The Innocents by Sinclair Lewis

Author:Sinclair Lewis [Lewis, Sinclair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: epubBooks (www.epubbooks.com)
Published: 1917-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XI

The day before Christmas—an anxious day in Regalberg’s department store, where the "extra help" were wondering which of them would be kept on. Most of them were given dismissals with their pay–envelopes. Mother’s fate was not decided. She was told to report on the following Monday; the toy–department would be reduced, but possibly they would find a place for her in the children’s dresses department, for the January white sale… At the very least, they would be glad to give her an excellent recommendation, the buyer told her. More distraught than one stunned by utter hopelessness and ruin, she came home and, as Father had once been wont to do for her, she made her face bright to deceive him.

Under her arm she carried a wonderful surprise, a very large bundle. Father was agitated about it when she plumped gaily into their housekeeping room. At last she let him open it. He found an overcoat, a great, warm, high–collared overcoat.

He had an overcoat—an overcoat! He could put it on, any time, and go about the streets without the pinned coat–collar which is the sign of the hobo. He could walk all day, looking for a job—warm and prosperous. He could find work and support Mother. He had an overcoat! He was a gentleman again!

With tears, he kissed her, lingeringly, then produced his own present, which he had meant to keep till Christmas Day itself. It was seven dollars, which he had earned as waiter at the piggery.

"And we’re going out and have dinner on it, too," he insisted.

"Yes, yes; we will. We’ve been economizing—so much!"

But before they went they carefully cached in the window–box the cabbage he had cooked for dinner.

With a slow luxurious joy in every movement he put on the overcoat. Even in the pocket in which he stuck the seven Christmas dollars he had a distinct pleasure, for his undercoat pockets were too torn, too holey, to carry anything in them. They went prancing to the Hungarian restaurant. They laughed so much that Father forgot to probe her about the overcoat, and did not learn that she had bought it second–hand, for three dollars, and had saved the three dollars by omitting lunch for nearly four weeks.

They had a table at the front of the restaurant, near the violin. They glowed over soup and real meat and coffee. There were funny people at the next table—a man who made jokes. Something about the "Yiddisher gavotte," and saying, "We been going to dances a lot, but last night the wife and I wanted to be quiet, so I bought me two front seats for Grant’s Tomb!" It was tremendous. Father and Mother couldn’t make many jokes, these days, but they listened and laughed. The waiter remembered them; they had always tipped him ten cents; he kept coming back to see if there was anything they wanted, as though they were important people. Father thanked her for the overcoat in what he blithely declared to be Cape Cod dialect, and toasted her in coffee.

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