menu_book Chapter 13

Book II, Chapter I, Section IV. Of Bread. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Wild Shimmering Path.

Bread by Charles G. Norris. Book II, Chapter I, Section IV. Mrs. Sturgis no longer had to work so hard. She had given up her position as instructor in music at Miss Lauberow's concentration school for little girls, and her work as accompanist for Signor Bellini's pupils. Jeanette had made her resign from both places. With Alice married and gone, it was better for her mother to stay at home and take charge of the housekeeping.

Mrs. Sturgis gave private lessons now, a few hours only in the morning or afternoon, and these, she asserted, were a real delight. It left her plenty of time for marketing and for preparing the simple little dinners she and her daughter enjoyed at night. She took the keenest interest in these, and was always planning something new in the way of a surprise for her darling daughter when she comes home just deadbeat out at the end of the day. Finances were no longer a problem. Jeanette contributed $20 a week to the household expenses while her mother earned as much and

sometimes more. She often reminded her daughter she could do even better than that, especially during the winter months, but Jeanette would not hear of her working harder. But what's the use, Mama? She would ask.

We've got everything we want. I can dress as I like on what's left out of my salary, and there's no sense in your teaching all day. I love the idea of your being free to go to a concert now and then, and Alice is going to need you a lot when the baby comes and afterwards. That may be all very true, dearie,

but I don't just feel right about having so much time to myself. I could easily do more. There was a lady called this afternoon and just begged me to take her little girl. You know, I have all Saturday morning. No, said Jeanette decisively, I won't consider it. They were really very comfortably situated, the girl would reflect. Once a week, sometimes oftener, Mrs. Sturgis would be asked to accompany a singer at a recital. That meant five dollars,

often ten, ten whenever Elsa Newman sang. Then there was the twenty she herself contributed weekly, and the lessons that brought in an equal amount. Between her mother's earnings and her own, their income was never less than $250 a month. They were rich, they lived in luxury, they need never worry again. Jeanette knew she could remain with Mr. Corey for life if she wanted to. There was no possible danger of her ever losing her job. Her mother fussed about the

apartment, cooked delicious meals, took an interest in arranging and managing their little home in a way that previous demands upon her time had never permitted. A new rug was bought for the studio, and some big easy chairs which they had talked about purchasing for years. The piece of chenille curtaining that had done duty as a table cover so long in the dining room was supplanted by a square of handsomer material. The leaky drop light vanished and was replaced by one more

attractive and serviceable. More particularly, Jeanette had seen to it that her mother got new clothes. Mrs. Sturgis had always favored lavender as the shade most becoming to her, and her daughter bought her a lovely lavender velvet afternoon dress, which had real lace down the front and was trimmed with darker lavender velvet ribbon. Some lavender silk waists followed, and a small lavender hat upon which the lilac sprays nodded most ingratiatingly. Mrs. Sturgis was radiant

over her new apparel. Her extravagant delight touched the daughter. It was pathetic that so little could give so much intense enjoyment. Once or twice a month, Jeanette took her mother to a matinee. She loved to go to the theater herself and studied the advertisements, read all the daily theatrical notes, and never missed a review. She would secure seats for the play weeks in advance and always took her mother to lunch downtown before the performance. These were wonderful

and felicitous occasions for both of them. They had great arguments each time as to where they should eat, what they should select from the magnificent menus, and later about the play itself. Jeanette liked to startle her mother by selecting some extravagant item from the bill of fare, or surprise her by handing her a little present across the table. Sometimes as they came out of the theater she would pilot her, without preamble, toward a handsome cab, and before the

excited little woman knew what it was about, would help her in and tell the cabbie to drive them home slowly through the park. Oh, dearie, you're not going to do this again. Miss Sturgis would expostulate, drawing back from the waiting vehicle. She really wished to protest against the needless extravagance. Jeanette would smile lovingly at her and urge her in. Later, as they were rumbling through the leafless park and met a stream of automobiles and sumptuous equipages

going in the opposite direction, Mrs. Sturgis would settle herself back with a sigh of contentment and say, Really, dearie, I don't think there is anything I enjoy quite as much as riding in a handsome. You're very good to your old mother. We may land in the poorhouse, but we're having a good time while the luck lasts. On the occasion of the first performance of Parsifal at the Metropolitan, Jeanette, through Mr. Corey, was able to secure one ten-dollar seat for her mother. It was the

