CHAPTER XVI

THE PASSING SEASONS

Well, well, well, what a world! Not only are there queer people in it, but there are also young couples. They’re enough to make one sick--so said Mr. Grupp--kissing and hugging and making a show of themselves. Why in the middle of dinner does Mr. Lasser deem it necessary to leap up from his soup, circle the table, and give Mrs. Lasser one on the cheek? Why, when company is present must they needs be spooning on the sofa?

Sam and Marcus paraded up and down the three rooms, chanting:

“_Gee whiz! I’m glad I’m free, No wedding bells for me!_”

Said Sam to Frank:

“Come on out with us to-night and have a good time!”

Whereupon Marc chanted:

“I would if I could, but I can’t. Why? Because I’m married now!”

“I told you not to kiss so much,” said Mr. Grupp from the Morris chair (on which but two instalments have been paid). “One kiss a day, before and after!”

Marc took Frank aside, and spoke secretly:

“Take my advice and never get married. Oh, I beg your pardon. I forgot!”

Mr. Grupp gave the young wife a schnelker, and she swept him out of the room with a broom, a gale of laughter blowing all about her. He nursed a sore knee, groaning, and making impossibly funny faces.

“Oi yoi yoi! Oh, Mamma! such a woman-lady!” And then he declaimed dramatically, “A lion, Mr. Lasser, a tiger, Mr. Lasser, a _rhinoceros_, Mr. Lasser, _even a rattlesnake_--you can tame--but a vomen, never!”

They laughed for old sake’s sake.

Frank was very obedient when Edith gave orders.

“Himmel!” cried Mr. Grupp, holding his cheek as if he had the toothache. “That boy is a sie-mandel! (a henpecked half-man).

“He’s all right,” said Edith, petting him. “He’s the best in all the world!”

“Cut it out!” cried the brothers.

“You should have taken my advice,” said Mr. Grupp. “Fifty years engaged, one year married!”

How proudly the young couple showed their place to visitors, displaying kitchen ware and Mission furniture, rug and clock and silver and china. And especially the view! What happy Sunday nights when Mr. Grupp and the brothers and Jonas Zug crowded the table and ate cold slices and pickles and cheese and cake! Zug came regularly now, and had ceased to rave. He had fallen into the comfortable berth of friend of the family, and was always warmly welcome. Everyone liked to call on the Lassers--their little place was so radiant with their own happiness. One felt the home-feeling as one stepped in; one carried away the glow and warmth of an open hearth fire. The Lassers took people into their home and their heart. Everyone felt instinctively that here was a happy marriage, here was a couple perfectly mated.

Jonas would sit with them till late at night, and all three would remember and laugh over the vanished days.

Edith and Frank never forgot their first supper in the little kitchen. They had been married the night before; all day they had been setting the things to right--hanging and rehanging and rehanging the four pictures till their heads were dizzy--cleaning the floors--placing the furniture--stacking the cupboards. Now in the warm evening they sat down. Low overhead the light glowed over the table and their faces. They sat opposite. The silverware shone; the plates were polished, the food steamed. A noise of people overhead and beneath hinted of many homes. Peaceful and at rest was the weary world. How alone they were! how human this was! how devoid of passion!

They looked at each other across the table, their eyes met and shone with tears. They felt all the holiness of their home. This air they breathed was hallowed; this food of which they were to partake was sacred. The common lot; the simple human things--all theirs. And each other! They two alone, sundered from all others, alone in their own home. A deep wish sprang in both hearts; the wish to say grace, to ask a blessing on their first supper. But of whom? This younger generation knew no God, and spoke no prayers.

Edith murmured in a low, sweet voice:

“Say something, Frank.”

He knew what she meant. They both bowed their heads. Frank spoke tremblingly:

“God, be in our homes, be in our hearts, forever and ever. Amen.”

That evening they walked out in the Park, out in the warm darkness and under lustrous stars. How candid they could be with one another! How much they shared in secret! What dreams they could give each other!

Mornings came--they rose laughingly, they breakfasted, Edith kissed her husband good-by, and waved to him from the window. Evening returned--she heard his step, his whistle, she flew to his arms. He told her the day’s news; they took supper; they washed the dishes together; and then they sat and talked, or flooded the rooms with phonograph music, or read the evening papers, or went over their accounts, or walked in the Park.

