Just Around the Corner Part 11

"'s.h.!.+ There's some one out front. It's that cas.h.i.+er from Truman's grocery. You finish unpacking that case, Mr. Ginsburg. I'll wait on her.

I bet she wants tango slippers."

Miss Cohn flitted to the front of the store as rapidly as the span of her narrow skirt would permit, and Mr. Ginsburg dived deep into the depths of his wooden case. But in his nostrils, in the creases of his coat, and in the recesses of his heart was the strong breath of the Mayflower; and in the phantasmagoria of bonfire-colored hair and cream-colored skin, and the fragrance of his own emotions, he bent so dreamily over the packing-case that the blood rushed as if by capillary attraction to his temples; and when he staggered to an upright posture large black blotches were doing an elf dance before his eyes.

"Mr. Ginsburg! Oh, Mr. Ginsburg!"

"Yes, Miss Ruby."

From the highest rung of a ladder, parallel with the top row of a wall of shoe-boxes, Miss Cohn poised like a humming-bird.

"Say, have we got any more of them 4567 French heel, chiffon rosette?"

"Yes, Miss Ruby--right there under the 5678's."

"Sure enough. Never mind coming out; I can find 'em--yes, here they are."

From her height she smiled down at him, pushed her ladder leftward along its track, clapped a shoe-box under her arm, and hurried down, her shoe-b.u.t.toner jangling from a pink ribbon at her waist-line. Mr.

Ginsburg delved deeper.

"Mr. Ginsburg!"

"Yes, Miss Ruby."

"Just a moment, please--there's a lady out here wants low-cuts, and I'm busy with a customer. Front, please--just this way, madam. I'll have some one to wait on you in a moment."

Mr. Ginsburg clapped his hands dry of dust, wriggled into his unlined alpaca coat, brushed his plush-like hair with his palms, and advanced to the front of the store. His voice was lubricated with the sweet-oil of willing servitude.

"What can I do for you, madam? Low-cuts for yourself?"

He straddled a stool and took the foot in the cup of his hand. Beside him on a similar stool that brought their heads parallel Miss Ruby smoothed her hand across her customer's instep.

"Ain't that effect great, Mr. Ginsburg, with that swell little rosette?

I was just telling this young lady if I had her instep I'd never wear anything but our dancing-shoes."

"It certainly is swell," agreed Mr. Ginsburg, peering into the lining of the shoe he removed to read its size.

The day's tide quickened; the yellow benches, with ceiling fans purring over them, were filled with rows of trade who tamped the floor with s.h.i.+ny, untried soles, bent themselves double to feel of toe and instep, and walked the narrow strip of green felt as if on clay feet they feared would break.

Came noon and afternoon. Miss Cohn ascended and descended the ladder with the agility of a street vender's mechanical toy, shoes tucked under each arm, and a pencil at a violent angle in the nest of her hair.

"Have we got any more of them 543 flat heels, Mr. Ginsburg?"

"Yes, Miss Ruby--right there in back of you."

"Say, you'd think I was using my eyes for something besides seeing, wouldn't you? Wait on that lady next, Mr. Ginsburg. She wants white kids."

"Certainly."

"Yes'm; we sell lots of them russet browns. It's a little shoe that gives satisfaction every time. Mr. Ginsburg is always ordering more. I wore a pair of them for two years myself. There ain't no wear-out to them. We carry that in stock, too, and it keeps them like new--just rub with a flannel cloth--fifteen cents a bottle. Just a moment, madam; I'll be over to you as soon as I'm finished here. Mr. Ginsburg, take off that lady's shoe and show her a pair of them dollar-ninety-eight elastic sides while I finish with this lady. Sure, you can have 'em by five, madam. Name? Hornschein, 3456 Eighth Avenue? Dollar-eighty out of two.

Thank you! Call again. Now, madam, what can I do for you? Yes, we have them in moccasins in year-old size--sixty cents, and grand and soft for their little feet. Wait; I'll see. Mr. Ginsburg, have we got those 672 infants' in pink?"

