fiction in so short a time.\u201d Her novels … <\/p>\n

Read more “\u201cThe Good Provider\u201d by Fannie Hurst”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}