Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 37

"Good afternoon, Madam Meyerburg. Mademoiselle, _dites bonjour a madame votre grand'maman_."

"_Bonjour, grand'maman_."

In the act of descending her steps, Mrs. Meyerburg's hands flew outward.

"Ach, du little Aileen. Come, Aileen, to grandma. Mrs. Fischlowitz, this is Felix's little girl. You remember Felix--such a beautiful bad little boy he was what always used to fight your Sollie underneath the sink."

"_Gott in Himmel_, so this is Felix's little girl!"

"Ja, this is already his second. Come, Aileen, to grandma and say good afternoon to the lady."

The maid guided the small figure forward by one shoulder. "_Dites bonjour a madame, Mademoiselle Aileen_."

"_Bonjour, madame_."

"Not a word of English she can speak yet, Mrs. Fischlowitz. I tell you already my grandchildren are so smart not even their language I can understand. _Aber_ for why such a child should only talk so in her own country she can't be understood, I don't know."

"I guess, Mrs. Meyerburg, it's style now'days that you shouldn't know your own language."

"Come by grandma to-morrow, Aileen, and upstairs I got in the little box sweet cakes like grandma always keeps for you. Eh, baby?"

"Say thank you, grandmother."

"_Merci bien, grand'maman_."

And they were off into the stream again, the small white leggings at a smart trot.

At the curb a low-bodied, high-power car, with the top flung back and the wind-s.h.i.+eld up, lay sidled against the coping.

"Get right in, Mrs. Fischlowitz. Burk, put under Mrs. Fischlowitz's both feet a heater."

A second man, in too-accentuated livery of mauve and astrakhan, flung open the wide door. A gla.s.sed-in chauffeur, in more mauve and astrakhan, threw in his clutch. The door slammed. Mrs. Fischlowitz breathed deep and grasped the nickel-plated door handle. Mrs. Meyerburg leaned out, her small plumes wagging.

"Burk, since Miss Becky ain't along to-day, I don't want in front no second man."

"Yes, madam."

"I want instead you should take the roadster and call after Mrs.

Weinstein. You know, down by Twenty-third Street, the fourth floor back."

"Yes, madam."

"I want you should say, Burk, that Mrs. Meyerburg says her and her daughter should take off from their work an hour for a drive wherever they say you should take them. And tell her, Burk, she should make for me five dozens more them paper carnations. Right away I want you should go."

"Yes, madam."

They nosed slowly into the stream of the Avenue.

"Always Becky likes there should be two men stuck up in front there.

I always say to look only at the backs of my servants I don't go out riding for."

Erect and as if to the fantastic requirements of the situation sat Mrs. Fischlowitz, her face of a thousand lines screwed to maintain the transiency of a great moment.

"That I should live, Mrs. Meyerburg, to see such a sight like this! In the thirty years I been in this country not but once have I walked up Fifth Avenue--that time when my Tillie paraded in the s.h.i.+rtwaist strike.

I--I can tell you I'm proud to live to see it this way from automobile."

"Lean back, Mrs. Fischlowitz, so you be more comfortable. That's all right; you can't hurt them bottles. My Becky likes to have fancy touches all over everything. Gold-tops bottles she has to have yet by her. I can tell you, though, Mrs. Fischlowitz, if I do say it myself, when that girl sits up in here like a picture she looks. How they stare you should see."

"Such a beau-ti-ful girl! I can tell you for her a prince ain't good enough. Ach, what a pleasure it must be, Mrs. Meyerburg, for a mother to know if her child wants heaven she can nearly get it for her. I can tell you that must be the greatest pleasure of all for you, Mrs. Meyerburg, to give to your daughter everything just like she wants it."

"Ja, ja," said with little to indicate mental ferment.

They were in the Park, with the wind scampering through the skeins of bare tree branches. The lake lay locked in ice, skaters in the ecstasy of motion lunging across it. Beneath the mink lap-robe Mrs. Fischlowitz snuggled deeper and more lax.

"_Gott in Himmel_, I tell you this is better as standing over my cheese Kuchen."

"Always I used to let my cheese drip first the night before. Right through a cheese-cloth sack hung from a nail what my husband drove in for me under the window-sill."

"Right that same nail is there yet, Mrs. Meyerburg. _Oser_ we should touch one thing!"

"I can tell you it's a great comfort, Mrs. Fischlowitz, I got such a tenant as you in there."

"When you come to visit me, Mrs. Meyerburg, right to the last nail like you left it you find it. Not even from the kitchen would I let my Sollie take down the old clothes-line what you had stretched across one end."

"Ach, how many times in rainy days I used that line. It's a good little line I bet yet. Not?"

"Ja." But with no corresponding kit of emotions in Mrs. Fischlowitz's voice. She was still breathing deep the buoyant ether of the moment, and beneath the ingratiating warmth of fur utterly soothed. "_Gott_," she said, "I wish my sister-in-law, Hanna, with all her fine airs up where she lives on One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Street, could see me now.

_Oser_ she could stare and stare, and bow and bow, and past her I would roll like--like a rolling-pin."

From the gold-topped bottle nearest her came a long insidious whiff of frangipani. She dared to lean toward it, sniffing.

"Such a beautiful smell." And let her eyes half close.

"You market your meat yet on Fridays down by old Lavinsky's, Mrs.

Fischlowitz?"

"Ja, just like always, only his liver ain't so good like it used to be.

I can tell you that's a beau-ti-ful smell."

An hour they rode purringly over smooth highways and for a moment alongside the river, but there the wind was edged with ice and they were very presently back into the leisurely flow of the Avenue. From her curves Mrs. Fischlowitz unbent herself slowly.

"No, no, Mrs. Fischlowitz--you stay in."

"Ach, I get out here at your house, too, and take the street-cars. I--"

"No, no. James takes you all the way home, Mrs. Fischlowitz. I get out because my Becky likes I should get home early and get dressed up for dinner."

"But Mrs. Meyerburg--"