"You know you always got a home with me, mamma. You know, no matter what comes, I always got to tuck you in bed at night and fix the windows for you. You know you always got with me the best kind of a home I got to give you. Ain't it?" His hand crept out and rested lightly--ever so lightly--on his mother's knee. "Abie, you never talked like this before--I won't stand in your way, Abie. If you can make up your mind, Beulah Washeim or Hannah Rosenblatt, either would be--" "Aw, mamma, it ain't them." Mrs. Ginsburg's hand closed tightly over her son's; a train swooped past and created a flurry of warm breeze in the room. "Who--is--it, Abie? Don't be afraid to tell mamma." "Why, mamma, it ain't no one! Can't a fellow just talk? You started it, didn't you? I was just talking 'cause you was." "He scares me yet! No consideration that boy has got for his mother! Abie, a little broth--you ain't got no fever, Abie--your head is cool like ice." "You ain't had no supper yet, mamma." "I had coffee at five o'clock; for myself I never worry. I'm glad enough you feel all right. It's eight o'clock, Abie--I go me to bed. To-morrow I go to market with Yetta." "Aw, mamma, now why for do you--" "I ain't too proud--such high-toned notions I ain't got. For what I pay forty-two cents for eggs up here when I can get 'em for thirty-eight?" "Be careful, mamma; don't fall over the chair--you want a light?" "No. Write me a note for the milkman, Abie, before you go to bed, and leave it out with the bottles--half a pint of double cream I want. I make you cream-potatoes for supper to-morrow. I laid your blue shirt on your bed, Abie--don't go to bed on it. It's the last time I iron it; but once more you can wear it, then I make dust-rags. I ironed it soft like you like." "Yes, mamma." "Put the cover on the canary, too, Abie. That night you went to the lodge he chirped and chirped, just like you was lost and he was crying 'cause me and him was lonely." "Yes, mamma. Wait till I light the gas in your room for you--you'll stumble." "It's too hot for light; I can see by the Magintys' kitchen light across the air-shaft. What she does in her kitchen so late I don't know--such housekeeping! Yesterday with my own eyes I seen her shake a table-cloth out the window with a hole like my hand in it. She should know what I think of such ways." Mrs. Ginsburg moved through the gloom, steering carefully round the phantom furniture. From his place on the couch her son could hear her moving about her tiny room adjoining the kitchen. A shoe dropped and, after a satisfying interval, another; the padding of bare feet across a floor; the tink of a china pitcher against its bowl; the slam of a drawer; the rusty squeal of spiral bed-springs under pressure. "Abie, I'm ready."