Part 3

Perhaps I had not been as provident as I should. But we had never spent money very wildly. I sent a look around the apartment. Everything we had was old. No new thing had been bought in the home for years. The only real extravagance had been the piano. But that had seemed almost a necessity to my wife, who loved music, and tried to keep up a little in her playing. And I had paid my debts; had always taken pride in never owing any man a cent. In fact, nothing had ever worried me more than indebtedness. But now-I cringed.

The boss had said that it was up to my two boys to take care of me. Why should it be? They had their children to care for and educate, just as I had had mine. Their first duty was that of fathers. Besides, even though they could, I didn’t want them to take care of me. All I asked was the opportunity to work and take care of myself and my wife, who was dependent upon me.

Then my gaze turned out of the window. It was still raining. The woman in the apartment up above had left some washing hanging on the line-some suits of men’s underwear. The lights from the back windows shone upon them. They flopped about weakly in the drizzling storm. Somehow they brought back to my mind the picture of the old chap standing that morning in the downtown doorway, his newspapers tucked under his arm, a helpless victim of the storm. It stirred, too, a vague, uneasy sense of affinity in me.

The clock struck. I roused from my thoughts and began to feel a little anxious about my wife. It was most unusual for her to be as late as this. I decided to telephone over to George’s and learn if she had started. I was just taking down the receiver, when I heard her key scrape in the lock. I went quickly and opened the door for her. She came in breathless from having hurried. I followed her into the dining-room, and saw that she was looking white and anxious. George was sick. Had pneumonia. He had been sitting up nights with his sick children, was all worn out, and had taken cold. George, who is the younger, has always been the less robust of our two boys.

“I should have gone over and relieved him of the care of the children,” my wife said, with the pain of self-censure in her face. “But I’m going back now to take care of him. I’ve come home to get some things that I need.”

“Why didn’t you telephone,” I reprimanded, “and have me bring over what you wanted, instead of making this long trip in the rain?”

But she had thought that I wouldn’t know where to find the things. And she wanted to see, too, that I was fixed all right, as she might be gone for several days.

“You must have something to eat,” I said, “then I’ll go back with you.”

I carried her wet umbrella into the kitchen, and she went into the bedroom to gather up her things.

I decided not to add to her worry by telling her now about my day’s experience. But she herself made the discovery. I have never been able to conceal anything from her for long. She went into the front room, and saw my wet clothes hanging on the chair by the radiator. Then she came out to the kitchen, where I was making a clumsy effort to brew her a cup of tea.

“How did you happen to get so wet to-day?” she asked.

The question took me unawares, and I hesitated before making the excuse that I had had no umbrella. She did not speak again, but stood there watching me. My hands trembled so that I spilled the hot water when I tried to pour it into the teapot.

Finally, I turned and met her gaze. Then there was no need of further words between us. When her eyes looked into mine, she seemed to know the whole story as fully as if I had told it to her. I could never describe the look that came into her face. It was something like the mother-look that I had seen there when she was nursing one of her babies. But it was intensified. She moved toward me, put her arms around my neck, and gazed up into my face.

“Don’t worry, Harve; you’ll find something else soon.”

I think it was the fine instinct of the thoroughbred in my wife that made her now call me “Harve.” It had been a long time since she had called me that. We had grown to be to each other just “Dad” and “Mother.” But the “Harve” brought with it a certain reassurance of youth-an encouragement to the personality that was mine irrespective of my fatherhood; to the me who had been her lover, husband, pal. It sent a thrill through me that braced my spine. I put my arms around her, drew her to me, and laid my face down against hers.

Since then I have learned that the lover always is young.

From this time on my wife and I fell back into the old habit of calling each other “Harve” and “Mattie.”

During the days that followed I missed her more than I could ever tell. But we were both a good deal worried about George, who was pretty sick. I went over to Brooklyn each evening, to see how he was, and to do what things I could to help. The days I put in looking for work. George’s sickness, which was going to be a big expense, added to my feeling that I must find an immediate job.

It happened that Walter was not at home just at this time. He is an electrical engineer, and his company had sent him out in the state to do some work.

I trailed around to printing-offices, little and big. As yet I had made no attempt to find work outside of my own trade, in which I had had a lifetime of training. But nothing offered. A good many printers happened to be looking for jobs at this same time; and the younger man was always given the preference. I had two or three promises from bosses-men whom I had known. But these promises all turned out disappointments.

Then, one night, I was going home after having traveled the rounds all day in Harlem. I was tired and pretty well discouraged. After having paid my next month’s rent and some other small bills, and taken money over to Brooklyn to help out with the expenses of George’s sickness, I had only about ten dollars left in the bank.

By this time I had come to understand that I must look for some kind of work aside from a printing-office. So this day I had made the try for a job in several stores, and other places. But with no success. They had no jobs for men of my years. If I had been a cook, I might have got a place in a Third Avenue restaurant. There seemed to be more demands for cooks than for any other kind of labor.

As I walked along now, I saw a “Janitor Wanted” sign on the area railing of an apartment house. I halted and looked at it. After having lived all my life in New York apartments, I knew what a janitor’s job was like. It would mean taking my wife to live in a dark garbage-smelling basement. But I had come to a state of desperation-of almost panic. I hesitated, then swallowed my pride, braced myself, and went down the area-steps to the basement. This janitor’s job might tide over until I could find something else.

The wiry little Yiddish superintendent of the building was there, just inside the basement door, talking to two other applicants-a big negro and an Italian. When I arrived, the superintendent turned to me.

“How about this janitor’s job?” I asked; and my manner might have shown a little something of patronage.

He looked me over critically. The negro and Italian watched anxiously. Then the superintendent gave a Jew shrug, shook his head, and dismissed me with a belittling smile.

“I vant a man dat could lif’ de garbage cans und big tings. You vas too old.”

The last drop of gall was added to the bitterness of my humiliation. I was too old to be the janitor of even a third-rate Harlem apartment house. As I stumbled back up the area-steps, I heard him hire the big negro for the job. Every atom of me tingled so with humiliation that I forgot to take a street car, but walked the rest of the long distance home. By the time I reached there, I was trembling and pretty well all in.