 forward, of buttered side down. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Madeira. Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber, forward. And so, the story writers used to say, they lived happily ever after. Um, maybe. After the glamour had worn off, and the glass slippers were worn out, did the Prince never find Cinderella's manner redolent of the kitchen hearth? And was it never necessary that he remind her to be more careful of her fingernails and grammar? After Puss in Boots had won wealth and a wife for his young master, did not that gentleman often fume with chagrin because the neighbours perhaps refused to call on the lady of the former poor miller's son? It is a great risk to take with one's book children. These stories make no such promises. They stomp to short of the phrase of the old story writers, and end truthfully thus. And so they lived. E F. End of forward. Story 1. The Frog and the Puddle of Buttered Side Down. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Madeira. Side Down by Edna Ferber. Story 1. The Frog and the Puddle. Any one who has ever written for the magazines, nobody could devise a more sweeping opening. It includes the Iceman who does a humorous article on the subject of his troubles, and the neglected Wife Next Door who journalizes, knows that a story the scene of which is not New York is merely junk. Take Fifth Avenue as a framework, pat it out to five thousand words, and there you have the ideal short story. Consequently, I feel a certain timidity in confessing that I do not know Fifth Avenue from Hester Street when I see it, because I've never seen it. It has been said that from the latter to the former is a ten-year journey, from which I have gathered that they lie some miles apart. As for 42nd Street, of which musical comedians carol, I know not if it be a fashionable shopping thoroughfare or a factory district. A confession of this kind is not only good for the soul but for the editor. It saves him the trouble of turning to page two. This is a story of Chicago, which is the first cousin of New York, although the two are not on chummy terms. It is a story of that part of Chicago which lies east of Dearborn Avenue and south of Division Street, and which may be called the Nottingham Curtain District. In the Nottingham Curtain District every front parlor window is embellished with a Rooms Wither Without Board sign. The curtains themselves have mellowed from their original department store basement wide to a rich deep tone of Chicago smoke, which has the notorious London variety beaten by several shades. Block after block the two-story and basement houses stretch, all grimy and gritty and looking sadly down upon the five square feet of mangy grass forming the pitiful front yard of each. Now and then the monotonous line of front stoops is broken by an out jutting basement delicatessen shop, but not often. The Nottingham Curtain District does not run heavily to delicacies. It is stronger on creamed cabbage and bread pudding. Up in the third floor back at Miss Box, elegant rooms, two dollars fifty cents and up a week, gents preferred. Gertie was brushing her hair for the night, one hundred strokes with a bristle brush. Anyone who reads the beauty column in the newspapers knows that. There was something heroic in the sight of Gertie brushing her hair one hundred strokes before going to bed at night. Only a woman could understand her doing it. Gertie clerked downtown on State Street in a gents' club department. A gents' club department requires careful dressing on the part of its clerks, and the manager in selecting them is particular about choosing lookers with a special attention to figure hair and fingernails. Gertie was a looker. Providence had taken care of that, but you cannot leave your hair and fingernails to Providence. They demand coaxing with a bristle brush and an orange woodstick. Now clerking, as Gertie would tell you, is fierce on the feet, and when your feet are tired, you are tired all over. Gertie's feet were tired every night. About eight-thirty she longed to peel off her clothes, drop them in a heap on the floor, and tumble unbrushed, unwashed, unmanicured into bed. She never did it. Things had been particularly trying tonight. After washing out three anchor-tips and pasting them with practiced hand over the mirror, Gertie had taken off her shoes and discovered a hole the size of a silver quarter in the heel of her left stocking. Gertie had a country-bred horror of holy stockings. She darned the hole, yawning, her aching feet pressed against the smooth, cool leg of the iron bed. That done she had had the colossal courage to wash her face, slap cold cream on it, and push back the cuticle around her nails. Seated huddled on the side of her thin little iron bed, Gertie was brushing her hair bravely, counting the strokes somewhere in her subconscious mind, and thinking busily all the while of something else. Her brush rose, fell, swept downward, rose, fell, rhythmically. 96, 97, 98, 90— Oh, darn it! What's the use? cried Gertie, and hurled the brush across the room with a crack. She sat looking after it with wide, staring eyes until the brush blurred in with the faded red roses on the carpet. When she found it doing that, she got up, wadded her hair viciously into a hard bun in the back, instead of braiding it carefully as usual, crossed the room—it wasn't much of a trip—picked up the brush, and stood looking down at it, her underlip caught between her teeth. That is the humiliating part of losing your temper, and throwing things. You have to come down to picking them up anyway. Her lip still held prisoner, Gertie tossed the brush on the bureau, fastened her nightgown at the throat with a safety pin, turned out the gas, and crawled into bed. Perhaps the hard bun at the back of her head kept her awake. She lay there with her eyes wide open and sleepless, staring into the darkness. At midnight the kid next door came in whistling, like one unused to boarding-house rules. Gertie liked him for that. At the head of the stairs he stopped whistling, and came softly into his own third floor back just next to Gertie's. Gertie liked him for that, too. The two rooms had been one in the fashionable days at the Nottingham Curtin District, long before the advent of Miss Buck. That thrifty lady, on coming into possession, had caused a flimsy partition to be run up slicing the room in twain and doubling its rental. Lying there, Gertie could hear the kid next door moving about, getting ready for bed, and humming. Every little movement has a meaning of its own, very lightly under his breath. He polished his shoes briskly, and Gertie smiled there in the darkness of her own room and sympathy. Your kid! He had his beauty struggles, too. Gertie had never seen the kid next door, although he had come four months ago, but she knew he wasn't a grouch, because he alternately whistled and sang off key tenor while dressing in the morning. She had also discovered that his bed must run along the same wall against which her bed was pushed. Gertie told herself that there was something almost immodest about being able to hear him breathing as he slept. He had tumbled into bed with a little grunt of weariness. She lay there, another hour, staring into the darkness. Then she began to cry softly, lying on her face with her head between her arms. The cold cream and the salt tears mingled and formed a slippery pace. Gertie wept on because she couldn't help it. The longer she wept, the more difficult her sobs became until finally they boarded on the hysterical. They filled her lungs until they ached and reached her throat with a force that jerked her head back. Sounded sharply from the head of her bed. Gertie stopped sobbing, and her heart stopped beating. She lay tense and still listening. Everyone knows that spooks wrap three times at the head of one's bed. It's a regular high sign with them. Gertie's skin became goose-lush, and cold water effects chased up and down her spine. What's your trouble in there? Demanded an unspooky voice so near that Gertie jumped. Sick? It was the kid next door. No, I'm not sick. Gertie heard her mouth close to the wall. Just then a belated sob that had stopped halfway when the wraps began hustled on to join its sisters. It took Gertie by surprise and brought prompt response from the other side of the wall. I'll bet I scared you green. I didn't mean to, but I'm a square if you're feeling sick. A little nipper brandy will set you up. Excuse my mentioning it, girly, but I'd do the same for my sister. I hate, like, sin to hear a woman suffer like that, and anyway, I don't know whether you're fourteen or forty, so it's perfectly respectable. I'll get the bottle and leave it outside your door. No, you won't. Answer Gertie in a hollow voice, praying, meanwhile, that the woman in the room below might be sleeping. I'm not sick. Honestly, I'm not. I'm just as much a blight, and I'm dead sorry I woke you up with my blubbering. I started out with a soft pedal on, but things got away from me. Can you hear me? Like a phonograph? Sure you couldn't use a sip of randyware and do the most good? Sure. Well, then cut out the weeps and get your beauty sleep, kid. He ain't worth sobbing over anyway, believe me. Hey, snorted Gertie indignantly. You're cold. There never was anything in peg tops that could make me carry on like the heroin of the LC series. Lost your job? No such luck. Well, then what in Sam Hill could make a woman lonesome? Snapped Gertie. Then the floor walker got fresh today, and I found two gray hairs last night. And I give my next weeps pay envelope to hear the double click that our front gate gets back home. Back home? Echoed the kid next door in a dangerously loud voice. Say, I want to talk to you. If you'll promise you won't get sore and think I'm fresh, I'll ask you a favor. Slip on a kimono and we'll sneak down to the front stoop and talk it over. I'm as wide awake as a chorus girl and twice as hungry. I've got two apples and a box of crackers. Are you on? Gertie snickered. It isn't done in our best sets, but I'm on. I've got a can of sardines and an orange. I'll be ready in six minutes. She was, too. She wiped off the cold cream and salt tears with a dry towel, did her hair in a