The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 63

He forged ahead, clearing her path of them.

Beside the potted hydrangea, well back and yet within an easy view, Mrs.

Horowitz, her gilt armchair well cus.h.i.+oned for the occasion, and her black grenadine spread decently about her, looked out upon the scene, her slightly palsied head well forward.

"Mamma, you got enough? You wouldn't have missed it, eh? A crowd of people we can be proud to entertain, not? Come; sit quiet in another room for a while, and then Mr. Haas, with his nice big car, will drive us all home again. You know Mr. Haas, dearie--Lester's uncle that had us drove so careful in his fine big car. You remember, dearie--Lester's uncle?"

Mrs. Horowitz looked up, her old face cracking to smile.

"My grandchild! My grandchild! She'm a fine one. Not? My grandchild! My grandchild!"

"You--mustn't mind, Mr. Haas. That's--the way she's done since--since she's--sick. Keeps repeating--"

"My grandchild! From a good mother and a bad father comes a good grandchild. My grandchild! She'm a good one. My--"

"Mamma, dearie, Mr. Haas is in a hurry. He's come to help me walk you into a little room to rest before we go home in Mr. Haas's big fine auto. Where you can go and rest, mamma, and read the newspapers. Come."

"My back--_ach_--my back!"

"Yes, yes, mamma; we'll fix it. Up! So--la!"

They raised her by the crook of each arm, gently.

"So! Please, Mr. Haas, the pillows. Shawl. There!"

Around a rear hallway, they were almost immediately into a blank, staring hotel bedroom, fresh towels on the furniture-tops only enhancing its staleness.

"Here we are. Sit her here, Mr. Haas, in this rocker."

They lowered her almost inch by inch, sliding down pillows against the chair-back.

"Now, s.h.i.+la's little mamma, want to sleep?"

"I got--no rest--no rest."

"You're too excited, honey, that's all."

"No rest."

"Here--here's a brand-new hotel Bible on the table, dearie. Shall s.h.i.+la read it to you?"

"Aylorff--"

"Now, now, mamma. Now, now; you mustn't! Didn't you promise s.h.i.+la? Look!

See, here's a wreath wrapped in your shawl for s.h.i.+la's little mamma to work on. Plenty of wreaths for us to take back. Work awhile, dearie, and then we'll get Selene and Lester, and, after all the nice company goes away, we'll go home in the auto."

"I begged he should keep in his hate--his feet in the----"

"I know! The papers. That's what little mamma wants. Mr. Haas, that's what she likes better than anything--the evening papers."

"I'll go down and send 'em right up with a boy, and telephone for the car. The crowd's beginning to pour out now. Just hold your horses there, Mrs. C., and I'll have those papers up here in a jiffy."

He was already closing the door after him, letting in and shutting out a flare of music.

"See, mamma, nice Mr. Haas is getting us the papers. Nice evening papers for s.h.i.+la's mamma." She leaned down into the recesses of the black grenadine, withdrawing from one of the pockets a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles, adjusting them with some difficulty to the nodding head.

"s.h.i.+la's--little mamma! s.h.i.+la's mamma!"

"Aylorff, the littlest wreath for--Aylorff--_Meine Krantze_--"

"Yes, yes."

"_Mein Mann. Mein Suhn._"

"Ssh-h-h, dearie!"

"Aylorff--_der klenste Kranz far ihm_!"

"Ssh-h-h, dearie--talk English, like Selene wants. Wait till we get on the s.h.i.+p--the beautiful s.h.i.+p to take us back. Mamma, see out the window!

Look! That's the beautiful Forest Park, and this is the fine Hotel Walsingham just across--see out--Selene is going to have a flat on--"

"_Sey hoben ges...o...b..n far Freiheit. Sey hoben_--"

"There, that's the papers!"

To a succession of quick knocks, she flew to the door, returning with the folded evening editions under her arm.

"Now," she cried, unfolding and inserting the first of them into the quivering hands, "now, a shawl over my little mamma's knees and we're fixed!"

With a series of rapid movements, she flung open one of the black-cashmere shawls across the bed, folding it back into a triangle.

Beside the table, bare except for the formal, unthumbed Bible, Mrs.

Horowitz rattled out her paper, her near-sighted eyes traveling back and forth across the page.

Music from the ferned-in orchestra came in drifts, faint, not so faint.

From somewhere, then immediately from everywhere, beyond, below, without, the fast shouts of newsboys mingling.

Suddenly and of her own volition, and with a cry that shot up through the room, rending it like a gash, Mrs. Horowitz, who moved by inches, sprang to her supreme height, her arms, the crooks forced out, flung up.

"My darlings--what died--for it! My darlings what died for it--my darlings--Aylorff--my husband!" There was a wail rose up off her words, like the smoke of incense curling, circling around her. "My darlings what died to make free!"

"Mamma--darling--mamma--Mr. Haas! Help! Mamma! My G.o.d!"

"Aylorff--my husband--I paid with my blood to make free--my blood--my son--my--own--" Immovable there, her arms flung up and tears so heavy that they rolled whole from her face down to the black grenadine, she was as sonorous as the tragic meter of an Alexandrian line; she was like Ruth, ancestress of heroes and progenitor of kings. "My boy--my own--they died for it! _Mein Mann! Mein Suhn!_"

On her knees, frantic to press her down once more into the chair, terrified at the rigid immobility of the upright figure, Mrs. Coblenz paused then, too, her clasp falling away, and leaned forward to the open sheet of the newspaper, its black headlines facing her:

RUSSIA FREE

BANS DOWN 100,000 SIBERIAN PRISONERS LIBERATED

In her ears a ringing silence, as if a great steel disk had clattered down into the depths of her consciousness. There on her knees, trembling seized her, and she hugged herself against it, leaning forward to corroborate her gaze.