greatest event in little Mrs. Sturgis's life. She longed for Ralph and wept all through the Good Friday music. Frequently on Sunday afternoons, Jeanette's mother made her daughter accompany her to Carnegie Hall for a concert or a recital. Then, she declared, it was her turn to treat, and she would not allow the girl to pay for anything. Her entertainments were never as grand as her daughter's, but she took a keen delight in playing hostess, and after the music

always suggested tea. They were both exceedingly fond of toasted crumpets, and Mrs. Sturgis was ever on the lookout for new places where they were served, but neither of her daughters inherited her love for music. Jeanette went to the concerts dutifully, but the satisfaction derived from these afternoons came from giving her mother pleasure, rather than from the jumble of sound made by the wailing strings, tooting woodwinds, and blaring trumpets. She could make nothing out

of it at all. When there was a soloist, she was interested, especially if it was a woman, of whose costume she made careful notes. Mother and daughter also went to church sometimes. Dr. Fitzgibbons had made a deep impression upon Mrs. Sturgis when he officiated the marriage of Roy and Alice. She had been flattered out of her senses when the clergyman called upon her a few weeks after the ceremony to inquire for the young couple. He had talked to her about parish work

and expressed the hope that she would see her way clear to join the church and become interested in his guild. Mrs. Sturgis had laughed violently at everything he said and had promised all he suggested. Thereafter, she referred to him as her spiritual advisor, and Jeanette was aware she called occasionally at the rectory to discuss what she termed her spiritual problems. Sunday evenings, Mrs. Sturgis and Jeanette usually invited Alice and Roy to dinner, and sometimes they were the

guests of the young couple in the little Bronx apartment. Roy and Alice were like two children playing at Keeping House, Mrs. Sturgis said with one of her satisfied chuckles. Jeanette, too, thought of them as children. Alice had always seemed younger to her than she really was, and even when her own thoughts had been filled with Roy, he had always impressed her as a boy. She often wondered nowadays when he and his happy, dimpling, brown-eyed bride sat side by side on the

sofa, their arms around one another, their hands linked, exchanging kisses every few minutes in accepted newlywed fashion, what she had ever seen in him that had made her own senses swim and her heart pound. He was just a sweet, amiable boy to her now, with a fresh, eager manner, and rather an attractive face. She still liked his quaint mouth, his whimsical smile, his quick flashing blue eyes, but they no longer stirred her. She could kiss him in affectionate sisterly fashion,

without a tremor. Jeanette and Mrs. Sturgis took great delight in observing the young couple together, in watching them in their diminutive but pretty home, and in discussing them afterwards. They were ideally happy, laughing, romping, playing little jokes upon one another, deriving vast amusement from words, signs and phrases, the meaning of which were known to them alone. Both were affectionately demonstrative, forever holding hands, caressing one another,

and kissing. Jeanette said it made her sick. It was disgusting. But her mother scolded when she betrayed her distaste and reminded her it was only right and proper. Roy, against the prospect of his marriage to Jeanette had saved money. Mrs. Sturgis, urged by her older daughter, had once again placed a loan of five hundred dollars upon the nest egg in the savings bank. Jeanette had contributed another hundred, and Roy's father had shipped from San Francisco

a half-carload of family furniture, which had been in storage for many years. The wedding had awaited the arrival of this freight, and as soon as it came the stuff had been uncarted and installed in the little Bronx apartment. The ceremony then followed, and Roy took his blushing, laughing excited bride from her mother's arms, from the old-fashioned apartment where she had lived almost since she could remember, and from the wedding supper, direct to the new home in

the Bronx, which together they had furnished with such joy and hours of planning and discussion. They had nearly a thousand dollars to spend, but Alice wisely decided, so her mother thought, that only half of it should go into house furnishings. The furniture shipped by the Reverend Dwight Beardsley was designed in the style of an earlier day, and much of it was too large for the snug little rooms of the Bronx flat. A large sideboard with a marble slab top

and huge mirror could not be brought into the apartment at all, and was sold to a second-hand furniture dealer on 3rd Avenue for $15. But most of the furniture from California was usable, and all of it good and substantial. Alice made the curtains for the dining and living rooms herself. She and Roy, on their hands and knees, painted the floors a warm walnut tone. They bought three or four rugs, a fine second-hand sofa with a rich but not too gaudy brocaded cover, bed and table linen, and everything needed for the kitchen.