schoolgirl braid, and tied it with a big bow, and dressed herself in a black skirt and a baby blue dressing sack. The kid next door was waiting outside in the hall. His gray sweater covered a multitude of satorial deficiencies. Gertie stared at him, and he stared at Gertie in the sickly blue light of the boarding-house hall. And it took her one half of one second to discover that she liked his mouth and his eyes and the way his hair was must. Why, you're only a kid, whispered the kid next door in surprise. Gertie smothered a laugh. You're not the first man that's been deceived by a pigtail braid and a baby blue waist. I could locate those two gray hairs for you with my eyes shut and my feet in a sack. Come on, boy. Those Robert W. Chambers situations make me nervous. Many earnest young writers with a flow of adjectives and a passion for detail have attempted to describe the quiet of a great city at night, when a few million people within it are sleeping or ought to be. They work in the clang of a distant owl car, and the roar of an occasional hell train, and the hollow echo of the footsteps of the late passer-by. They go elaborately into description and are strong on the brooding hush, but the thing has never been done satisfactorily. Gertie, sitting on the front stew, that two in the morning, with her orange in one hand and the sardine can in the other put it this way. If I was to hear a cricket chirp now, I'd screech. This isn't really quiet. It's like waiting for a canning cracker to go off just before the fuses burn down. The bang isn't there yet, but you hear it a hundred times in your mind before it happens. My name's Augustus Giedi, announced the kid next door solemnly. Back home? They always called me Gus. You peel that orange while I unroll the top of the sardine can. I'm guilty of having interrupted you in the middle of what the girls call a good cry, and I know you'll have to get it out of your system some way. Take a bite of apple and then wade right in and tell me what you're doing in this burg if you don't like it. This thing ought to have slow music, began Gertie. It's pathetic. I came to Chicago from Beloit, Wisconsin, because I thought that little town was a lonesome hole for a vivacious creature like me. Lonesome. Listen while I laugh a low, mirthless laugh. I didn't know anything about the three-ply, double-barreled, extra-heavy brand of lonesomeness that a big town like this can deal out. Talk about your desert wastes. They're sociable and snug compared to this. I know three-fourths of the people in Beloit, Wisconsin by their first names. I've lived here six months, and I'm not on informal terms with anybody except Teddy, the landlady's dog. And he's a trained rat and book agent, Terrier, and not inclined over friendliness. When I clerked at the enterprise store in Beloit, the women used to come in and ask for something we didn't carry, just for an excuse to copy the way the lace yoke effects were planned in my shirt wastes. You ought to see the way those same shirt wastes stack up here. My boy, the lingerie wastes that the other girls in my department wear make my best hand-tucked effort look like a simple English country blouse. They're so dripping with Irish crochet and real val and cluny insertions that it's a wonder the girls don't get stoop-shouldered carrying them around. Hold on a minute, commanded Gus. This thing is uncanny. Our case is dovetailed like the deductions in a detective story. Neil here at my feet a little daughter, and I'll tell you the story of my sad young life. I'm no child of the city streets either. Say, I came to this town because I thought there was a bigger field for me in gents furnishings. Joke what? But Gertie didn't smile. She gazed up at Gus, and Gus gazed down at her, and his fingers fiddled absently with a big bow at the end of her braid. And isn't there? asked Gertie sympathetically. Girlie, I haven't saved twelve dollars since I came. I'm no tight-wad, and I don't believe in packing everything away into a white marble mausoleum. But still, a jink kind of whispers to himself that someday he'll be furnishing up a kitchen pantry of his own. Oh, said Gertie. And let me mention him passing, continued Gus, whining the ribbon-bow around his finger. Then the last hour or so that whisper's been swelling to a shout. Oh, said Gertie again. You said it, but I couldn't buy a second-hand gas stove with what I've saved in the last half year here. Back home they used to think I was a regular little village John drew. I was so dressy. But here I look like a Yokelund circus day compared to the other fellows in the store. All they need is a field glass strung over their shoulder to make them look like a clothing ad in the back of a popular magazine. Say, girly, you've got the prettiest hair I've seen since I blew in here. Look at that braid. Thick as a rope. That's no relation to the piles of jute that the flossies here stack in their heads and shines like satin. They ought to, said Gertrude, wearily. I brush it a hundred strokes every night. Sometimes I'm so beat that I fall asleep with my brush in the air. The manager won't stand for any romping curls or hooks and eyes that don't connect. It keeps me so busy being beautiful in what the society writers call well-groomed that I don't have time to sew the buttons on my underclothes. But don't you get some amusement in the evening, marveled Gus? What was the matter with you and the other girls in the store? Can't you hit it off? Me? No. I guess I was too woodsy for them. I went out with them a couple of times. I guess they're nice girls, all right, but they've got what you call a broader way of looking at things than I have. Living in a little town all your life makes you narrow. These curls? Well, maybe I'll get educated up to their plains someday, but no, you don't. Here's to Gus, not if I can help it. But you can't, replied Gertrude sweetly. Mine ain't this a grand night. Evenings like this I used to love to putter around the yard after supper, sprinkling the grass and weeding the radishes. I'm the greatest kid to fool around with a hose and flowers. Say, they just grow for me. You ought to have seen my panties and nasturtiums last summer, the fingers that the kid next door wandered until they found Gertrude's. They clashed them. This thing just points one way, little one. It's just as plain as a path leading up to a cozy little tree room flat up here on the north side somewhere. See it, with me and you married, and playing at housekeeping in a parlor and bedroom and kitchen, and both of us going downtown to work in the morning just the same as we do now? Only not the same, either. Wake up, little boy, said Gertrude prying her fingers away from those other detaining ones. I'd fit into a three-room flat like a whale in a kitchen sink. I'm going back to Beloit, Wisconsin. I've learned my lesson all right. There's a fellow there waiting for me. I used to think he was too slow. Say, he's got the nicest little painting and paper hanging business you ever saw, and making money. He's secretary of the KP's back home. They give some swell little dances during the winter, especially for the married members, and five years will own her own home with a vegetable garden in the back. I'm a little frog, and it's me for the puddle. Gusted up slowly, Gertrude felt a little pang of compunction when she saw what a boy he was. I don't know when I've enjoyed a talk like this. I've heard about these dawn tees, but I never thought I'd go to one, she said. Good night, girly, interrupted Gus abruptly. It's the dreamless couch for mine. Got a big sail on in tan and black seconds tomorrow. End of story one, the frog and the puddle of Buttered Side Down. Story two of Buttered Side Down, the man who came back. Thisly provokes recordings in the public domain, recording by Madeira. Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber. Story two. There are two ways of doing battle against disgrace. You may live it down, or you may run away from it and hide. The first method is heartbreaking, but sure. The second cannot be relied upon because of the uncomfortable way disgrace has of turning up at your heels just when you think you have eluded her in the last town but one. Ted Terrell did not choose the first method. He had it thrust upon him. After Ted had served his term he came back home to visit his mother's grave, intending to take the next train out. He wore none of the prison pallor that you read about in books because he had been shortstop on the penitentiary all-star baseball team and famed for the dexterity with which he could grab up red-hot grounders. The storied lockstep and the clipped hair effect also were missing. The superintendent of Ted's prison had been one of the reformed kind. You never would have picked Ted for a criminal. He had none of those interesting phenological bumps and depressions that usually are shown to such frank advantage in the Bertalon photographs. Ted had been assistant cashier in the Citizens National Bank. In a mad moment he had attempted a little sleight of hand act in which certain Citizens National funds were to be transformed into certain glittering shares and back again so quickly that the examiners couldn't follow it with their eyes. But Ted was unaccustomed to these, now you see it and now you don't feats and his hand slipped. The trick dropped to the floor with an awful clatter. Ted had been a lovable young kid, six feet high and blonde, with a great reputation as a dresser. He had the first yellow plush hat in our town. It sat on his golden head like a halo. The women all liked Ted. Mrs. Dankworth, the dashing widow, why will widows persist in being dashing, said that he was the only man in our town who knew how to wear a dress suit. The men were forever slapping him on the back and asking him to have a little something. Ted's good looks and his clever tongue and a certain charming Irish way he had with him caused him to be taken up by the smart-set. Now, if you've never lived in a small town you will be much amused at the idea of its boasting eighth smart-set, which proves your ignorance. The small town smart-set is deadly serious about its smartness. It likes to take six hour runs down to the city to fit a pair of shoes and hear