Fanny Herself | Page 9

her to listen to his advice to put in Battenberg patterns and braid, long
before the Battenberg epidemic had become widespread and virulent.
"Now listen to me, Mrs. Brandeis," he begged, almost tearfully.
"You're a smart woman. Don't let this get by you. You know that I
know that a salesman would have as much chance to sell you a gold
brick as to sell old John D. Rockefeller a gallon of oil." Mrs. Brandeis
eyed his samples coldly. "But it looks so unattractive. And the average
person has no imagination. A bolt of white braid and a handful of
buttons--they wouldn't get a mental picture of the completed piece.
Now, embroidery silk----"
"Then give 'em a real picture!" interrupted Sam. "Work up one of these
water-lily pattern table covers. Use No. 100 braid and the smallest
buttons. Stick it in the window and they'll tear their hair to get
patterns."
She did it, taking turns with Pearl and Sadie at weaving the great, lacy
square during dull moments. When it was finished they placed it in the
window, where it lay like frosted lace, exquisitely graceful and delicate,
with its tracery of curling petals and feathery fern sprays. Winnebago
gazed and was bitten by the Battenberg bug. It wound itself up in a
network of Battenberg braid, in all the numbers. It bought buttons of
every size; it stitched away at Battenberg covers, doilies, bedspreads,

blouses, curtains. Battenberg tumbled, foamed, cascaded over
Winnebago's front porches all that summer. Listening to Sam Kiser had
done it.
She listened to the farmer women too, and to the mill girls, and to the
scant and precious pearls that dropped from the lips of the East End
society section. There was something about her brown eyes and her
straight, sensible nose that reassured them so that few suspected the
mischievous in her. For she was mischievous. If she had not been I
think she could not have stood the drudgery, and the heartbreaks, and
the struggle, and the terrific manual labor.
She used to guy people, gently, and they never guessed it. Mrs. G.
Manville Smith, for example, never dreamed of the joy that her
patronage brought Molly Brandeis, who waited on her so demurely.
Mrs. G. Manville Smith (nee Finnegan) scorned the Winnebago shops,
and was said to send to Chicago for her hairpins. It was known that her
household was run on the most niggardly basis, however, and she
short-rationed her two maids outrageously. It was said that she could
serve less real food on more real lace doilies than any other
housekeeper in Winnebago. Now, Mrs. Brandeis sold Scourine two
cents cheaper than the grocery stores, using it as an advertisement to
attract housewives, and making no profit on the article itself. Mrs. G.
Manville Smith always patronized Brandeis' Bazaar for Scourine alone,
and thus represented pure loss. Also she my-good-womaned Mrs.
Brandeis. That lady, seeing her enter one day with her comic,
undulating gait, double-actioned like a giraffe's, and her plumes that
would have shamed a Knight of Pythias, decided to put a stop to these
unprofitable visits.
She waited on Mrs. G. Manville Smith, a dangerous gleam in her eye.
"Scourine," spake Mrs. G. Manville Smith.
"How many?"
"A dozen."

"Anything else?"
"No. Send them."
Mrs. Brandeis, scribbling in her sales book, stopped, pencil poised.
"We cannot send Scourine unless with a purchase of other goods
amounting to a dollar or more."
Mrs. G. Manville Smith's plumes tossed and soared agitatedly. "But my
good woman, I don't want anything else!"
"Then you'll have to carry the Scourine?"
"Certainly not! I'll send for it."
"The sale closes at five." It was then 4:57.
"I never heard of such a thing! You can't expect me to carry them."
Now, Mrs. G. Manville Smith had been a dining-room girl at the old
Haley House before she married George Smith, and long before he
made his money in lumber.
"You won't find them so heavy," Molly Brandeis said smoothly.
"I certainly would! Perhaps you would not. You're used to that sort of
thing. Rough work, and all that."
Aloysius, doubled up behind the lamps, knew what was coming, from
the gleam in his boss's eye.
"There may be something in that," Molly Brandeis returned sweetly.
"That's why I thought you might not mind taking them. They're really
not much heavier than a laden tray."
"Oh!" exclaimed the outraged Mrs. G. Manville Smith. And took her
plumes and her patronage out of Brandeis' Bazaar forever.
That was as malicious as Molly Brandeis ever could be. And it was

forgivable malice.
Most families must be described against the background of their homes,
but the Brandeis family life was bounded and controlled by the store.
Their meals and sleeping hours and amusements were regulated by it. It
taught