Chapter 10
EVANGELINE KNAPP was eating her breakfast with a good appetite, the morning paper propped up in front of her, so that she could study attentively Mrs. Willing’s clever advertising for the day. She admired Mrs. Willing’s talent so much! That was somethingshecould never do, not if her life depended on it! She had always hated writing, even letters. Everything in her froze stiff when she took up a pen. But she knew enough to appreciate somebody who could write. And Mrs. Willing could. Her daily advertisements were positively as good as a story—better than most stories because there was no foolishness about them. This morning, for instance, as Evangeline sipped her coffee, she enjoyed to the last word the account of the new kitchen-cabinets at the Emporium, and Mrs. Willing’s little story about the wonderful way in which American ingenuity had developed kitchen conveniences! Good patriotism, that was, too. She knew that all over town women were enjoying it with their breakfast and would look around their own kitchens to see how they could be improved. The kitchen-ware department would have a good day,she thought unenviously, her pride in the store embracing all its departments.
She moved to the cashier’s desk to pay for her breakfast, for she took her breakfast downtown, as the easiest way to manage things at home in the morning. The children didn’t need to be off to school until an hour after she left the house, and this plan left them more time to get their breakfast without hurrying. The cashier gave her a pleasant good-morning as he handed over the change, and asked how all the family were that morning. Everybody in town knew what troubles Mrs. Knapp had, and how brave she was about them. As he asked the question he was thinking to himself, “Nobody ever heard her complain or look depressed—and yet how forlorn for a home-body such as she had always been to get her breakfast in a cafeteria like a traveling-man!”
“Mr. Knapp is really pretty well,” she answered cheerfully; “he gets about in his wheel chair wonderfully well, considering. Takes care of himself entirely now, even dressing and undressing. And the children are splendid. So helpful and brave.”
“Your childrenwouldbe!” said the cashier, who was a distant relative of Miss Flynn’s. But he really did admire Mrs. Knapp very much. Evangeline smiled to acknowledge the compliment, which she took very much as a matter of course. That wasthe kind of thing every one always said to her. She corrected the smile with a sigh and said earnestly, “Of course it is dreadfully hard for a mother to be separated from her children; but we all have to do the best we can.”
“Oh, yes, dreadfully,” agreed the cashier sympathetically. Mrs. Knapp had made the same remark to him several times before, but he was used to that. Customers always repeated themselves. It was part of the business not to notice it. She went on now, repeating herself again, and he listened with his usual patience. “Thehardest part for me was to make up my mind to let things go at the house. If I do say it, I’d always done my duty by my housekeeping.”
The cashier murmured his usual ejaculation of assent.
“Dr. Merritt had just put his footdownthat I was not to do one thing at the house after I got home from the store. But you know how it is, you can’t help yourself when you see all there is to be done. I used to turn right in those first weeks and clean house every Sunday from morning till night. But I had to give it up. I found I was no good at the store on Mondays, unless I got my rest. And of course,that....”
“Yes, of coursethat!” acquiesced the cashier.
“So now I just look the other way and think aboutsomething else,” she said bravely, bestowing the change in her purse.
The cashier nodded as she turned away, noticing that she folded her morning paper and put it under her arm with the exact gesture of any other business-man.
He had sent her away, as he had intended, well satisfied with life, and as she walked along to her work, she was turning over in her mind some of the reasons for her satisfaction. The children were coming along splendidly, she thought, remembering lovingly how sweet they had looked this morning as she kissed them good-by; Helen still in her petticoat, combing her hair, turning a freshly washed, rosy face up towards her tall mother; Henry pulling on his little trousers and reading out of that absurd conundrum book Lester had borrowed of Mattie for him; Stephen poking his head out from under Lester’s bedclothes like a chicken sticking its downy crest through the old hen’s wings! Stephen slept downstairs, beside his father’s bed, in a little cot that slipped under Lester’s bed in the daytime. He was always scrambling into bed with Lester in the morning. As she dressed upstairs, she often heard their voices, talking and laughing together. Lester had of course plenty of time for that sort of thing, since he did not have to hurry about getting an early breakfast for any one. And Stephenseemed to have passed a sort of turning-point in his life and was much less troublesome than he had been. Mattie Farnham had always said that perhaps Stephen would just outgrow those naughty spells! She said children often did between five and six.
