CHAPTER VI

MR. GRUPP INTERRUPTS

That next night was a hot one. The Krolls and Mr. Grupp sat at table in the kitchen in the late light of day. They were drinking iced tea to wash down the cold sliced lamb. The pitcher clinked; knives and forks clattered; flies buzzed about their ears or sung their swan-songs on the sticky fly-paper; and through the open window and door came the jarring clamor of the city. Boys were yelling on the street; the neighbors up and downstairs were arguing with loud voices; somewhere a baby began to howl; laughter shook the air; wheel-noise; whistle-shriek.

The hot spell was on. All day the toilers had been wasted in a furnace of stone; walls and pave breathed heat; and with the coming of scarlet sunset, a great noise went up from the released millions. The poor fat mother was dizzy and faint, and quarreled and complained; Edith, in a thin white dress that made her look very girlish, was a million miles away on the wings of dream; the boys and Mr. Grupp, in their shirtsleeves, damned the weather.

Said Mr. Grupp:

“I saw a fat woman-lady on Hester Street melt. The boys made a sliding-pond afterward.”

Marcus and Sam laughed.

“She had a rubber mouth,” said Mr. Grupp. “It was so elastic, a Grand Street pushcart could turn around in it.”

He arose from his chair and circled the table for a lump of sugar.

“What are you getting up for?” cried Mrs. Kroll indignantly. “Such manners!”

“Oh, excuse! excuse!” he moaned. “You’re so nervous. Yes, in the old country they call it meschugge (loony).”

“Will you sit down?” cried Mrs. Kroll.

But Mr. Grupp seized Edith under the chin.

“My Sveetie! Give me a kiss!”

Edith’s laughter rippled silver-clear and sweet.

“Later!” she whispered mysteriously.

“_Will_ you sit down?” cried the mother, outraged.

“Just one kiss!” he laughed. “See how her nose turns up, the little Sveetie!”

Edith pushed his hand away.

“Oh, the women!” he sighed, “I’m glad I’m an old batch.”

“Sit down!” cried the mother.

“Sit down!” the boys chorused.

Mr. Grupp stole behind Marcus, crooked his first finger against his thumb, and with a low, “I give you a _schnelker_,” let the first finger fly like a steel spring released. It caught Marcus a sting on the ear. Mr. Grupp danced up and down with glee, while the mother and boys shouted:

“Don’t you begin your _schnelking_! It’s too hot!”

Schnelking was a Grupp institution, which he assured them he himself had introduced in America, though, much to his own discomfort, as he himself received the greatest number. Laughingly, he returned to his seat, the sweat trickling down his ruddy face.

“Oh, weh,” he wailed, “I’ve lost my appetite----” and as he was about to tell them of the juicy steak, the twenty-two eggs and the yowsas, the boys cried:

“Cut it out!”

“Lost your appetite!” shrilled the mother. “You eat like a pig.”

“Now, I’m insulted,” said Mr. Grupp, mournfully shaking his head. “Next time I wouldn’t come here; I stay away; and then there will be crying and howling, ‘Oh, where is Mr. Grupp, where is Mo.’ You’ll be sorry if I don’t come!--Pardon the pickles!”

Sam handed him the pickles.

“Have some more meat, Mo,” he urged.

“Not for a thousand dollars,” cried Mr. Grupp. “Never.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But seeing it’s on the table--well----”

He took a generous slice.

The mother was slicing the cake.

“Mamma,” said Sam acidly, “why do you have cake? You know no one cares for it.”

“If you don’t like what you get here,” cried the mother, “find some other boarding house!”

“But why do you have cake?” insisted Sam.

The mother began to tremble.

“You’ll be glad yet if you can get cake----” she began.

Edith woke from her trance and spoke sharply:

“Sam!” She turned to her mother: “Remember, dear!”

Sam drummed on the table, the mother wiped her eyes. Mr. Grupp looked tragic.

But then he pulled out a cigar and offered it to Sam.

“My last,” he said.

The air cleared in laughter.

“That’s one of those smoke here and die home,” growled Sam. “No, thanks.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Grupp, and lit up.

Then he expanded. Then he blew clouds of foul smoke. Then he sang German student-songs, with roaring choruses. Then he arose and tramped grenadier-fashion up and down the kitchen.

Edith and her mother cleared the table and washed the dishes at the sink; the boys put on shirts and collars and coats, and, announcing that they would return in the cold gray dawning of the morning after, went off for their night on the water. Then, at last, Edith stole into the dark parlor, whose ceiling was splashed with light from the street below, and sat on the sill of the open window, leaning out on the fire-escape.

