California -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
After Teddy and his mother had lunched, if Wallace was free, they all
went out together. He was devoted to the boy, and broke ruthlessly into
his little schedule of hours and meals for his own amusement. Or he and
Martie went alone to a matinee. But when he was playing in vaudeville,
even if he lived at home, he must be at the theatre at four and at
nine. Often on Sunday afternoons he went out to meet his friends, to
drift about the theatrical clubs and hotels, and dine away from home.
Then Martie would take Teddy out, happy times for both. They went to
the library, to the museums, to the aquarium and the Zoo. Martie came
to love the second-hand book-stores, where she could get George Eliot's
novels for ten cents each, a complete Shakespeare for twenty-five. She
drank in the passing panorama of the streets: the dripping "L"
stations, the light of the chestnut dealer, a blowing flame in the cold
and dark, the dirty powder of snow blowing along icy sidewalks, and the
newspapers weighted down at corner stands with pennies lying here and
there in informal exchange. Cold, rosy faces poured into the subway
hoods, warm, pale faces poured out, wet feet slipped on the frozen
rubbish of the sidewalks, little salesgirls gossiped cheerfully as they
dangled on straps in the packed cars.
Often Martie and Teddy had their supper at Childs', in the clean warm
brightness of marble and nickel-plate. Teddy knew their waitress and
chattered eagerly over his rice and milk. Martie had a sandwich and
coffee, watching the shabby fingers that fumbled for five-cent tips,
the anxious eyes studying the bill-of-fare, the pale little
working-women who favoured a supper of butter cakes and lemon meringue
pie after the hard day.
She would go home to find the breakfast dishes waiting, the beds
unmade, the bathroom still steamed from Wallace's ablutions. Teddy
tucked away for the night, she would dream over a half-sensed book. Why
make the bed she was so soon to get into? Why wash the dishes now
rather than wait until she was in her comfortable wrapper? She went
back to her old habit of nibbling candy as she read.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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