carousel. Its clothes are as well-made and its scandals as crisp and its pace as hasty and its gulf club as dull as the clothes and scandals and pace and gulf club of its city cousins. The hasty pace killed Ted. He tried to keep step in a set of young folks whose fathers had made our town and all the time his pocketbook was yelling, whoa! The young people ran largely to scarlet upholstered touring cars and country club doings and house parties as small town younger generations are apt to. When Ted went to high school, half the boys in his little clique spent their after-school hours dashing up and down Main Street in their big glittering cars, sitting slumped down in the middle of their spines in front of the steering wheel, their sleeves rolled up, their hair combed a militant pompadour. One or the other of them always took Ted along. It is fearfully easy to develop a taste for that kind of thing. As he grew older, the taste took root and became a habit. Ted came out after serving his term still handsome, spite of all that story writers had taught to the contrary. But we'll make this concession to the old tradition. There was a difference. His radiant blondeur was dimmed in some intangible elusive way. Birdie Callaghan, who had worked in Ted's mother's kitchen for years and who had gone back to her old job at the Hailey house after her mistress's death, put it sadly thus. He was always the handsome devil. I used to look forward to ironing day just for the pleasure of pressing his fancy shirts for him. I'm that partial to them swell blondes, but I don't know. He's changed. Doing time has taken the edge off his hair and complexion, not changed his color to your mind, but dulled it like a gold ringer that I thought has tarnished. Ted was seated in the smoker with a chip on his shoulder and a sick horror of encountering someone he knew in his heart when Joe Hailey of the Hailey house got on at Westport Homeward Bound. Joe Hailey is the most eligible bachelor in our town and the slipperiest. He has made the Hailey house a gem so that traveling men will cut half a dozen towns to Sunday there. If he should say, jump through this to any girl in our town, she'd jump. Joe Hailey strolled leisurely up the car aisle toward Ted. Ted saw him coming and sat very still waiting. Hello, Ted. How's Ted? Said Joe Hailey casually and dropped into the adjoining seat without any more fuss. Ted wet his lips slightly and tried to say something. He had been a breezy talker, but the words would not come. Joe Hailey made no effort to cover the situation with a rush of conversation. He did not seem to realize that there was any situation to cover. He champed the end of his cigar and handed one to Ted. Well, you've taken your licking kid. What are you going to do now? The rawness of it made Ted wins. No, I don't know. He stammered. I've a job half promised in Chicago. What doing? Ted laughed a short and ugly laugh. Driving a brewery auto-truck. Joe Hailey tossed his cigar dexterously to the opposite corner of his mouth and squinted thoughtfully along its bulging sides. Remember that Wintzel girl that's kept books for me the last six years? She's leaving in a couple months to marry a New York guy that travels for ladies' cloaks and suits. After she goes, it's nicks with the lady bookkeepers for me. Not that Minnie isn't a good straight girl, and honest, but no girl can keep books with one eye on a column of figures and the other on a traveling man in a brown suit and a red necktie unless she's cross-eyed. And you bet Minnie ain't. The job's yours if you want it. 80 a month to start on and board. I can't, Joe. Think's just the same. I'm going to try to begin all over again. Somewhere else where nobody knows me. Oh, yes, said Joe. I knew a fellow that did that. After he came out he grew a beard and wore eyeglasses and changed his name. Had a quick, crisp way of talking and he cultivated a drawl and went west and started in business. Real estate, I think. Anyway, the second month he was there, in walks of fool he used to know, and bellows, why if it ain't Bill? Hello, Bill. I thought you were doing time yet. That was enough. Ted, you can black your face and dye your hair and squint in some fine day. Sooner or later, somebody will come along and blab the whole thing and say the older it gets, the worse it sounds when it does come out. Stick around here where you grew up, Ted. Ted clasped and unclasped his hands uncomfortably. I can't figure out why you should care how I finish. No reason, answered Joe. Not a darned one. I wasn't ever in love with your ma like the guy in the stage and I never owed you a percent. So it ain't a guilty conscience. I guess it's just pure cussiveness and a hankering for a new investment. I'm curious to know how you'll turn out. You've got the makings of what the newspapers call a leading citizen, even if you did fall down once. If I'd ever had time to get married, which I never will have, a first-class hotel being more worry and expense than a Pittsburgh steel magnet's whole harem, I'd have wanted somebody to do the same for my kid. That sounds slushy, but it's straight. I don't seem to know how to thank you, began Ted, a little husky as to boys. Call around tomorrow morning, interrupted Joe Haley briskly. And many went so we'll show you the ropes. You and her can work together for a couple of months. After then she's leaving to make her underwear and that's. I should think she'd have a bail of it by this time. Been embroidering them shimmy things and lunchcloths back at the desk when she thought I wasn't looking for the last six months. Ted came down next morning at 8 a.m. with his nerve between his teeth and the chips still balanced lightly on his shoulder. Five minutes later, many Wensel knocked it off. When Joe Haley introduced the two jocularly, knowing that they had originally met in the first reader room, Miss Wensel acknowledged the introduction icily by lifting her left eyebrow slightly and drawing down the corners of her mouth. Her air of hauteur was a triumph considering that she was handicapped by black sateen's leaflets. I wonder how one could best describe Miss Wensel. There is one of her in every small town. Let me think. Business of hand on brow. Well, she always paid eight dollars for her corsets when most girls in a similar position got theirs for fifty-nine cents in the basement. Nature had been kind to her. The hair that had been a muddy brown in many schoolgirl days, it had touched with a magic red-gold wand. Birdie Callahan always said that Minnie was working only to wear out her old clothes. After the introduction Miss Wensel followed Joe Haley into the lobby. She took no pains to lower her voice. Well, I must say, Mr. Haley, you've got a fine nerve. If my gentleman friend was to hear of my working with an ex-con, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd break off the engagement. I should think you'd have some respect for the feelings of a lady with a name to keep up and engage to a swell fellow like Mr. Schwartz. Say, listen, my girl, replied Joe Haley. The law don't cover all the tricks, but if stuffing an order was a criminal offence I'll bet your swell travelling man would be doing a life term. Ted worked that day with his teeth set so that his jaws ached next morning. Minnie Wensel spoke to him only when necessary, and then in terms of dollars and cents. When dinner time came she divested herself of the black satine sleeveless, wriggled from the shoulders down, a la Patricia O'Brien, produced a chamois skin, and disappeared in the direction of the washroom. Ted waited until the dining room was almost deserted, then he went into dinner alone. Someone in white, wearing an absurd little pocket-hanker-chief of an apron, led him to a seat in a far corner of the big room. Ted did not lift his eyes higher than the snowy square of the apron. The apron drew out a chair, shoved it under Ted's knees, in the way aprons have, and thrust a printed menu at him. Roast beef medium, said Ted, without looking up. Bless your heart, you ain't changed a bit. I remember how you used to jaw when it was too well done, said the apron fondly. Ted's head came up with a jerk. So you were cut your old friends, is it? Grinned birdie callahan. Thus wasn't a public dining room maybe could shake hands with the poor but proud working girl. You're as good-looking and devil as ever, Mr. Ted. Ted's hand shot out and grasped hers. Birdie, I could weep on your apron. I never was so glad to see anyone in my life. Just a look at you makes me homesick. What in Sam Hill are you doing here? Lighten, after your mom died, seemed like it didn't care to work for no other private family. So I came back here on my old job, all the better than the homeless head waitress in captivity. Ted's nervous fingers were pleading the tablecloth. His voice sank to a whisper. Birdie, tell me the God's truth. Did those three years cause her death? Never, lied birdie. I was withered to the end. I started with a cold in the chest. Have some french fried with your beef, Mr. Teddie. They're elegant today. Birdie glided off to the kitchen. Authors are fond of the word glide, but you can take it literally this time. Birdie had a face that looked like a huge mistake, but she walked like a panther, and there said to be the last cry as gliders. She walked with her chin up and her hips firm. That comes from juggling trays. You have to walk like that to keep your nose out of the soup. After a while, the walk becomes a habit. Any seasoned dining room girl could give lessons in walking to the delzarte teacher of an eastern finishing school. From the day that Birdie Callaghan served Ted with the roast beef medium and the elegant french fried, she appointed herself monitor over his food in clothes and morals. I wish I could find words to describe his bitter loneliness. He did not seek companionship. The men, although not directly avoiding him, seemed somehow to a pressing business whenever they happened in his vicinity. The women ignored him. Mrs. Dankworth, still dashing and still widowed, passed Ted one day and looked fixedly at a point one inch above his head. In a town like ours, the Haley House is like a big hospitable clubhouse. The men drop in there the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, to