"Sure thing. Wait, Miss Ruby--I'll climb for you. I have to go up anyway."

"Aw, you're busy with your own customers. Don't trouble."

"Nothing's trouble when it's for you, Miss Ruby. Show her those ta.s.sel tops, too."

"Oh, Mr. Ginsburg, ain't you the kidder, though! Yes'm; the ta.s.sel tops are eighty. Ain't they the cutest little things?"

At six o'clock a medley of whistles shrieked out the eventide--clarions that ripped upward like sky-rockets in flight; hard-throated soprano whistles that juggled with the topmost note like a colorature diva. The oak benches emptied, Mr. Ginsburg raised the front awning and kicked the carpet-covered brick away from the door, so that it swung quietly closed; daubed at his wrists and collar-top with a damp handkerchief.

"First breathing s.p.a.ce we've had to-day, ain't it, Miss Ruby?"

Miss Cohn flopped down on a bench and breathed heavily; her hair lay damp on her temples; the ruffles at her neck were limp as the ruff of a Pierette the morning after the costume ball.

"You should worry, Mr. Ginsburg! With such a business next year at this time you'll have two clerks and more breathing s.p.a.ce than you got breath."

Mr. Ginsburg seated himself carefully beside her at a wide range, so that a customer for a seven-E last could have fitted in between them.

"I've built up a good business here, Miss Ruby. The trouble with poor papa was he was afraid to spend, and he was afraid of novelties. I couldn't learn him that a windowful of satin pumps helps swell the storm-rubber sale. Those little dollar-ninety-eights look swell on your feet, Miss Ruby; you're a good advertis.e.m.e.nt for the stock--not?"

"Funny what a hit them pumps make! Mr. Leavitt was crazy about them, too; but, say, what your mother thinks of these satin slippers I'd hate to tell you. When she was down the day before I left she looked at 'em till I got so nervous I tripped over the cracks between the boards. Say, but wasn't she sore about the new gla.s.s fixtures! I kinda felt like it was my fault, too; but I was strong for 'em because--"

"Mamma's the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind, Miss Ruby--her and poor papa like the old way of doing things. She's getting old, Miss Ruby, but she means well. She's a good mother--a good mother."

"She's sure a grand woman--carrying soup across to old Levinsky every day, and all."

"She's more'n you know she is, too, Miss Ruby--little things that woman does I could tell you about--when she didn't have it so good as now neither."

Miss Ruby dropped her lids until her eyes were as soft as plush behind the portieres of her lashes; her voice dropped into a throat that might have been lined with that same soft plush.

"I had a mother for two days--like I said to Mr. Leavitt the other day up in the country--we was talking about different things. I says to him, I says, she quit when she looked at me--just laid down and died when I was two days old. I must have been enough to scare the daylights out of any one. Next to a pink worm on a fish-hook gimme a red-headed baby for the horrors! Say, you ought to seen Mr. Leavitt fis.h.!.+ Six ba.s.s he caught in one day--I sat next him and watched; we had 'em fried for supper.

He's some little--"

"What a pleasure you'd 'a' been to your mother, Miss Ruby! Such a girl like you I could wish my own mother."

"That's just what Mr. Leavitt used to tell me; but, gee! he was a kidder! I--I oughtta had a mother! Sometimes I--sometimes in the night when I can't sleep--daytimes you don't care so much--but sometimes at night I--I just don't care about nothing. With a girl like me, that ain't even known a mother or father, it ain't always so easy to keep her head above water."

"Poor little girl!"

"Since the day I left the Inst.i.tootion I been dodging the city and jumping its mud-holes like a lady trying to cross Sixth Avenue when it's torn up. I--oh, ain't I the silly one?--treating you to my troubles!

Say, I got a swell riddle! I can't give it like Leavitt--like Simon did; but--"

"Always Mr. Leavitt, and now it's Simon yet--such a hit as that man made with you--not?"

"Hit! Can't a girl have a gentleman friend? Can't you have a lady friend--a friend like Miss Washeim, who comes in for shoes three times--"

"Ruby, can I help it when she comes in here?"