Young Pilkings looked shallowly grieved and muttered, "The old gentleman passed beyond, a week ago Thursday."
"Oh, Mr. Edward, I can't tell you-It's a blow to me, a very great blow. I was with your father for so many, many years."
"Yes-uh-Yes."
"Is there-I wonder if I couldn't send a letter or some flowers or something to your mother?"
"Why, yes, I guess there's nothing to prevent.... Boy, you be careful of those boxes! What the deuce do you think you're trying to do? There, that's a little better. Try to show some sense about your work, even if you ain't got any." Edward Pilkings's voice crackled like wood in a fireplace.
Desperately Father tried again. "Fact is, Mr. Edward, I've given up my tea-room on Cape Cod. Didn't go so very well. I guess my forty, like the fellow says, is sticking to selling shoes. Mrs. Appleby and I have just got back to town and got settled down and-Fact is, I'd be glad to go back to work."
His hesitant manner invited refusal. It was evident that Mr. Edward Pilkings was not interested.
Shyly Father added, "You know your father promised to keep a place open for me."
"Well, now, I'll tell you, Appleby; it ain't that you aren't a good salesman, but just now I'm-well, kind of reorganizing the business. I sort of feel the establishment ought to have a little more pep in it, and so-You see-But you leave your address and as soon as anything turns up I'll be mighty glad to let you know."
For years Father had pityingly heard applicants for jobs disposed of with the request to "leave their addresses."
"No," he said; "no, maybe I'll come in and see you again some day. Good day. Good luck to you, Mr. Edward."
He greeted his old acquaintances among the clerks. They were cordial, but they kept an eye on Mr. Edward Pilkings.
He shivered as he walked out. It was warm and busy in the shoe-store, but outside it was rather chilly for a man with no overcoat-or job. It seemed incredible that he should have found his one place of refuge closed to him.
He walked from shoe-store to shoe-store, hopelessly. "Old-fashioned place," the shoe-men said when he mentioned his experience with Pilkings &Son's. "Be glad to do what we can for you, Mr. Appleby, but just now-"
He had reached the department-store section. Already the holiday rush had begun. Holly was in the windows; Salvation Army solicitors tinkled irritating bells on every corner.
Department stores had always rather bewildered this man of small business, but he inquired for the help-employment bureau in the largest of them, and his shyness disappeared as he found a long line of applicants filling out blanks. Here he did not have to plead with some one man for the chance to work. He was handled quickly and efficiently. On a blank he gave his age, his experience, how much he expected; and a brisk, impersonal clerk told him to return next day.
On that next day the world became wonderful for Father, wonderful and young again, for some one did actually want him. He had a temporary holiday-help job in the leather-goods department, at eight dollars a week.
* * * * *
Father's first day of work in the leather-goods department was the most difficult he had ever known. His knowledge of shoes and leather had become purely mechanical; a few glances at new stock and at trade journals had kept him aware of changing styles. Now he had suddenly to become omniscient in regard to hand-bags, portfolios, writing-cases, music-rolls; learn leathers which he had never handled-cobra-seal, walrus, écrasé, monkey-skin. He had to appear placidly official, almost pontifical, when vague ladies appeared, poked clippings from holiday magazines at him, and demanded, "I want something like that." "That" usually depicted articles of whose use he had the most indefinite notions. Other ladies, ponderous ladies, who wanted vast quantities of free advice before purchasing Christmas presents, desired encyclopedic information about sewing-cases, picnic-sets, traveling pillow-cases, telephone-pads, guest-books, and "a cover for my Social Register, and I want you to be sure it's the very latest thing."
He was defenseless. He could not dodge them. Anybody could come up and ask him anything-and did. And while he could learn something about the new leathers, still it was difficult for him to remember the Long Island Railroad time-table well enough to reply instantly when an irate shopper snapped at him, "Do you know what's the next train for Hempstead?"
The most difficile woman in a shoe-store has at least a definite, tangible foot to fit. But the holiday crowd were buying presents for persons of whom Father knew nothing-though the shoppers expected him to know everything, from the sizes of their wrists to their tastes in bill-folds. They haggled and pushed and crowded; they wanted it to be less expensive, as well as more blessed, to give than to receive. He spent twenty minutes in showing the entire line of diaries to one woman. She apparently desired to make sure that they were all of them moral or something of the sort. At the end of the time she sighed, "Oh dear, it isn't time for the matinée even yet. Shopping is so hard." And oozed away into the crowd.
Father had started his first day with a superior manner of knowing all about leather and the ways of cranky customers. He ended it with a depressed feeling that he knew nothing about anything, that he couldn't keep up the holiday pace of the younger clerks-and that the assistant buyer of the department had been watching him. He walked home with strained, weary shoulders, but as he turned into the gloomy hallway leading to their room he artificially brightened his expression, that he might bring joy home to Mother, who would have been lonely and anxious and waiting all day.
He pictured her as sitting there, hunched up, depressed. He would bounce in with news of a good day. He tried the door carefully. Mother stood in the middle of the floor, in a dream. In the dimness of the room the coal fire shone through the front draught of the stove, and threw a faint rose on her crossed hands. Taller she seemed, and more commanding. Her head was back, her eyes sparkling. She was clean-cut and strong against the unkempt walls.
"Why, Mother! You look so happy! What is it?"
"I'm going to help! I'm not going to be a lazybones. I've got a job, too! In the toy-department at Regalberg's. And they are going to pay me nine dollars a week. How's that for your stupid old woman?"
"Why-why-you don't need-I don't know as I like-" began the conventional old Father to whom woman's place was in the home whether or not there was a home in which to have a place. Then the new Father, the adventurer, declared, "I think it's mighty fine, Mother. Mighty fine. If it won't be too hard on you."
"I'm going to take you to dinner to-night, instead of you taking me. That is, if you'll lend me a dollar!"
Laughing till they nearly cried, with Father shamelessly squeezing her arm on public thoroughfares, they again plunged into the Roman pleasures of the little tinsel restaurant. And like two lovers, like the telephone-girl in your office and the clerk next door, they made an engagement to meet at noon, next day, in a restaurant half-way between Regalberg's and Father's store.
When she came breathlessly into that beef-stew and paper-napkin restaurant at noon, Mother already had something of the busy, unself-conscious look of the woman who can compete with men. Her cheeks were flushed with walking. Her eyes were young. She glanced about the room, found Father, smiled quickly, and proceeded to order her own lunch in a business-like way.
"They told me to be back in half an hour," she said, "but I don't mind a bit. It's been nice all morning. This is the first time in my life I ever did have all the children to talk to that I wanted. And the sweet toys! Think of me gadding around like this, and enjoying it! I swear to goodness I don't know myself. And what do you think I'm going to do if either of us gets a raise? I'm going to buy you an overcoat!"
Father felt that he didn't know her, either. She did most of the talking at lunch, and hurried cheerfully back to her job, while Father plodded wearily away, speculating as to whether he could keep bustling on tired, stinging feet till six, like the younger holiday help with whom he was in competition.