Intensely human was the scene. All the windows opposite were open, and in the lit rooms she saw the silhouettes of moving women and men and children. Children played on the fire-escapes; out of dark windows hung shadowy forms, and the street from end to end was black with humanity. Boys and girls played I-spy over the gutter; the stoops were thronged with mothers taking the evening air; young men and women stood before lighted shop-windows chatting, flirting, laughing. She saw in the delicatessen shop opposite the busy tradesman with his wife, the little children and the women customers. The night was dripping hot, the darkened heavens pulsing red with the lights of the broadcast city; but so much better was it than the sun-wilted day, that people breathed free, resting, laughing, chatting.

Sweet was the scene, and so human, that it brought the tears to Edith’s eyes. How she loved the world at that moment. For she loved and was loved, and it seemed to her that all these people, too, were lovers--a world of lovers--the young boys and girls, the husbands and wives, the mothers with young babies, the grandmothers and grandfathers. Into this life she would plunge; these people her people; their lives her life. She wanted but the commonest, humanest things. She had no dream of wealth or power or pleasure. She wanted her own home; her husband; her children. She wanted to travel in the dust of the common road, deep in the warmth of the human crowd.

All day she had been overbubbling with laughter and tears, with happiness wild and perfect, with blushes and shy beating of the heart, and now her heart took on tenderness, a great tenderness. No longer was she contented with the first enchantment of love; something more real, something more of the brown earth, something rooted in the soil she wanted. She wanted Frank; her own home; her own table and stove.

There was a light knock on the door; she leaped up with a glad cry, and Frank came in. Their arms went about each other, tenderly; their lips, still tingling with that first kiss, met again; she drew his head closer passionately.

“How are you?” he murmured. “Edith, how are you?”

“Ssh!” she warned. “Mother! I’ll light up! Quick!”

They laughed excitedly, and as Edith whispered, “Tell her right away! Have it over with!” he lit the gas, turning it low, so that the shutters could remain open. They heard the mother coming, and courage oozed out of them; Frank felt very young, much ashamed and very self-conscious; and Edith grew pale and blushed rosily and shyly hung her head. The mother, who all along was but a poor sick, woman, now seemed a veritable ogre.

She toddled in, puffing.

“Oh, good evening!” she said to Frank.

He grasped her hand very eagerly.

“I hope you are feeling well! I hope you ain’t sick in this weather!”

“Ain’t?” whispered Edith.

Frank laughed strangely, and all sat down, the mother rocking slowly in a big rocker, and fanning herself with a Yiddish newspaper. Only then did Edith notice how carefully he was dressed. Poor fellow! he felt as if he were decked for his own funeral.

The mother pounced upon the word “sick.”

“You should never be so sick as I, Mr. Lasser. Oi! Oi! Eat I some strudel yesterday and some ice-cream and cucumbers, and I get such cramps in my stomach, like I could yell. You could feel here,” she pressed her hand on her side, “I get a lump like a piece of ice. Did you ever have gas on the heart----”

But Frank was too excited.

“Mrs. Kroll,” he burst out, “I want to speak to you!”

“What?”

“I want to speak to you!”

“Speak?”

“Yes--I want to tell you something!”

The mother looked from one to the other.

“Well, young man, speak!”

The air was breathless now, vague with expectancy, hushed with crisis. Frank had had his speech all ready, well rehearsed, but the “young man” took the wind out of his sails. He collapsed, and the drops stood out on his forehead.

“You know”--he stammered--“why--it’s just----”

“Oh, my old college chum!”

And in burst expansive Mr. Grupp. “My old college chum! I’m so glad to see you!”

He rushed over to Frank and seized his hand. Edith frowned, Frank pushed him off.

“How do you do!” cried Mr. Grupp. “It’s so long since I seen you! But I met your uncle on Broadway yesterday.”

The mother could not contain herself.

“Will you go out? That man’s a nuisance! Go out!”

“Oh, how nervous we’re getting,” wailed Mr. Grupp. “You shouldn’t get so nervous.”

Edith spoke in a low, tremulous voice:

“Mr. Lasser wants to speak to Mother. Please--please go out, Mr. Grupp!”

“Oh, ho,” cried Mr. Grupp. “Ah, ha! Business! God forbid I should distoib you. I be back in a minute.”

So saying, he vanished.

Rude was the excitement in the air. The mother stopped fanning; Frank shrank and shrank until he was small enough for short pants; Edith looked away, and gasped.