As always she was the first of the selling force in at the doors of the Emporium and the first in her department. She loved this tranquil taking possession of the day’s work. It was one of the reasons why she breakfasted at the cafeteria. She liked to check up on all the necessary, before-opening-time activities, and be sure they were all finished in good shape by the time the first customer came in. This was not really her business of course, but as she always willingly lent a hand, the stock-girls and cleaning women did not object. This morning she found that the stock-girls had not finished taking off the covers, and at once began to help, reminding the stock-boy over her shoulder about the thorough morning airing which Mr. Willing thought so important.
What a wonderful man he was! It was an education to work for him. He never forgot a detail. “If the air in the store is close and low in oxygen, the whole selling pace is slower,” he had told her; “customers are dopy and salespersons can’t stayright up on their toes as they ought.” How true that was! And how wise! She had had no idea there was so muchtoretail selling.
As her long, quick fingers folded the great covers, she was thinking of those fascinating books Mr. Willing had loaned her, books she had devoured as a child devours fairy-tales, which she was now re-reading slowly and making her own. The chapter on textiles, how to distinguish linen from cotton and all that—how absorbingly interesting that had been! She had sat up till midnight to finish it. She had never dreamed that anything in a book could hold her attention so. How like amateur guesswork it made all her earlier information seem. And then to have Mrs. Willing loan her that microscope, “to keep as long as you need,” to study and analyze fabrics. How good the Willings were to her! Such kind young people as well as such awfully clever and educated ones.
Together with the stock-girl she began running through her stock to make sure everything was right before the real business of selling began. She had timed herself and found that it took her just forty seconds per suit or cloak to make sure that hooks and eyes were firmly on, buttons all right, belts properly tacked in place, and the price-ticket on. There was therefore no reason why she shouldn’t go through all the stock for which she was responsibleevery morning and lay to one side any garment that needed attention. Afterwards, rapidly as she sewed, a quarter of an hour of work with needle and thread, and there she was, ready for the day, her mind at peace about her merchandise. If there was anything she detested it was to see a garment offered to a customer with a hook hanging loose, or a button dangling, or to see a saleswoman paw it all over without finding any price-ticket. It gave her a warm feeling of comfort to be quite sure that this could not happen with any of the garments in her department. Also she enjoyed, sensuously enjoyed, handling those beautiful, well-made garments, with their exquisitely tailored details which she who had struggled so long with the construction of garments could so professionally appreciate.
And the new merchandise, as it was brought in from the receiving-room! What a joyful, excitement to welcome the newcomers, with their amusing and ingenious little novelties of finish and style and cut! What a wonderful buyer Mr. Willing was! Nobody had ever seen such garments in town before, so simple, so artistic, so perfect! They filled one’s cup to overflowing with speechless satisfaction, they were so exactlyright! Here was that new homespun suit, just in yesterday, in that lovely new shade of mauve. Whoever inthattown had heard of a mauve tailor-made suit? And yet how lovelyit was, and how suitable, even for a middle-aged woman. Why, yes, especially for a middle-aged woman! It would be a real comfort to a woman who had just begun to feel sad over losing her youth. Every time she put the suit on it would be a kind, strong reassurance that although youth was going, comeliness and a quieter beauty were still within reach.
Evangeline held the suit up, looking at it and thinking gratefully how it would help some woman through a difficult year in her life. She remembered suddenly the Mrs. Warner who had so pathetically longed for that bright green sports sweater. This would satisfy her wistful, natural longing for pretty things and yet be quite suitable for her age. Evangeline had so much sympathy for women struggling with the problem of dressing themselves properly at difficult ages! Of course this suit was much, much more expensive than anything Mrs. Warner had ever worn. But, thought Evangeline earnestly, wasn’t it always the truest wisdom to make any sacrifice for the sake of getting thereal thing?
She slipped it back on the hanger and turned to that black velours-de-laine fur-trimmed cloak that had been so slow to sell. What ever was the matter with it? Why couldn’t they get rid of it! Marked down as it was by this time, it was a wonderful bargain! How queer it was about some things, how—quitemysteriously—they simply did not take. That black cloak was known all over the floor, and when a saleswoman got it out to show a customer, all the other salespersons turned their heads to watch if this time it wouldn’t go. But it never had.