hear the gossip and buy a cigar and jolly the girl at the cigar counter. Ted spoke to them when they spoke to him. He began to develop a certain grim line about the mouth. Joe Haley watched him from afar, and the longer he watched, the kinder and more speculative grew the look in his eyes. And slowly and surely, there grew in the hearts of our townspeople a certain new respect and admiration for this boy who was fighting his fight. Ted got into the habit of taking his meals late so that Bertie Callahan could take the time to talk to him. Bertie, he said one day when she brought his soup, do you know that you're the only decent woman who will talk to me? Do you know what I mean when I say that I'd give the rest of my life if I could just put my head in my mother's lap and have her musse up my hair and call me foolish names? Bertie Callahan cleared her throat and said abruptly, I was noticing yesterday your gray pants need pressing bad. Bring them down tomorrow morning, and I'll give them the elegant crease in the laundry. So the first weeks went by, and the two months of Miss Wenzel's stay came to an end. Ted thanked his God and tried hard not to wish that she was a man so that he could punch her head. The day before the time appointed for her departure, she was closeted with Joe Haley for a long, long time. When she finally emerged, a bellboy lounged up to Ted with a message. Wenzel says the old man wants to see you. Soon his office. Say, Mr. Cheryl, do you think they can play today? It's pretty wet. Joe Haley was sunk in the depths of his big leather chair. He did not look up as Ted entered. Sit down, he said. Ted sat down and waited, puzzled. As a wizard at figures, used Joe Haley at last softly as though to himself, I'm a frost. Columna figures on paper makes my head swim, but I can carry a whole regiment of them in my head. I know every time the barkeeper draws one in the dark. I've been watching this thing for the last two weeks, hoping you'd quit and come and tell me. He turned suddenly and faced Ted. Ted, old kid, he said sadly. What in hell made you do it again? What's the joke? Said Ted. Not Ted, remonstrated Joe Haley. That way of talking won't help matters none. As I said, I'm rotten at figures, but you're the first investment that ever turned out bad, and let me tell you, I've handled some mighty bad-smelling ones. Why, kid, if you had just come to me on the quiet and asked for the loan of a hundred or so wa- What's the joke, Joe? Said Ted again slowly. This ain't my notion of a joke, came the terse answer. We're 300 short. The last vestige of Ted Terrell's old-time radiance seemed to flicker and die, leaving him ashen and old. Short? He repeated. Then, my God, in a strangely colorless voice. My God! He looked down at his fingers impersonally as though they belonged to someone else. Then his hand clutched Joe Haley's arm with a grip of fear. Joe, Joe, that's the thing that has haunted me day and night to my nerves raw. The fear of doing it again. Don't laugh at me, will you? I used to lie awake nights going over that cursed business of the bank over and over till the cold sweat would break out all over me. I used to figure it all out again, step by step until Joe could a man steal and not know it. Could think of a thing like that drive a man crazy? Because if it could, if it could, then... I don't know, said Joe Haley. But it sounds darn fishy. He had a hand on Ted's shaking shoulder and was looking into the white-drawn face. I had great plans for you, Ted, but many Wenzels got it all down on slips of paper. I might as well call her in again and we'll have the whole blame thing out. Many Wenzel came. In her hand were slips of paper and books with figures in them. And Ted looked and saw things written in his own hand that should not have been there. And he covered his shamed face with his two hands and gave thanks that his mother was dead. There came three sharp wraps at the office door. The tense figures within jumped nervously. Keep out! Called Joe Haley. Whoever you are. Whereupon the door opened and Birdie Callahan breezed in. Get out, Birdie Callahan! Ror Joe. You're in the wrong pew. Birdie closed the door behind her composedly and came farther into the room. Pete, the pastry cook, just tells me that many Wenzel told the day clerk. Who told the barkeep? Who told the janitor? Who told the chef? Who told Pete that many had caught Ted's deal in some three hundred dollars? Ted took a quick step forward. Birdie, for heaven's sake, keep out of this. You can't make things any better. You may believe in me, but where's the money? Asked Birdie. Ted stared at her a moment, his mouth open ludicrously. Why, I don't know. He articulated painfully. I never thought of that. Birdie snorted defiantly. I thought so. Do you know? So should we. I was visiting with my Aunt Miss Marquay he last evening. There was a quick rustle of silks from many Wenzel's direction. Say, look here. Began, Joe Haley, impatiently. Shut up, Joe Haley. Snap Birdie. As I was saying, I was visiting with my Aunt Miss Marquay. She does fancy washing and iron for the swells. And many Wenzel, there be a non-sweller, hires her to do up her wedding, and in such smears of hand embroidery and Irish crochet, she never see the likes, Miss Marquay he says, and she's seen a lot. And as a special treat to the poor old soul, why, many Wenzel let's her see some of her wedding clothes. The navigate was a woman who could resist showing her wedding things to every other woman she could lay hands on. Well, Miss Marquay he, she sees that grand dress so she says she never saw the bead. Dresses? Well, her going away soon alone comes to $80 first being made by Mulkowski, the little Polish tailor. And her wedding dress is sat in to your mind. But what's a real treat for my Aunt Miss Marquay he? Birdie walked over to where many Wenzel sat very wide. And still, and pointed a stubby red finger in her face. Tis the grand manager you are, Miss Wenzel, getting satins and tailor-maids on your salary. I take a woman, many Wenzel, to see through a woman's drakes. Well, I'll be dinged, exploded Joe Haley. Get better be, retorted Birdie Callaghan. Many Wenzel stood up, her lip caught between her teeth. Am I to understand, Joe Haley, that you dare to accuse me of taking your filthy money instead of that miserable ex-con there who has done time? That'll do, many, said Joe Haley gently. That's a plenty. Prove it, went on, many, and then looked as though she wished she hadn't. A business college education is a grand fine thing, observed Birdie. Miss Wenzel is a graduate of one. They teach you everything from drawn birds with tail feathers to plain and fancy penmanship. In fact, they teach you everything in the right line at Set Forgery. And I ain't so sure they haven't got a course on that. Don't care, whimpered many Wenzel suddenly, sinking in a limp heap on the floor. I had to do it. I'm marrying a swell fellow and a girl's got to have some clothes that don't look like a bird's center dressmaker's work. He's got three sisters. I saw their pictures and they're coming to the wedding. They're the kind that wear low-neck dresses in the evening and have their hair and nails done downtown. I haven't got a thing but my looks. Could I go to New York dress like a rube? On the square, Joe, I worked here six years and never took a sow. But things got away from me. The tailor wouldn't finish my suit unless I paid him $50 down. I only took $50 at first, intending to pay it back. Honest to goodness, Joe, I did. Cut it out, said Joe Haley, and get up. I was going to give you a check for your wedding, though I hadn't counted on no 300. We'll call it Square, and I hope you'll be happy, but I don't gamble on it. You'll be going through your man's pants pockets before you're married a year. You can take your hat and fade. I'd like to know how I'm ever going to square this thing with Ted and Bertie. Let me stand in here gassing while them fool girls in the dining room can't set a decent table and dinner in less than ten minutes. Cried Bertie rushing off. Ted mumbled something unintelligible and was after her. Bertie, I want to talk to you. Say it quick, then, said Bertie over her shoulder. The door's open in three minutes. I can't tell you how grateful I am. This is no place to talk to you. Will you let me walk home with you tonight after your work's done? Will I, said Bertie, turning to face him? I will not. The swell mob has shook you. And a good thing it is. You was travelling with a bunch of racers when you was only built for medium speed. Now you've got your chance to a fresh start and don't you ever think I'm gonna be the one to let you spoil it by beginning to walk out with a dining room Lizzie like me? Don't say that, Bertie, Ted put in. That's the truth, affirmed Bertie. Not that I ain't a perfectly respectable girl. And you know it, I'm a good slob. But folks would be tickled for the chance to say that you had nobody to go with but the likes of me. If I was to let you walk home with me tonight, you might be asking to call next week. Inside half a year, if you was lonesome enough, you'd ask me to marry you. On the gore, she said softly, looking down at her unlovely red hands. I'm dead scared I'd do it. Get back to work, Ted Tarrell, and hold your head up high. And when you say your prayers tonight, thank your lucky stars, I ain't a hussy. End of story two. The man who came back, of buttered side down. Story three. What she wore, of buttered side down. This leap of ox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Madeira. Buttered side down by Edna Ferber. Story three. What she wore. Somewhere in your story, you must pause to describe your heroine's costume. It is a ticklish task. The average reader likes his heroine well-dressed. He is not satisfied with knowing that she looked like a tall, fair lily. He wants to be told that her gown was a green crepe, with lace ruffles that swirled at her feet. Writers used to go so far as to name the dressmaker, and it was a poor kind of heroine who didn't wear a red velvet by worth. But that has been largely abandoned in these days at commissions, still when the heroine goes out on the terrace to spoon after dinner, a quaint old English custom for