Just Around the Corner Part 13

"Such a supper we got you'll have to excuse, Miss Cohn. Abie, take them German papers off the chair. Miss Cohn can sit out here a minute if she don't mind such heat. If Abie had taken the trouble to tell me you was coming I'd have fixed--"

"I am glad you don't fix no extras for me, Mrs. Ginsburg. I like to take just pot-luck."

"Abie likes _Pfannkuchen_ and pot-roast better than the finest I can fix him, and this morning at Fulton Market I seen such grand green beans; and I said to Yetta, 'I fix 'em sweet-sour for supper; he likes them so.'"

"I love sweet-sour beans, too, Mrs. Ginsburg. My landlady fixes all them German dishes swell."

"Well, you don't mind that I don't make no extras for you? You had a nice vacation? I tell Abie he should take one himself--not? He worked hisself sick last week. I was scared enough about him. Abie, why don't you find a chair for yourself? Why you stand there like--like--"

Even as she spoke the red suddenly ran out of Mrs. Ginsburg's face, leaving it the color of oysters packed in ice.

"Abie!"

For answer Mr. Ginsburg crossed the room and took his mother in a wide-armed embrace, so that his mouth was close to her ear. His lips were pale and tinged with a faintly green aura, like a child's who holds his breath from rage or a lyceum reader's who feels the icy clutch of stage-panic on him.

"Mamma, we--we--me and Ruby got a surprise-party for you. Guess, mamma--such a grand surprise for you!"

Mrs. Ginsburg placed her two fists against her son's blue s.h.i.+rt-front, threw back her head, and looked into his eyes; her heavy waist-line swayed backward against his firm embrace; immediate tears sprang into her eyes.

"Abie! Abie!"

"Mamma, look how happy you should be! Ain't you always wanted a daughter, mamma? For joy she cries, Ruby."

"Abie, my boy! _Ach_, Miss Cohn, you must excuse me."

"Aw, now, mamma, don't cry so. Look! You make my shoulder all wet--shame on you! You should laugh like never in your life! Ruby, you and mamma kiss right away--you should get to know each other now."

"_Ach_, Miss Cohn, you must excuse me. I always told him I mustn't stand in his way; but what that boy is to me, Miss Cohn--what--what--"

"Ruby--mamma, call her Ruby. Ain't she your little Ruby as much as mine--now, ain't she?"

"Yes; come here, Ruby, and let me kiss you. Since poor papa's gone you can never know what that boy has been to me, Ruby--such a son; not out of the house would he go without me! It's like I was giving away my heart to give him up--like I was tearing it right out from inside of me!

_Ach_, but how glad I am for him!"

"Aw, mamma--like you was giving me up!"

Mr. Ginsburg swallowed with such difficulty that the tears sprang into his eyes.

"I ain't taking him away from you, Mrs. Ginsburg--he's your son as much as ever--and more."

"Call her mamma, Ruby--just like I do."

"Mamma! Just don't you worry, mamma; it's going to be grand for you and me and all of us."

"Hear her, mamma, how she talks! Ain't she a girl for you?"

"You--you children mustn't mind me--I'm an old woman. You go in the front room, and I'll be all right in a minute--so happy I am for my boy. You bad boy, you--not to tell your mamma the other night!"

"Mamma, so help me, I didn't know it myself till I seen her come back to-day so pretty, and all--I just felt it inside of me all of a sudden."

"Aw, Abe--ain't he the silly talker, Mrs. Ginsburg?--mamma! You mustn't cry, mamma; we'll make it grand for you."

"Ain't I the silly one myself to cry when I'm so happy for you? I'll be all right in a minute--so happy I am!"

"Ruby, you tell mamma how grand it'll be."

Miss Cohn placed her arms about Mrs. Ginsburg's neck, stood on tiptoe, and kissed her on the tear-wet lips.

"You always got a home with us, mamma. Me and Abie wouldn't be engaged this minute if it wasn't that you would always have a home with us."

With one swoop Mr. Ginsburg gathered the two women in a mutual embrace that strained his arms from their sockets; his voice was taut, like one who talks through a throat that aches.

"My little mamma and my little Ruby--ain't it?"

Mrs. Ginsburg dried her eyes on a corner of her ap.r.o.n and smiled at them with fresh tears forming instantly.

"He's been a good boy, Ruby. I only want that he should make just so good a husband. I always said the girl that gets him does well enough for herself. I don't want to brag on my own child, but--if--"

"Aw, mamma!"

"But, if I do say it myself, he's been a good boy to his mother."

"Now, mamma, don't begin--"

"I always said to him, Ruby, looks in a girl don't count the most--such girls as you see nowadays, with their big ideas, ain't worth house-room.

I always say to him, Ruby, a girl that ain't ashamed to work and knows the value of a dollar, and can help a young man save and get a start without such big ideas like apartments and dummy waiters--"

"Honest, wouldn't you think this was a funeral! Mamma, to-night we have a party--not? I go down and get up that bottle of wine!"

"_Himmel!_ My _Pfannkuchen_! Yes, Abie, run down in the cellar; on the top shelf it is, under the grape-jelly row--left yet from poor papa's last birthday. _Ach_, Ruby, you should have known poor papa--that such a man could have been taken before his time! Sit down, Ruby, while I dish up."

The tears dried on Mrs. Ginsburg's cheeks, leaving the ravages of dry paths down them; Mr. Ginsburg's footsteps clacked down the bare flight of stairs.

"Abie! Oh, Abie!"

"Yes, mamma!"

His voice came up remotely from two flights down, like a banshee voice drifting through a yellow sheol of dim-lit hallway.

"Abe, bring up some dill pickles from the jar--there's a dish in the closet."

"Yes, I bring them."

Between the two women fell silence--a silence that in its brief moment sp.a.w.ned the eggs of a thousand unborn thoughts.

From her corner the girl regarded the older woman with a nervous diffidence, her small, black-satin feet curled well inward and round the rungs of the chair.

"I--I hope you ain't mad at me, Mrs. Ginsburg--you ain't more surprised than me."