She looked at it hard, boring her mind into the problem as deep as she could drive it. But no inspiration came. The garment went back on the hanger after an inspection of its fastenings. Ah, here was the first customer! She turned to greet her warmly, with the exhilarated dash of a swimmer running out along the spring-board for the first dive of the day. “Good-morning, Mrs. Peterson,” she said, smiling her welcome. “Come to see that sports suit for your daughter again? I’m so thankful I can tell you that it is still here. It was almost sold yesterday. Mrs. Hemingway was considering it. But it is really much more suitable for your Evelyn, with that glorious coloring of hers.”
She had plunged off the spring-board with her athletic certainty of movement. And now she was in her real element, glowing and tingling, every nerve-center timed up to the most heartily sincere interest in what Mrs. Peterson’s daughter would wear that spring. Evelyn Peterson would look simply stunning in that sports suit, with those rose-pink cheeks and her glistening blonde hair! Evangeline gloried in the brilliant good looks of girls! There was aperiod between eighteen and twenty-three when it was as good as a feast to dress one.
Mrs. Peterson was drawn along after her enthusiasm as a piece of paper is drawn fluttering after an express train. She said, “Well, Ihadcome to say that Mr. Peterson and I have about decided that it was too expensive a suit for Evelyn, but now I’m here, I guess I’ll look at it again.”
Mrs. Knapp’s day had begun.
That evening after supper they had the comfortable game of whist which had come to be one of the family institutions of late. Lester had taught Helen and Henry how to play and after Stephen was in bed in his little cot, sociably close to them, they usually moved into the next room for a rubber. Evangeline thought that she thought it rather a foolish waste of time; but she did not demur, because she did not like to refuse poor Lester anything that would lighten his dreary life. She had liked to play cards in her youth and found that she had still quite a taste for the game. She played well, too, and usually held good hands. Henry had, it now appeared, inherited from her considerable “card sense” and with her as a partner, they more than held their end up. Lester and Helen, notoriously absent-minded, often made fearful mistakes, which set them all into gales of laughter and advancedthe cause of their opponents notably. One of the family jokes was the time when Lester, holding only one trump, had triumphantly led it out as a sneak lead!
“If it amuses Lester and the children....” thought Evangeline, dealing the cards swiftly and deftly, and enjoying herself very much, she and Henry just now having won their third game in succession.
She did not know that they were all frightfully uneasy that evening. Stephen had been coming in and out of the house all day, and just the instant before Mother was expected, they discovered that on one occasion he must have climbed up on the sofa with his muddy rubbers! There were lumps of crumbling, drying mud all up and down it. They were wildly brushing it off when they heard Mother’s quick strong step on the porch and had scurried to cover. There were lots of lumps left yet. Suppose Mother should see them.
It was all right so long as they were playing whist. They had put Mother’s chair with its back to the sofa. But afterwards, when she and Father settled down to their evening of reading and studying, what would happen?
When nine o’clock struck, Helen and Henry stood up to start to bed. And Mother ... oh! ...after strolling about absently a moment she went and sat down on the sofa!
And never said a word. Never noticed a thing! Just sat there for a moment, thinking, and then jumped up to make a note in her store-book where she methodically put down her every idea! How was that for luck, their shining eyes said to each other silently, as the children kissed their father and mother good-night, and went off upstairs.
It had come to her, right out of nowhere, as one’s best thoughts always come, that the thing to do with that black, fur-trimmed velours-de-laine cloak was to sell it to Mrs. Prouty in place of the fur coat which she coveted so and couldn’t possibly afford. It would actually, honestly, look better on Mrs. Prouty’s too-rounded dumpy figure than the fur coat. Her conviction was instantly warm! The earnest words came rushing to her lips. She heard herself saying fervently, “You see, Mrs. Prouty, a fur coat has noline. The only people who look well in one are the flat, long, bean-pole variety. But a well-cut, well-tailored coat like this ... just see how that flat, strap trimming carries the eye up and down and doesn’t add to the bulk. And those great fur cuffs and collar give all therichnessof the fur coat without the....” Oh, she knew shecould do it! She could just see Mrs. Prouty’s wistful eyes brightening, her anxious face softening into satisfaction and content.
And what a feather in her cap if she could be the one to work off that unsalable cloak!