the origin of which see any novel by the Duchess, page 179. The average reader wants to know what sort of a filmy wrap she snatches up on the way out. He demands a description, with as many illustrations as the publisher will stand for, of what she wore from the bedroom to the street, with full stops for the ribbons on her robe denuit, and the buckles on her ballroom slippers. Half the poor creatures one sees flattening their noses against the shop windows are authors getting a line on the advance fashions. Suppose a careless writer were to dress his heroine in a full-plated skirt, only to find when his story is published four months later that full-plated skirts have been relegated to the dim past. I started to read a story once. It was a good one. There was in it not a single allusion to Brandy and Soda, or Divorce, or the stock market. The dialogue crackled, the hero talked like a live man. It was a ship-board story, and the heroine was charming so long as she wore her heavy ulster. But along toward evening she blossomed forth in a yellow gown with a scarlet poinsettia at her throat. I quit her cold. Nobody ever wore a scarlet poinsettia—or if they did, they couldn't wear it on a yellow gown. Or if they did wear it with a yellow gown, they didn't wear it at the throat. Scarlet poinsettias aren't worn anyhow. To this day I don't know whether the heroine married the hero or jumped overboard. You see, one can't be too careful about clothing one's heroine. I hesitate to describe Sophie Epstein's dress. You won't like it. In the first place it was cut too low, front and back for a shoe-clerk in a downtown loft. It was a black dress, near princess and style, very tight as to fit, very short as to skirt, very sleazy as to material. It showed all the delicate curves of Sophie's underfed, girlish body, and Sophie didn't care a bit. Its most objectionable feature was at the throat. Collarless gowns were in vogue. Sophie's daring shears had gone a snipper too far there. They had cut a startlingly generous V to say that the dress was elbow-sleeved is superfluous. I have said that Sophie clerked in a downtown loft. Sophie sold sample shoes at two fifty a pair, and from where you were standing you thought they looked just like the shoes that were sold in the regular shops for six. When Sophie sat on one of the low benches at the feet of some customer tugging away at a refractory shoe, for a would-be small foot, her shameless little gown exposed more than it should have. But few of Sophie's customers were shocked. They were mainly chorus girls and ladies of doubtful complexion in search of cheap and ultra-foot gear, and, to use a health term, hardened by exposure. Have I told you how pretty she was? She was so pretty that you immediately forgave her the indecency of her pitiful little gown. She was pretty in a daringly demure fashion, like a wicked little Puritan, or a poverty-stricken Cleo dimmer road, with her smooth brown hair parted in the middle, drawn severely down over her ears, framing the lovely oval of her face, and ending in a simple coil at the neck. Some serpent's wisdom had told Sophie to a shoe puffs, but I think her prettiness could have triumphed even over those. If Sophie's boss had been any other sort of man, he would have informed Sophie sternly that black princess effects cut low, were not or fate in the show-clerk world. But Sophie's boss had a rhombic nose, and no instep, and the tale of his name had been amputated. He didn't care how Sophie wore her dresses so long as she sold shoes. Once the boss had kissed Sophie, not on the mouth, but just where her shabby gown formed its charming but immodest V. Sophie had slapped him, of course. But the slap had not set the thing right in her mind. She could not forget it. It had made her uncomfortable in much the same way as we are wildly ill at ease when we dream of walking naked in a crowded street. At odd moments during the day Sophie had found herself rubbing the spot furiously with her unlovely handkerchief and shivering a little. She had never told the other girls about that kiss. So there you have Sophie and her costume. You may take her or leave her. I purposefully placed these defects in costuming right at the beginning of the story so that there should be no false pretenses. One more detail about Sophie's throat was a slender, near-gold chain from which was suspended a cheap and glittering La Valière. Sophie had not intended it as a sob to the conventions. It was an offering on the shrine of fashion, and represented many lunchless days. At eleven o'clock one August morning Louis came to Chicago from Okaloosa, Iowa. There was no hay in his hair. The comic papers have long insisted that the country boy on his first visit to the city is known by his greased boots and his high waterpans. Don't you believe them. The small town boy is as fastidious about the height of his heels and the stripe of his shift and the role of his hat brim as are his city brothers. He peruses the slangily worded ads of the classy clothes tailors, and when scarlet cravats are worn the small town boy is not more than two weeks late in acquiring one that glows like a headlight. Louis found a rooming house, shoved his suitcase under the bed, changed his collar, washed his hands in the gritty water of the wash bowl, and started out to look for a job. Louis was twenty-one. For the last four years he had been employed in the best shoe store at home, and he knew shoe leather from the factory to the ash barrel. It was almost a religion with him. Curiosity, which plays leads in so many life dramas, led Louis to the rotunda of the tallest building. It was built on the hollow centre plan with a sheer drop from the twenty-somethingth to the main floor. Louis stationed himself in the centre of the mosaic floor, took off his hat, bent backward, almost double engaged, his mouth wide open. When he brought his muscles slowly back into normal position, he tried hard not to look impressed. He glanced about sheepishly to see if anyone was laughing at him, and his eye encountered the electric lighted glass display case of the shoe company upstairs. The case was filled with pink satin slippers and cunning velvet boots, and the newest thing in bronze street shoes. Louis took the next elevator up. The shoe display had made him feel as though someone from home had slapped him on the back. The god of the jobless was with him. The boss had fired two boys the day before. Oh, Calusa! grinned the boss derisively. Do they wear shoes there? What do you know about shoes, huh, boy? Louis told him. The boss shuffled the papers on his desk and chewed his cigar, and tried not to show his surprise. Louis, quite innocently, was teaching the boss things about the shoe business. When Louis had finished, Well, I try you anyhow, the boss grunting grudgingly. I give you so and so much. He named a wage that would have been ridiculous if it had not been so pathetic. All right, sir, answered Louis promptly, like the boys in the Alger series. The cost of living problem had never bothered Louis and Oskaloosa. The boss hid a pleased smile. Miss Epstein, he bellowed, stepped this way. Miss Epstein kindly show this here young man so he gets a line on the stock. He is from Oskaloosa, Iowa. Look out, she don't sell you a gold brick, Louis. But Louis was not listening. He was gazing at the V in Sophie Epstein's dress with all his scandalized Oskaloosa, Iowa eyes. Louis was no mollycoddle, but he had been in great demand as usher at the young men's Sunday evening club service at the congregational church, and in his town there had been no Sophie Epstein's in too tight princess dresses cut into a careless V. But Sophie was a city product. I was about to say pure and simple, but I will not. Wise, bold, young, old, underfed, overworked, and triumphantly pretty. How do? could Sophie in her best baby tones. Louis' disapproving eyes jumped from the objectionable V in Sophie's dress to the lure of Sophie's face, and their expression underwent a lightning change. There was no disapproving Sophie's face, no matter how long one had dwelt in Oskaloosa. I won't bite you. I never vicious on Tuesdays. We'll start here with the misses and childrens and work over to the other side. Whereupon Louis was introduced into the intricacies of the sample shoe business, he kept his eyes resolutely away from the V and learned many things. He learned how shoes that looked like six dollar values may be sold for 250. He looked on in wide-eyed horror while Sophie fitted a number five C shoe on a six B foot and assured the wearer that it looked like a made-to-order boot. He picked up a pair of dull-kid shoes and looked at them. His leather-wise eyes saw much, and I think he would have taken his hat off the hook and his offended business principles out of the shop forever if Sophie had not completed her purchase and strolled over to him at the psychological moment. She smiled up at him impudently. Well, pink cheeks, she said. How do you like a little settlement by the lake, huh? These shoes aren't worth 250, said Louis, indignation in his voice. Well, sure, replied Sophie. I know it. What do you think this is? A charity bizarre? But back home, began Louis hotly. Forget it, kid, said Sophie. This is a big town, but it ain't got no room for back-homers. Don't sour on one job till you've got another nailed. You'll find yourself cuddling down on a park bench if you do. Say, are you honestly from Oskaloosa? I certainly am, answered Louis with pride. My goodness, ejaculated Sophie. I never believed there was no such place. Don't brag about it to the other fellows. What time do you go out for lunch? Asked Louis. What's it to you? With the accent on the two. When I want to know a thing, I generally ask. Explain Louis gently. Sophie looked at him. A long, keen, knowing look. You'll learn, she observed thoughtfully. Louis did learn. He learned so much in that first week that when Sunday came it seemed as though eons had passed over his head. He learned that the crime of murder was as nothing compared to the crime of allowing a customer to depart shoeless. He learned that the lunch hour was invented for the purpose of making dates, that no one had ever heard of Oskaloosa, Iowa, that seven dollars a week does