"You bet! Well, you do that. And don't put off coming here Sunday. And
don't forget to fill that prescription and take it till I see you again."
Peter smiled politely, and went down the hall to the elevator, and laid
his finger on the bell, and waited until the steel cage paused to let
him in. He walked out and up Third Street and waited on the corner of
Hill until the car he wanted stopped on the corner to let a few more
passengers squeeze on. Peter found a foothold on the back platform and
something to hang to, and adapted himself to the press of people around
him, protecting as best he could the daffodils with the fine, green
stuff that went with them and that straggled out and away from the
paper. Whenever human eyes met his with a light of recognition, Peter
would smile and bow, and the eyes would smile back. But he never knew
who owned the eyes, or even that he was performing one of the little
courtesies of life.
All he knew was that Helen May was going the way her mother had gone, and
that the only way to prevent her going that way was to take her to New
Mexico or Colorado or Arizona; and she was worth saving--even the doctor
had been struck with her worth; and a bungalow out against the hills
wouldn't do at all, not even with a sleeping porch and the open-air ride
back and forth every day. Radical change she must have. Arizona or New
Mexico or--the moon, which seemed not much more remote or inaccessible.
When his street was called he edged out to the steps and climbed down,
wondering how the doctor expected a man with Peter's salary to act upon
his advice. "You do that!" said the doctor, and left Peter to discover,
if he could, how it was to be done without money; in other words, had
blandly required Peter to perform a modern miracle.
Helen May was listlessly setting the table when he arrived. He went up to
her for the customary little peck on the cheek which passes for a kiss
among relatives, and Helen May waved him off with a half smile that was
unlike her customary cheerfulness.
"I've quit kissing," she said. "It's unsanitary."
"What did the doctor tell you, Babe? You went to see him, didn't you?"
Peter managed a smile--business policy had made smiling a habit--while he
unwound the paper from around the daffodils.
"Dad, I've told you and _told_ you not to buy flowers! Oh, golly, aren't
they beautiful! But you mustn't. I'm going to get my salary cut, on the
first. They say business doesn't warrant my present plutocratic income.
Five a week less, Bob said it would be. That'll pull the company back to
a profit-sharing basis, of course!"
"Lots of folks are losing their jobs altogether," Peter reminded her
apathetically. "What did the doctor say about your cough, Babe?"
"Oh, he told me to quit working. Why is it doctors never have any brains
about such things? Charge a person two dollars or so for telling him to
do what's impossible. What does he think I am--a movie queen?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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