Horatio Stevens and his family sent them a colored glass art lamp, and Mr. Corey, consulting Jeanette, presented a beautiful clock with silvery chimes. No young husband and wife ever took greater delight in their first home. They were always fixing things, arranging and rearranging them, cleaning and dusting. Roy bought a Boston fern during an early week of the marriage, paid three dollars for a brass jardiniere at a Turkish vendor's to hold it, and the plant flourished on a small tabaret in the

front windows. They took the most assiduous care of this, watering it several times a day and digging about its roots with an old table knife whenever either of them had an idle moment. When one of the curling fronds began to turn brown, they had long discussions as to whether it should be trimmed off or not. They acquired a canary, too, which shared with the fern the young couple's devotion. Alice had bought the bird because she was so miserably lonely without Roy

all day long that she would go out of her senses wanting him unless there was something alive round the house to keep her company. The fact that the canary never opened his throat to make a sound, although Alice had been assured by the man in the bird store that he would sing his head off, did not in any wise detract from her love for the little feathered creature that hopped about in his cage and made a great fuss over giving himself a bath in the mornings. They called him Sunny Boy

and took turns at the pleasure of feeding him. Alice was a good cook, she had a gift for the kitchen, and Jeanette and her mother would exclaim in admiration over the delicious meals she prepared when they came to dinner. Roy would glance from mother to sister-in-law when the roast appeared or when a particularly appetizing-looking pudding was brought in, and at their exclamations of delight he would say, Guess I've got a pretty smart wife, eh? Guess I know a good

cook when I see one, huh? Why, Alice has got most women I know skinned a mile. She's just a wonder, she can do anything, I only wish I was good enough for her. She's a wonder, all right, all right. Jeanette was deeply moved when her sister told her she was going to have a baby. It tore at her heart to think of little Alice, to herself so young, so immature, so tender and weak and inexperienced, bringing a child into the world. She worried about it, wondered if Alice would die,

felt with terrifying conviction that that would be the way of it. Her mother's pleasure and complacency about the matter reassured her but little. Alice was having a child much too soon after her wedding. She ought to have waited for a year or so at least. She watched the changes in her sister's face and figure with growing wonder. Childbearing was a mystery. Jeanette had never known a woman intimately who had had a baby. Now she was both curious and concerned. After the

early months of discomfort had passed, a benign gentleness settled upon Alice. Her expression became placid, serene, beautiful. A quality of goodness transfigured her. She moved through the days toward her appointed time with supreme tranquility. Whenever Alice spoke of my baby, Jeanette winced, while her mother maddened her each time with the remark that it was only right and proper. One morning early in March, shortly after Jeanette had reached the office, her mother

telephoned her in a great state of excitement. She had just heard from Roy. Alice's baby would arrive that day. They were taking her right away to the hospital. She wasn't in any pain yet, but the doctor thought it would be best to have her there. He didn't say when the child was likely to be born. There was no more news. The morning stretched itself out endlessly. Jeanette worried and suffered in silence. At noon, she telephoned the hospital and got Roy. There was little change.

Alice was miserable, but there was no talk about when the baby would be born. The doctor had promised to be in at three. Roy would let her know if anything happened. All afternoon, there was a meeting of the members of the firm in Corey's office. The question of the move to the new building was being discussed. It lasted until four, until five, until quarter to six. Jeanette was beside herself. Alice was dead, and they were afraid to let her know. At six o'clock,

her mother telephoned again. Alice was having her pains with some regularity now. The baby ought to be there about eight or nine o'clock, the doctor said. As soon as she was at liberty, Jeanette left the office. She did not want to eat, but took the elevated direct to the hospital. Her mother and Roy met her, and they kissed one another again and again. Alice was upstairs now. They sat with their elbows touching on a hard leather-covered seat in the reception room.

Jeanette's head began to ache. She counted the 63 squares in the rug on the floor 22 times. The black on the Wells Bash burner in the lamp looked exactly like two people kissing. Towards midnight, the baby was born. When Jeanette first saw her niece, the upper part of the little head and forehead were carefully bandaged. her mother whispered that it had been an instrument case. Roy was not to know for a

while at any rate. The baby was perfect, a fine, healthy eight-pound girl, and Alice was doing nicely. But Alice did not leave the hospital for six weeks, and was six months in recovering her old strength and buoyancy. End of Book Two, Chapter One, Section Four.