not leave much margin for laundry and general recklessness, that a Madonna face above a V-cut gown is apt to distract one's attention from shoes, that a hundred dollar nest egg is as effective in Chicago as a pine stick would be in propping up a stone wall, and that all the other men clerks called Sophie sweetheart. Some of his newly acquired knowledge brought pain, as knowledge is apt to do. He saw that State Street was crowded with Sophie's during the noon hour. Girls with lovely faces under pitifully absurd hats. Girls who aped the fashions of the dazzling creatures they saw stepping from limousines. Girls who starved body and soul in order to possess a set of false curls, or a pair of black satin shoes with mother of pearl buttons. Girls whose minds were bounded on the north by the nickel theatres, on the east by I says to him, on the south by the gorgeous shop windows, and on the west by he says to me. Oh, I can't tell you how much Louis learned in that first week while his eyes were getting accustomed to the shifting jostling, pushing, giggling, walking, talking throng. The city is justly famed as a hot house of forced knowledge. One thing Louis could not learn. He could not bring himself to accept the V in Sophie's dress. Louis's mother had been one of the old-fashioned kind who wore a blue and white checked gingham apron from six a.m. to two p.m., when she took it off to go downtown and help the ladies of the church at the cake sale in the empty window of the gas company's office, only to don it again when she fried the potatoes for supper. Among other things she had taught Louis to wipe his feet before coming in, to respect and help women, and to change his socks often. After a month of Chicago Louis forgot the first lesson, had more difficulty than I can tell you in referencing a woman who only said, I don't get fresh now, when the other men put their arms about her and adhered to the third only after a struggle in which he had to do a small private washing in his own wash bowl in the evening. Sophie called him a stiff. His gravely, courteous treatment of her made her vaguely uncomfortable. She was past mistress in the art of parrying insults and banter, but she had no reply ready for Louis's boyish air of deference. It angered her for some unreasonable woman reason. There came a day when the V-cut dress brought them to open battle. I think Sophie had appeared that morning minus the chain in Lavalier. Frail and cheap as it was, it had been the only barrier that separated Sophie from Frank shamelessness. Louis outraged since a propriety asserted itself. Sophie, he stammered during a quiet half hour. I'll call for you and take you to the nickel show tonight if you promise not to wear that dress. What makes you wear that kind of a get-up anyway? Dress, queried Sophie, looking down at the shiny front breath of her frock. Why, don't you like it? Like it? No, blurted Louis. Don't you really? Dear me, dear me, if I'd only knew that this morning. As a general thing I wear white duck complete down to work, but I'm saving my last two clean suits for golf. Louis ran an uncomfortable finger around the edge of his collar, but he stood his ground. It shows your neck, so he objected miserably. Sophie opened her great eyes wide. Well, supposing it does, she inquired coolly. It's a perfectly good neck, ain't it? Louis, his face very red, took the plunge. I don't know, I guess so, but Sophie, it looks so, so you know what I mean. I hate to see the way the fellows rubber at you. Why don't you wear those plain shirt-waist things with high collars like my mother wears back home? Sophie's teeth came together with a click. She laughed a short, cruel little laugh. Say, pink cheeks, did you ever do a wash-in from 7 to 12 after you got home from work in the evening? It's great, especially when you're living in a 6x10 room with all the modern inconveniences, including no water, except on the third floor down. Simple, say a child could work it, all you got to do when you get home so tired, your back teeth ache is to haul your water and soak your clothes and then rub them till your hands peel and rinse them and boil them and blew them and starch them. See, just like that. Nothing to it, kid. Nothing to it. Louis had been twisting his fingers nervously. Now his hands shut themselves into fists. He looked straight into Sophie's angry eyes. I do know what it is, he said quite simply. There's been a lot written and said about women's struggle with clothes. I wonder why they've never said anything about the way a man has to fight to keep up the things they call appearances. God knows it's pathetic enough to think of a girl like you bending over a tub full of clothes, but when a man has to do it, it's a tragedy. That's so, agreed Sophie. When a girl gets shabby and her clothes begin to look tacky, she can take a gore or sew out of her skirt where it's the most war and catch it in at the bottom and call it a hobble, and when her waist gets too soiled, she can cover up the front of it with a jabbit. And if her face is pretty enough, she can carry it off that way. But when a man is seedy, he's seedy. He can't sew no ruffles on his pants. I ran short last week, continued Louie, but his, shorter than usual, I hadn't the fifty cents to give to the woman. You ought to see her, a little gray-faced thing with wisps of hair and no chest to speak of, and one of those mash-looking black hats. Nobody could have the nerve to ask her to wait for her money. So I did my own washing. I haven't learned to wear soil clothes yet. I laughed, fit to bust while I was doing it, but I'll bet my mother dreamed of me that night. The way they do, you know, when something's gone wrong. Sophie perched on the third rung that the sliding ladder was gazing at him. Her lips were parted slightly, and her cheeks were very pink. On her face was a new, strange look, as if something had forgotten. It was as though the spirit of Sophie, as she might have been, were inhabiting her soul for a brief moment. At Louie's next words, the look was gone. Can't you sew something, a lacy oak, or whatever you call them, in that dress? He persisted. Oh, a fade. Jeered, Sophie. When a girl's only got one dress, it's got to have some tongue to it. Maybe this gown would cause a wave of indignation in Oskaloosa, Iowa, but it don't even make a ripple on State Street. It takes more than an aggravated Dutch neck to make a fellow look at a girl these days. In a town like this, a girl's got to make a show in some way. I'm my own stage manager. They look at my dress first and grin, see? And then they look at my face. I'm like the girl in the story. My face is my fortune. It's earned me many a square meal, and let me tell you, pink cheeks eating square meals is one of my favorite pastimes. Say, look at here. Bellow the boss, wrathfully. Just cut out this here Romeo and Juliet act, will you? That there latter ain't for no balcony scene understand? Here, you Louie. You shinny up there and get down a pair of them brown satin pumps small size. Sophie continued to wear the black dress. The V-cut neck seemed more flaunting than ever. It was two weeks later that Louie came in from lunch, his face radiant. He was fifteen minutes late, but he listened to the boss's ravings with a smile. You grin like somebody handed you a ten-case note, commented Sophie with a woman's curiosity. I guess you must have met some room from home when you was out to lunch. Better than that. Who do you think I bumped right into in the elevator going down? Well, brother bones, mimicked Sophie. Who did you meet in the elevator going down? I met a man named Ames. He used to travel for a big Boston shoe house, and he made our town every few months. We got to be good friends. I took him home for Sunday dinner once, and he said it was the best dinner he'd had in months. You know how tired those traveling men get of hotel grope. Cut out the description and get down to action. Snap Sophie. Well, he knew me right away, and he made me go out to lunch with him. A real lunch starting with soup. Gee, it went big. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was working here, and he opened his eyes, and then he laughed and said, How did you get into that joint? Then he took me down to a swell little shoe shop on State Street, and it turned out that he owns it. He introduced me all around, and I'm going there to work next week, and wages. Well, I say it's almost a salary. A fellow can hold his head up in a place like that. When you leave in, asked Sophie slowly. Monday, gee, it seems a year away. Sophie was late Saturday morning. When she came in hurriedly, her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes glowed. She took off her hat and coat, and fell to straightening boxes, and putting out stock without looking up. She took no part in the talk and jest that was going on among the other clerks. One of the men, in search of the missing mate to the shoe in his hand, came over to her, greeting her carelessly. Then he stared. Wow, what do you know about this? He called out to the others and laughed coarsely. Ha-ha-ha! Look! Stop! Listen! Little Sophie bright eyes here has pulled down the shades. Louis turned quickly. The immodest bee of Sophie's gown was filled with a black lace yoke that came up to the very lobes of her little pink ears. She had got some scraps of lace from— Where do they get those bits of rusty black? From some basement bargain counter, perhaps raked over during the lunch hour. There were nine pieces in the front, and seven in the back. She had sat up half the night putting them together so that when completed they looked like one if he didn't come too close. There is a certain strain of Indian patience and ingenuity in women that no man has ever been able to understand. Louis looked up and saw. His eyes met Sophie's. In his there crept a certain exultant gleam as of one who had fought for something great and one. Sophie saw the look. The shy questioning in her eyes was replaced by a spark of defiance. She tossed her head and turned to the man who had called attention to her costume. Who's loony now? she jeered. I always put in a yoke when it gets along toward fall. My lungs is delicate. And anyway I see by the papers yesterday that collar that's