“Well, young man,” said the mother, as if she were charging an enemy.

“You see,” he stammered, “it’s just like this----”

“Don’t grabble around so,” the mother spoke frankly.

Frank stared at her; she stared at him. That was too much for Edith, who loosed silver bells of laughter, ran to her mother, circled her neck, and whispered:

“Mother, dear--you know--you must know!”

And Frank, laughing nervously, took up the tale:

“Why, of course, Edith and I----”

In burst the inevitable Grupp, announcing with waving hand:

“The trouble is just this. The young folks kiss each other too much, and then, when they are married, they couldn’t kiss for a hundred dollars. Now the right way is this: One kiss a day, before and after. And you could kiss all your life!”

“Will you go out?” shrilled the mother. “Did you ever see such a man?”

“Oh,” he cried, in astonishment. “Business! Business! I’ll be right back!”

And vanished.

“Such a man!” cried the mother.

Silence followed, vast and empty silence. Then Frank tried again:

“As I was about to say----”

Suddenly the mother rose, Frank rose, Edith rose. A radiant smile was on the mother’s face:

“I know--Frank,” she said simply, and seized him and kissed him.

He flung his arms about the good woman and hugged her for all he was worth.

Edith clapped her hands, and cried:

“Mother! Mother, darling!”

And then mother and daughter clasped and kissed. Wild joy sang through the room. Mother and daughter wept those tears that underlie laughter, the tears of sacred joy, and Mr. Grupp, bursting in with:

“It’s a bargain,” received the promised kiss from his “Sweetie,” and gripping Frank’s hand, advised fifty years engaged, one year married.

Then all sat down, and lips were loosed.

“Mother,” cried Edith, “we’ve loved each other ever so long, and ever so much! I can’t tell you how much! Did you ever even dream we were in love?”

“Did I ever?” laughed the mother. “What children! I knew it already two months.”

“And never said a word?” from Edith.

“What could I say! What children!--Frank!” she began.

“Yes, Mother!”

Then they all laughed again, and Edith sat on the arm of Frank’s chair and kissed him for the word.

The mother’s voice saddened:

“Edy is a good girl--she is the best I have in this world. I could die happy if she was married to a good man.”

Frank spoke very humbly:

“I--I’ll try to be worthy of Edith.”

“Oh,” cried Edith, “you don’t know Frank. He’s noble and true and good----”

“No, Edith,” he said, in a low voice, “don’t say that!”

So Edith kissed him and whispered of his goodness.

“Ah, Mr. Grupp,” said the mother tearfully, “the children grow up in a day, and you and I get old. But I am very happy.”

Then she rose and took Frank by the hand and spoke to him secretly.

“Be very good to Edy. Make her very happy. I was not so happy myself. I know how it is. Always be kind, and think of her, and do little things to please her. She is not like other girls, Frank; she wants little--only someone should love her, and be kind, and make a home for her.”

Frank could hardly speak for tears:

“There is no girl like her in the world, Mother. I swear I’ll be good to her!”

“Good!” she murmured. “That’s right!” and again she kissed him.

“So,” she nodded to Mr. Grupp. “Come--they want to talk!”

And she and Mr. Grupp went out, and the lovers sat down on the sofa together. They were very serious that night. Life was very sacred and sweet. Edith put her head on his shoulder, and he drew her close.

“Sweetheart!” he said.

A kiss had to follow that wonderful word, and then they began speaking in low voices:

“Soon,” he said, “we shall have our home, Edith--just you and I there, alone--alone together----”

“Alone together!” she echoed.

They were silent, dreaming of that humble vision--those rooms with two faces coming and going--and then Edith:

“Isn’t it strange that out of all people, just you and I should marry each other?”

“No, it had to be.”

“Do you really think so, dear?”

Again a wonderful word, and a kiss.

“Yes,” said he.

“Oh, I’m glad! I’m glad, then! Because I want to feel that you are just for me--only for me.”

“I am,” he murmured.

Their talk began to grow practical, as it should have, for the daily toil must be touched and transformed by the high love.

“Oh, I am going to be such a good manager,” said Edith. “I’m going to have Mother teach me the things I don’t know. I want to be the best housewife in the world.”

He laughed softly:

“You will be! And I’ll be so proud of my wife!”

“Your _wife_!”

“Yes,” he murmured, “dear little wife!”

She put her arms about him.

“Husband!”

Sweet and deep was the embrace and the kiss.

And lest we now be overwhelmed with kisses, we must gently draw the curtain while these two young human beings gaze into the sunrise of their wedded life.