Fanny Herself | Page 4

as was the invariable custom in time of mourning.
Others of the townspeople called, too; men and women who had known
and respected Ferdinand Brandeis. And the shock they got was this:
Mrs. Brandeis was out. Any one could have told you that she should
have been sitting at home in a darkened room, wearing a black gown,
clasping Fanny and Theodore to her, and holding a black-bordered
handkerchief at intervals to her reddened eyes. And that is what she
really wanted to do, for she had loved her husband, and she respected
the conventions. What she did was to put on a white shirtwaist and a
black skirt at seven o'clock the morning after the funeral.

The store had been closed the day before. She entered it at seven
forty-five, as Aloysius was sweeping out with wet sawdust and a
languid broom. The extra force of holiday clerks straggled in,
uncertainly, at eight or after, expecting an hour or two of undisciplined
gossip. At eight- ten Molly Brandeis walked briskly up to the plush
photograph album, whisked off its six-dollar price mark, and stuck in
its place a neatly printed card bearing these figures: "To-day-- 79_@!"
The plush album went home in a farmer's wagon that afternoon.

CHAPTER TWO
Right here there should be something said about Fanny Brandeis. And
yet, each time I turn to her I find her mother plucking at my sleeve.
There comes to my mind the picture of Mrs. Brandeis turning down
Norris Street at quarter to eight every morning, her walk almost a
march, so firm and measured it was, her head high, her chin thrust
forward a little, as a fighter walks, but not pugnaciously; her short gray
skirt clearing the ground, her shoulders almost consciously squared.
Other Winnebago women were just tying up their daughters' pigtails for
school, or sweeping the front porch, or watering the hanging baskets.
Norris Street residents got into the habit of timing themselves by Mrs.
Brandeis. When she marched by at seven forty-five they hurried a little
with the tying of the hair bow, as they glanced out of the window.
When she came by again, a little before twelve, for her hasty dinner,
they turned up the fire under the potatoes and stirred the flour
thickening for the gravy.
Mrs. Brandeis had soon learned that Fanny and Theodore could manage
their own school toilettes, with, perhaps, some speeding up on the part
of Mattie, the servant girl. But it needed her keen brown eye to detect
corners that Aloysius had neglected to sweep out with wet sawdust, and
her presence to make sure that the counter covers were taken off and
folded, the outside show dusted and arranged, the windows washed, the
whole store shining and ready for business by eight o'clock. So Fanny
had even learned to do her own tight, shiny, black, shoulder-length
curls, which she tied back with a black bow. They were wet, meek, and

tractable curls at eight in the morning. By the time school was out at
four they were as wildly unruly as if charged with electric
currents--which they really were, when you consider the little dynamo
that wore them.
Mrs. Brandeis took a scant half hour to walk the six blocks between the
store and the house, to snatch a hurried dinner, and traverse the distance
to the store again. It was a program that would have killed a woman
less magnificently healthy and determined. She seemed to thrive on it,
and she kept her figure and her wit when other women of her age grew
dull, and heavy, and ineffectual. On summer days the little town often
lay shimmering in the heat, the yellow road glaring in it, the red bricks
of the high school reflecting it in waves, the very pine knots in the
sidewalks gummy and resinous with heat, and sending up a pungent
smell that was of the woods, and yet stifling. She must have felt an
almost irresistible temptation to sit for a moment on the cool, shady
front porch, with its green-painted flower boxes, its hanging fern
baskets and the catalpa tree looking boskily down upon it.
But she never did. She had an almost savage energy and determination.
The unpaid debts were ever ahead of her; there were the children to be
dressed and sent to school; there was the household to be kept up; there
were Theodore's violin lessons that must not be neglected--not after
what Professor Bauer had said about him.
You may think that undue stress is being laid upon this driving force in
her, upon this business ability. But remember that this was fifteen years
or more ago, before women had invaded the world of business by the
thousands, to take their place, side by side, salary