gowns is slightly past safe for winter. End of story three of buttered side down Story four a bush league hero of buttered side down This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Madeira. Story four a bush league hero of buttered side down by Edna Ferber. This is not a baseball story. The grandstand does not rise as one man and shout itself horse with joy. There isn't a three-bagger in the entire three thousand words and nobody has carried home on the shoulders of the crowd. For that sort of thing you need not squander fifteen cents on your favorite magazine. The modest sum of one cent will make you the possessor of a pinken. There you will find the season's games handled masterly fashion by a sixth bestseller artist, an expert mathematician, and an original slang humorist. No mere short story dub may hope to compete with these. In the old days, before the gentry of the ring had learned the wisdom of investigating their winnings in solids instead of liquids, this used to be a favorite conundrum. When is a prize fighter, not a prize fighter? Chorus, when he is tending bar. I rise to ask you, brother fan, when is a ball player, not a ball player? Above the storm of facetious replies I shout the answer. When he's a shoe clerk, any man who can look handsome in a dirty baseball suit is an adonis. There is something about the baggy pants and the macabre-shaped collar and the skull-fitting cap and the foot or so of tan or blue or pink undershirt sleeves sticking out of the arms that just naturally kills a man's best points. Then, too, a baseball suit requires so much in the matter of leg. Therefore, when I say that Rudy Schluckweiler was a dream even in his baseball uniform, with a dirty brown streak right up the side of the pants where he had slid for base, you may know that the girls camped on the grounds during the season. During the summer months our ballpark is to us what the Grand Prix is to Paris or Ascot is to London. What care we that Evers gets seven thousand a year or is it a month? Or that Chicago's new Southside ballpark seats thirty-five thousand or is it million? Of what interest are such meager items compared with the knowledge that Pug Coulon, who plays short, goes with Undyne Myers, the girl up there in the eighth row, with the pink dress and the red roses on her hat? When Pug snatches a high one out of the firmament we yell with delight and even as we yell we turn sideways to look up and see how Undyne is taking it. Undyne's shining eyes are fixed on Pug and he knows it. Stoops to brush the dust off his dirt-begrimmed baseball pants takes an attitude of careless grace and misses the next play. Our grandstand seats almost two thousand, counting the boxes, but only the snobs and the girls with new hats sit in the boxes. Box seats are comfortable, it is true, and they cost only an additional ten cents, but we have come to consider them undemocratic and unworthy of true fans. Mrs. Freddie Van Dyne, who spends her winters in Egypt and her summers at the ballpark, comes out to the game every afternoon in her automobile, but she never occupies a box seat, so why should we? She perches up in the grandstand with the rest of the enthusiasts and when Kelly puts one over she stands up and clenches her fists and waves her arms and shouts with the best of them. She has even been known to cry, good eye, good eye, when things were at fever heat. The only really blasé individual in the ballpark is Willie Grimes, who pedals ice cream cones. For that matter, I once saw Willie turn a languid head to pipe in his thin voice. Give him a dark one, Dutch. Give him a dark one. Well, that will do for the first dash of local colour. Now for the story. Ivy Keller came home June 19th for Miss Chant's select school for young ladies. By June 21 she was bored limp. You could hardly see the plates of her white tailored shirt waist for fraternity pins and secret society emblems, and her bedroom was ablaze with college banners and pennants to such an extent that the maid gave notice every Thursday, which was upstairs cleaning day. For two weeks after her return, Ivy spent most of her time writing letters and waiting for them, and reading the classics on the front porch, dressed in a midi, blouse, and a blue skirt, with her hair done in a curly Greek effect like the girls on the covers of the ladies magazine. She posed against the canvas bosom of the porch chair with one foot under her, the other swinging free, showing a tempting thing in beaded slipper, silk stocking, and what the story writers call slim ankle. On the second Saturday, after her return, her father came home for dinner at noon, found her asleep in volume two of Les Misérables. This is a scorcher, he exclaimed, and dropped down on a wicker chair next to Ivy. Ivy looked at her father with languid interest, and smiled a daughterly smile. Ivy's father was an insurance man, alderman of his ward, president of the Civic Improvement Club, member of five lodges, and an habitual delegate. It generally was he who introduced distinguished guests who spoke at the opera house on decoration day. He called Mrs. Keller mother, and he wasn't above noticing the fit of a gown on a pretty feminine figure. He thought Ivy was an expurgated edition of Lillian Russell, Madame de Steyl, and Mrs. Pinkburst. Are you feeling well, Ivy? He asked. Looking a little pale. It's the heat, I suppose. Gosh, something smells good. Run in and tell mother I'm here. Ivy kept one slender finger between the leaves of her bow. I'm perfectly well, she replied. That must be beef steak and onions. And she shuttered and went indoors. Dad Keller looked at her thoughtfully. Then he went in, washed his hands, and sat down at table with Ivy and her mother. Just a sliver for me, said Ivy, and no onions. Her father put down his knife and fork, cleared his throat, and spake thus. You get on your hat and meet me at the two forty-five into urban. You're going to the ball game with me. Ball game? Repeated Ivy, I, but I— Yes, you do, interrupted her father. You've been moping around here looking across between St. Cecilia and Little Eva long enough. I don't care if you don't know a spitball from a fadeaway when you see it. You'll be out in the air all afternoon, and there'll be some excitement. All the girls go. You'll like it. They're playing Marshalltown. Ivy went, looking the sacrificial lamb. Five minutes after the game was called, she pointed one tapering white finger in the direction of the pitcher's mound. Who's that? she asked. Pitcher explained Papa Keller leconically, then patiently, he throws the ball. Oh, said Ivy. What did you say his name was? No, I didn't say, but it's Rudy Schlockweiler. The boys call him Dutch, kind of a pet, Dutchess. Rudy Schlockweiler murmured Ivy dreamily. What a strong name. Want some peanuts? Enquired her father. Does one eat peanuts at a ball game? It ain't hardly legal if you don't, Pa Keller assured her. Two sacks, said Ivy. Papa, why do they call it a diamond? And what are those brown bags at the corners? And what does it count if you hit the ball? And why do they rub their hands in the dust and then spit on them? And what salary does a pitcher get? And why does the red haired man on the other side dance around like that between the second and third brown bag? And doesn't a pitcher do anything but pitch and wa- You're on, said Papa. After that, Ivy didn't miss a game during all the time that the team played in the hometown. She went without a new hat and didn't care whether Jean Valjean got away with the goods or not. And forgot whether you played third hand high or low and bridge. She even became chummy with Undyne Myers, who wasn't her kind of a girl at all. Undyne was thin in a voluptuous kind of way. If such a paradox can be, and she had red lips and a roving eye, and she ran around downtown without a hat more than was strictly necessary. But Undyne and Ivy had two subjects in common. They were baseball and love. It is queer how the limelight will make heroes of us all. Now Pug Coulon, who was red haired and had shoulders like an ox and arms that hung down to his knees like those of an orangutan, slaughtered bees at the Chicago stockyards in winter. In the summer he slaughtered hearts. He wore mustard-colored shirts that matched his hair, and his baseball stockings generally had a rip in them somewhere. But when he was on the diamond, we were almost ashamed to look at Undyne. So wholly did her heart shine in her eyes. Now we'll just have another dash or two of local color. In a small town, the chances for hero worship are few. If it weren't for the traveling men, our girls wouldn't know whether stripes or checks were the thing in gents' suitings. When the baseball season opened, the girls swarmed on it. Those that didn't understand baseball pretended they did. When the team was out of town, our form of greeting was changed from good morning, or howdy-do, to what's the score? Every night the results of the games throughout the league were posted up on the blackboard in front of Schlager's hardware store, and to see the way in which the crowd stood around it, and streamed across the street toward it, you'd have thought they were giving away gas stoves and hammock couches. Going home in the streetcar after the game the girls used to gaze adoringly at the dirty faces of their sweat-begrimed heroes, and then they'd rush home, have supper, change their dresses, do their hair, and rush downtown past the Parker Hotel to mail their letters. The baseball boys boarded over at the Griggs House, which is third class, but they used their toothpicks and held the post-mortem of the day's game out in front of the Parker Hotel, which is our leading hostelry. The post office receipts record for our town was broken during the months of June, July, and August. Mrs. Freddy Van Dyne started the trouble by having the team over to dinner. Pug, Cullen, and all. After all, why not? No foreign and impecunious princes penetrate as far inland as our town. They get only as far as New York, or Newport, where they are gobbled up by many-moneyed matrons. If Mrs. Freddy Van Dyne found the supply of available lions limited, why should she not try to content herself with a jackal or so? Ivy was asked. Until then she had contented herself