Every Soul Hath Its Song | Page 4

horseshoe expanse of bald head. His face radiated into a smile that
brought out the whole chirography of fine lines, and his eyes
disappeared in laughter like two raisins poked into dough.
"Na, na, old lady, na, na!" He made to pinch her cheek where it bagged
toward a soft scallop of double chin, but she withdrew querulously.
"I tell you what I been through this winter, with Izzy out in a Middle
West territory where only once in four months I can see him, and my
Ray and her going-ons with them little snips, and now Miriam with her
Europe on the brain. I tell you that if anybody in this family needs
Europe it's me for my health, better as Miriam for her singing and her
style. Such nagging I have got ringing in my ears about it I think it's
easier to go as to stay home with long faces."
Erect on the edge of her chair Miriam inclined toward her parent.
"That's just what I been saying, mamma; all four of us need it. Not only
me and Ray, but--"
"Leave me out, missy!"
"Not only us two for our education, mamma, but a trip like that can
make you and papa ten years younger. Read what the booklet says. It--"

"I'm an old woman and I don't want I should try to look young like on
the streets here up-town you can see the women. What comes natural to
me like gray hairs I don't got to try to hide."
"Hurrah for ma! 'Down with the peroxide and the straight fronts,' she
says."
"Izzy, that ain't so nice neither to talk such things before your sisters."
"Don't listen to him, mamma. Just let me ask you, mamma, just let me
ask you, papa--papa, listen: did you ever in your life have a real
vacation? What were those two weeks in Arverne for you last summer
compared to on board a ship? You--"
"That's what I need yet--shipboard! I tell you I'm an old man and I'm
glad that I got a home where I can take off my shoes and sit in comfort
with my rheumatism."
"Hannah Levin's father limped ten times worse than you, papa. Didn't
he, mamma? And since he took Hannah over last summer not one
stroke has he had since. And she--Well, you see what she did for
herself."
Mrs. Binswanger paused in her stitch. "That's so, Simon; Hannah Levin
should grab for herself a man like Albert Hamburger. She should fall
into the human-hair Hamburger family, a stick like her! At fish-market
when he lived down-town each Friday morning I used to meet old man
Levin, and I should say his knees were worse as yours, papa."
"When my daughter marries a Albert Hamburger, then maybe too we
can afford to take a trip to Europe."
Miss Binswanger raised her eyes, great dark pools glozed over with
tears. "All right then, I'll huck at home. But let me tell you, papa, since
you come right out and mention it, that's where she met Albert
Hamburger, if anybody should ask you, right on board the ship. Those
kind don't lie round Arverne with that cheap crowd of week-end
salesmen."

"There she goes on my profesh again!"
"That's where she met him, since you talk about such things, papa, right
on the steamer."
"So!" Mrs. Binswanger let fall idle hands into her lap. "So!"
"Sure. Didn't you know that, mamma? She was going over for just ten
weeks with her mother and father to take a few singing-lessons when
they got to Paris, just like I want to, and right on the ship going over
she met him and they got engaged."
"So!"
"Yes, mamma."
Mr. Binswanger fell into the attitude of reading again, knees crossed
and one carpet slipper dangling. "I know plenty girls as get engaged on
dry land, Carrie; just get such ideas that they don't out of your head."
"I don't say, Simon, I don't give you right, but after a winter like I been
through I feel like maybe it's better to go as to stay."
"That's right, ma, loosen up and she'll get you yet."
"It ain't nice, Izzy, you should use such talk to your mother. I tell you it
ain't so nice a son should tell his mother she should loosen up."
"I only meant, ma--"
"That's just how I feel, Simon, with the summer coming on I can't stand
no more long faces. Last year it was Arverne till a cottage we had to
take. Always in April already my troubles for the summer begin. One
year Miriam wants Arverne and Ray wants we should go to the
mountains where the Schimm girls go. This year, since she got in with
them Lillianthal girls, Miriam