They were living a beautiful idyl that seemed endless. Quarrels came, too; sharp words, astonishing both; then tears and kisses and hours all the sweeter for the healing and the blessing of love.

Edith became a wonderful manager and Frank declared laughingly that two could live on less than one. But, among the poor, it is always the woman who makes both ends meet. What a world of work--to figure on chops and potatoes and flour and coffee and butter--on gas and coal--on necessities and luxuries. Every Saturday night Frank handed over an unopened pay-envelope. Edith gave him an allowance, and saved out of the remainder.

“We must save--save--save!” she cried, knowing well enough why.

One trip Frank made in Pennsylvania, and those ten days nearly broke their hearts. Then, by good fortune, he secured a city job and had to travel no more. Their happiness was complete.

And so, as the months glided on the last shadow of doubt and dread passed from Frank’s mind. Edith was healthy and happy. The Doctor had had good intentions, but he was mistaken: that was the only explanation. Frank thanked his stars time and again that he had not followed the Doctor’s advice. All was well, all was well! He never spoke the Doctor’s name in Edith’s hearing, and as for Edith, she had forgotten the Rasts entirely. They were lost with the old life in the Ghetto. In this freer, fresher life there was no room for Rasts. For if she did for a moment glance back and remember her old Ideal and the talk with Nell, she laughed away the memory with her vanished girlhood.

No word came from them, either. The brothers had moved to a boarding house and doubtless the Rasts did not know what had become of the family, and were far too busy to find out. One can move round the corner in the city and be as lost as in remote jungles.

And so the months flew. How time does really fly, lopping off the months, telescoping the years, till, suddenly all the world has changed, old faces gone, new generations upon us, and we ourselves hobbling into mystery! The months flew; the happy marriage deepened; more and more familiar and common were the days, sweeter and realer the relationship. Edith was a woman now, sweet, gentle, mirthful, and busy. Her faults were rather limitations than blemishes. So far as she went, she was all that a woman can be. But she went no further--stopping short of many worlds of thought and action. It was not through lack of possibilities in her nature, but rather her sweet compromise with the nature of her husband. She keyed herself to his pitch; she met him on equal ground; she came down and enjoyed life with him.

As for Frank, he was attentive, thoughtful, manly in his own way. He never forgot to bring home the little things that delight a woman; he never preferred others before Edith. He worshipped and was proud of his wife.

Then the processes of Nature, vast, miraculous, mysterious, entered into their lives again. Nature not long leaves us to ourselves. One night, late, with the light low, as Edith sat on her husband’s lap, laughing strangely, eyes shining, tears glittering, she told him.

“Frank.”

“Yes, dear.”

“I think----”

“Yes.”

She blushed.

“I think”--she hid her head in his shoulder--“I think a little new Lasser is coming!”

A wild thrill went through him.

“A child! Ours!”

So the wonder of Fatherhood and Motherhood awoke in them.

Tender he was with her through the long time, while our great Mother, Nature, was busy with her divine processes. Now Edith would sit and stitch and stitch at sweet little baby-clothes--her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed, her heart beating to the music of the great Mother. How laughingly she brooded on little hands and feet, and imaged out of the air a darling face, a face like her husband’s! How hard she tried to think good thoughts, to speak and act divinely. She wanted to be a good woman ... oh, how good ... that the child might be good ... that later she might be a good Mother, and help to create a good man or woman. New powers awoke in her; her face took on a new gravity, a deeper beauty. There was more meaning there. One read there more of life.

One night she spoke of what Doctor they should have.

“Could we have Dr. Rast?”

Frank felt a pang of fear.

“Tut! no! He’s too far off, Edith. We must have someone in the neighborhood!”

“You’re sure?”

“I don’t think he’d want to do it.”

“We could ask him.”

He spoke with a touch of anger.

“I don’t like him, anyway, Edith. I’d rather you had someone here.”

“Whom could we have?”

“Why don’t you have a midwife? Everyone else has.”

“I don’t like them.”

“Why not? You know they cost less. Why, it’s nothing. It’s because it’s your first, Edith. Babies are born every day.”

For days the argument continued, off and on. Edith finally consented.

As the time grew near, she had her fears--secret fears, known to all women. Her pain, too, she had, nobly borne, quietly concealed. But pain was to be expected. Nothing is created in this world without struggle and pain.

And so the seasons flew, winter gave way to spring, spring to summer, summer to autumn, and the autumn grew red and golden. It was the time of Indian summer.