with gazing at her hero. She had become such a hardened baseball fan that she followed the game with a scorecard, accurately jotting down every play, and keeping her watch open on her knee. She sat next to Rudy at dinner. Before she had nibbled her second salted almond, Ivy Keller and Rudy Schlockweiler understood each other. Rudy illustrated certain plays by drawing lines on the tablecloth with his knife and Ivy gazed, wide-eyed, and allowed her soup to grow cold. The first night that Rudy called, Pa Keller thought a great joke. He sat out on the porch with Rudy and Ivy in talked baseball, and got up to show Rudy how he could have got the goat of that K. O. Cook catcher if only he had tried one of his famous open-face throws. Rudy looked politely interested, and laughed in all the right places. But Ivy didn't need to pretend. Rudy Schlockweiler spelled baseball to her. She did not think of her collar as a good-looking young man in a blue surge suit and a white shirt waist. Even as he sat there, she saw him as a blonde god standing on the pitcher's mound, with the scars of battle on his baseball pants, his left foot placed in front of him at right angles with his right foot, his gaze fixed on first base as a cunning effort to deceive the man at bat. In that favorite attitude of pitchers, just before they get ready to swing their left leg and hissed one over. The second time that Rudy called, Ma Keller said, Ivy, I don't like that ballplayer coming here to see you. The neighbors will talk. The third time, Rudy called, Pa Keller said, what's that guy doing here again? The fourth time Rudy called Pa Keller and Ma Keller said in unison, this thing has got to stop. But it didn't. It had had too good a start. For the rest of the season, Ivy met her knight of the sphere around the corner. Theirs was a walking courtship. They used to roam up as far as the state road and down as far as the river. And Rudy would feign have talked of love, but Ivy talked of baseball. Darling, pressing Ivy's arm closer, when did you first begin to care? Why, I liked the very first game I saw when dad, I mean, when did you first begin to care for me? Oh, when you put three men out in that game with Marshalltown when the teams were tied in the eighth inning, remember? Say, Rudy, dear, what was the matter with your arm today? You let three men walk and Albie, as weakest hitter, got a home run out of you. Oh, forget baseball for a minute, Ivy. Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about us. Us? Well, you're baseball, aren't you? Retorted Ivy. And if you are, I am. Did you notice the way that autumn one man pitched yesterday? He didn't do any acting for the grandstand. He didn't reach up above his head and wrap his right shoulder with his left toe and swing his arm three times and then throw seven inches outside the plate. He just took the ball in his hand, looked at it curiously for a minute and fired it zing like that over the plate. I'd get that ball if I were you. Isn't this a grand night? murmured Rudy. But they didn't have a hitter in the bunch, went on Ivy. And not a man in the team could run. That's why they're tail-enders. Just the same. That man on the mound was a wizard. And if he had one decent player to give him some support. Well, the thing came to a climax. One evening, two weeks before the close of the season, Ivy put on her hat and announced that she was going downtown to mail her letters. Mail your letters in the daytime, growled Papa Keller. I didn't have time today, answered Ivy. It was a 13 and in game and it lasted until six o'clock. It was then that Papa Keller banged the heavy fist of decision down on the library table. This thing has got to stop, he thundered. I won't have any girl of mine running the streets with a ball player, understand? Now you quit seeing this $75 a month bush leaguer or leave this house. I mean it. All right, said Ivy with white hot calm. I'll leave. I can make the grandest kind of angel food with marshmallow icing and you know yourself my fudges can't be equaled. He'll be playing in the major leagues in three years. Why just yesterday there was a strange man at the game, a city man, you could tell by his hat band and the way his clothes were cut. He stayed through the whole game and never took his eyes off Rudy. I just know he was a scout for the Cubs. Probably a hardware drummer or a fellow that Schlockweiler owes money to. Ivy began to pin on her hat. A scared look leaped into Papa Keller's eyes. He looked a little old too and drawn at that moment. He stretched forth a rather tremulous hand. Ivy girl, he said. What? snapped Ivy. Your old father's just talking for your own good. You're breaking your ma's heart. You and me have been good pals, haven't we? Yes, said Ivy grudgingly and without looking up. Well, now look here. I've got a proposition to make you. The season's over in two more weeks. The last week they play out of town. Then the boys will come back for a week or so just to hang around town and try to get used to the idea of leaving us. Then they'll scatter to take up their winter jobs. Cutting ice, most of them, he added grimly. Mr. Schlockweiler is employed in a large establishment in Slatersville, Ohio, said Ivy with dignity. He regards baseball as his profession, and he cannot do anything that would affect his pitching arm. Pa Keller put on the tremolo stop and brought a misty look into his eyes. Ivy, you'll do one last thing for your old father, won't you? Maybe, answered Ivy coolly. Don't make that fellow any promises. Now wait a minute, let me get through. I won't put any crimp in your plans. I won't speak to Schlockweiler. Promise you won't do anything rash until the ball season's over. Then we'll wait just one month, see, till long about November. Then if you feel like you want to see him... But how? Hold on. Hold on. You mustn't write to him, or see him, or let him write to you during that time, see? Then, if you feel the way you do now, I'll take you to Slatersville to see him. No, that's fair, ain't it? Only don't let him know you're coming. Mm-hmm, yes, said Ivy. Shake hands on it. She did. Then she left the room with a rush headed in the direction of her old bedroom. Pa Keller treated himself to a prodigious wink, and went out to the vegetable garden in search of mother. The team went out on the road, lost five games, one too, and came home in fourth place. For a week they lounged around the Parker Hotel, and held up the street corners downtown, took many farewell drinks, then slowly, by ones and twos. They left for the packing houses, freight depots, and gents furnishing stores from once they came. October came in with a blaze of sumac and oak leaves. Ivy stayed home, and learned to make veal loaf and apple pies. The worry lines around Pa Keller's face began to deepen. Ivy said that she didn't believe that she cared to go back to Ms. Chant's select school for young ladies. October 31st came. We'll take the eight-fifteen tomorrow, said her father to Ivy. All right, said Ivy. Do you know where he works? Asked he. No, answered Ivy. That'll be all right. I took the trouble to look him up last August. The short November afternoon was drawing to its clothes, as our best talent would put it, when Ivy and her father walked along the streets of Slatersville. I can't tell you what streets, because I don't know. Pa Keller brought up before a narrow little shoe shop. Here we are, he said, and ushered Ivy in. A short stout, proprietary figure approached them, smiling a mercantile smile. What can I do for you? He inquired. Ivy's eyes searched the shop for a tall golden-haired form in a soiled baseball suit. We'd like to see a gentleman named Schlachweiler. Rudolph Schlachweiler, said Pa Keller. Anything very special? Inquired the proprietor. He's rather busy just now. Wouldn't anybody else do? Of course, if- no. Growled Keller. The boss turned. Hi, Schlachweiler! He bawled toward the rear of the dim little shop. Yes, sir? Answered a muffled voice. Front! yelled the boss, and withdrew to a safe listening distance. A vaguely troubled look lurked in the depths of Ivy's eyes. From behind the partition of the rear of the shop emerged a tall figure. It was none other than our hero. He was in his shirt sleeves, and he struggled into his coat as he came forward, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, hurriedly and swallowing. I have said that the shop was dim. Ivy and her father stood at one side, their backs to the light. Rudy came forward, rubbing his hands together in the manner of clerks. Something in shoes? He politely inquired. Then he saw. Ivy, Miss Keller, he exclaimed. Then awkwardly. Well, how do, Mr. Keller? I certainly am glad to see you both. How's the old town? What are you doing in Slatersville? Why, Ivy began Pa Keller blunderingly. But Ivy clutched his arm with a warning hand. The vaguely troubled look in her eyes had become wildly so. Schlockwiler shouted the voice of the boss. Customers. And he waved a hand in the direction of the fitting benches. All right, sir, answered Rudy. Just a minute. Dad had to come on business, said Ivy hurriedly. And he brought me with him. I'm—I'm on my way to school in Cleveland, you know. Awfully glad to have seen you again. We must go. That lady wants her shoes, I'm sure, and your employer is glaring at us. Come, Dad. At the door she turned just in time to see Rudy removing the shoe from the pudgy foot of the fat lady customer. We'll take a jump of six months. That brings us into the lap of April. Pa Keller looked up from his evening paper. Ivy, home for the Easter vacation, was at the piano. Ma Keller was sewing. Pa Keller cleared his throat. I see by the paper, he announced, that Schlackweirler's been sold to Des Moines. Too bad we lost him. He was a great little pitcher, but he played him bad luck. Whenever he was on the slab, the boys seemed to give him poor support. Fudge exclaimed Ivy, continuing to play, but turning a spirited face toward her father. What piffle! Whenever a player pitches rotten ball, you'll always hear him howling about the support he didn't get. Schlackweirler was a bum pitcher. Anybody could hit him with a willow wand on a windy day, with the sun in his eyes. End of story four, a Bush League hero of buttered side down.