Like all people who lead useful lives and neither have nor pretend to have acquired tastes for fine-drawn emotion, Otto and Hilda indulged in little mooning. They put aside their burdens--hers of dread, his of despair--and went about the work that had to be done and that healthfully filled almost all their waking moments; and when bed-time came their tired bodies refused either to sit up with their brains or to let their brains stay awake. But it was gray and rainy for Hilda and black night for Otto.
On Sunday morning he rose at half-past three, instead of at four, his week-day rising time. Many of his hard-working customers were astir betimes on Sunday to have the longer holiday. As they would spend the daylight hours in the country and would not reach home until after the shop had closed, they bought the supplies for a cold or warmed-up supper before starting. Otto looked so sad--usually he was in high spirits--that most of these early customers spoke to him or to Joe Schwartz about his health.
There were few of them who did not know what was troubling him.
Among those friendly and unpretending and well-acquainted people any one's affairs were every one's affairs--why make a secret of what was, after all, only the routine of human life the world over and the ages through? Thus Otto had the lively but tactful sympathy of the whole community.
He became less gloomy under the warmth of this succession of friendly faces and friendly inquiries. But as trade slackened, toward noon, he had more leisure to think, and the throbbing ache returned to his heavy heart. All the time pictures of her were passing before his eyes. He had known her so long and she had become such an intimate part of his daily life, so interwoven with it, that he could not look at present, past or future without seeing her.
Why, he had known her since she was a baby. Did he not remember the day when he, a small boy on his way to school, had seen her toddle across the sidewalk in front of him? Could he ever forget how she had reached with great effort into a snowbank, had dug out with her small, red-mittened hands a chunk of snow, and, lifting it high above her head, had thrown it weakly at him with such force that she had fallen headlong upon the sidewalk? He had seen her every day since then--every day!
He most clearly of all recalled her as a school-girl. Those were the days of the German bands of six and seven and even eight pieces, wandering as the hand-organs do now. And always with them came a swarm of little girls who danced when the band played, and of little boys who listened and watched. He had often followed her as she followed a band, all day on a Saturday.
And he had never wearied of watching her long, slim legs twinkling tirelessly to the music. She invented new figures and variations on steps which the other girls adopted. She and her especial friends became famous among the children throughout the East Side; even grown people noted the grace and originality of a particular group of girls, led by a black-haired, slim-legged one who danced with all there was of her. And how their mothers did whip them when they returned from a day of this forbidden joy!
But they were off again the next Saturday--who would not pass a bad five minutes for the sake of hours on hours of delight?
And Hilda was gone from his life, was sailing away on his ship--was it not his ship? was not its cargo his hopes and dreams and plans?--was sailing away with another man at the helm! And he could do nothing--must sit dumb upon the shore.
At half-past twelve he closed the shop and, after the midday dinner with his mother, went down to Brauner's. Hilda was in the room back of the shop, alone, and so agitated with her own affairs that she forgot to be cold and contemptuous to Otto. He bowed to her, then stood staring at the framed picture of Die Wacht am Rhein as if he had never before seen the wonderful lady in red and gold seated under a tree and gazing out over the river--all the verses were underneath. When he could stare at it no longer he turned to the other wall where hung the target bearing the marks of Paul Brauner's best shots in the prize contest he had won. But he saw neither the lady watching the Rhine nor the target with its bullet holes all in the bull's-eye ring, and its pendent festoon of medals. He was longing to pour out his love for her, to say to her the thousand things he could say to the image of her in his mind when she was not near. But he could only stand, an awkward figure, at which she would have smiled if she had seen it at all.
She went out into the shop. While he was still trying to lay hold of an end of the spinning tangle of his thoughts and draw it forth in the hope that all would follow, she returned, fright in her eyes. She clasped her hands nervously and her cheeks blanched. ``Mr. Feuerstein!'' she exclaimed. ``And he's coming here! What SHALL I do?''
``What is the matter?'' he asked.
She turned upon him angrily--he was the convenient vent for her nervousness. ``It's all your fault!'' she exclaimed. ``They want to force me to marry you. And I dare not bring here the man I love.''
``My fault?'' he muttered, dazed. ``I'm not to blame.''
``Stupid! You're always in the way--no wonder I HATE you!'' She was clasping and unclasping her hands, trying to think, not conscious of what she was saying.
``Hate me?'' he repeated mechanically. ``Oh, no--surely not that. No, you can't--''
``Be still! Let me think. Ach! Gott im Himmel! He's in the hall!'' She sank wretchedly into a chair. ``Can you do nothing but gape and mutter?'' In her desperation her tone was appealing.
``He can say he came with me,'' said Otto. ``I'll stand for him.''