City and town life -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
After this the packing went on fast and furious. A youth appeared
from the back of the store, and ran here and there as he was ordered.
Munsberg and his wife filled wooden and cardboard boxes with small cakes
and larger ones, with sandwiches and salads, candies and crystallized
fruits. Into the larger box was placed a huge cake with an icing temple
on the top of it, with silver doves adorning it outside and in. There
was no mistaking the poetic significance of that cake. Outside the
blizzard whirled clouds of snow-particles through the air, and the van
horse kept his head down and his forelegs braced. His driver had long
since tried to cover him with a blanket which the wind continually
tore loose from its fastenings, and flapped about the creature's sides.
Inside the store grew hot. There was hurried moving about, banging
of doors, excited voices, irascible orders given and countermanded.
Tembarom found out in five minutes that the refreshments were for a
wedding reception to be held at a place known as “The Hall,” and the
goods must be sent out in time to be ready for the preparations for the
wedding supper that night.
“If I knew how to handle it, I could get stuff for a column just sitting
here,” he thought. He kept both eyes and ears open. He was sharp enough
to realize that the mere sense of familiarity with detail which he was
gaining was material in itself. Once or twice he got up and lent a hand
with a box in his casual way, and once or twice he saw that he could
lift some-thing down or up for Mrs. Munsberg, who was a little woman.
The natural casualness of his way of jumping up to do the things
prevented any suspicion of officiousness, and also prevented his waiting
figure from beginning to wear the air of a superfluous object in the
way. He waited a long time, and circumstances so favored him as to give
him a chance or so. More than once exactly the right moment presented
itself when he could interject an apposite remark. Twice he made
Munsberg laugh, and twice Mrs. Munsberg voluntarily addressed him.
At last the boxes and parcels ware all carried out and stored in the
van, after strugglings with the opening and shutting of doors, and
battlings with outside weather.
When this was all over, Munsberg came back into the store, knocking his
hands together and out of breath.
“Dot's all right,” he said. “It'll all be there plenty time. Vouldn't
have fell down on that order for tventy-vive dollars. Dot temple on the
cake was splendid. Joseph he done it fine.”
“He never done nothin' no finer,” Mrs. Munsberg said. “It looked as good
as anything on Fift' Avenoo.”
Both were relieved and pleased with themselves, their store, and their
cake-decorator. Munsberg spoke to Tembarom in the manner of a man who,
having done a good thing, does not mind talking about it.
“Dot was a big order,” he remarked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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