In the days when New York's traffic moved at the pace of thedrooping horse-car, when society applauded Christine Nilsson at theAcademy of Music and basked in the sunsets of the Hudson RiverSchool on the walls of the National Academy of Design, aninconspicuous shop with a single show-window was intimately andfavourably known to the feminine population of the quarterbordering on Stuyvesant Square.
It was a very small shop, in a shabby basement, in a side-street already doomed to decline; and from the miscellaneousdisplay behind the window-pane, and the brevity of the signsurmounting it (merely "Bunner Sisters" in blotchy gold on a blackground) it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to guessthe precise nature of the business carried on within. But that wasof little consequence, since its fame was so purely local that thecustomers on whom its existence depended were almost congenitallyaware of the exact range of "goods" to be found at Bunner Sisters'.
The house of which Bunner Sisters had annexed the basement wasa private dwelling with a brick front, green shutters on weakhinges, and a dress-maker's sign in the window above the shop. Oneach side of its modest three stories stood higher buildings, withfronts of brown stone, cracked and blistered, cast-iron balconiesand cat-haunted grass-patches behind twisted railings. Thesehouses too had once been private, but now a cheap lunchroom filledthe basement of one, while the other announced itself, above theknotty wistaria that clasped its central balcony, as the MendozaFamily Hotel. It was obvious from the chronic cluster of refuse-barrels at its area-gate and the blurred surface of its curtainlesswindows, that the families frequenting the Mendoza Hotel were notexacting in their tastes; though they doubtless indulged in as muchfastidiousness as they could afford to pay for, and rather morethan their landlord thought they had a right to express.
These three houses fairly exemplified the general character ofthe street, which, as it stretched eastward, rapidly fell fromshabbiness to squalor, with an increasing frequency of projectingsign-boards, and of swinging doors that softly shut or opened atthe touch of red-nosed men and pale little girls with broken jugs.
The middle of the street was full of irregular depressions, welladapted to retain the long swirls of dust and straw and twistedpaper that the wind drove up and down its sad untended length; andtoward the end of the day, when traffic had been active, thefissured pavement formed a mosaic of coloured hand-bills, lids oftomato-cans, old shoes, cigar-stumps and banana skins, cementedtogether by a layer of mud, or veiled in a powdering of dust, asthe state of the weather determined.
The sole refuge offered from the contemplation of thisdepressing waste was the sight of the Bunner Sisters' window. Itspanes were always well-washed, and though their display ofartificial flowers, bands of scalloped flannel, wire hat-frames,and jars of home-made preserves, had the undefinable greyish tingeof objects long preserved in the show-case of a museum, the windowrevealed a background of orderly counters and white-washed walls inpleasant contrast to the adjoining dinginess.
The Bunner sisters were proud of the neatness of their shopand content with its humble prosperity. It was not what they hadonce imagined it would be, but though it presented but a shrunkenimage of their earlier ambitions it enabled them to pay their rentand keep themselves alive and out of debt; and it was longsince their hopes had soared higher.
Now and then, however, among their greyer hours there came onenot bright enough to be called sunny, but rather of the silverytwilight hue which sometimes ends a day of storm. It was such anhour that Ann Eliza, the elder of the firm, was soberly enjoying asshe sat one January evening in the back room which served asbedroom, kitchen and parlour to herself and her sister Evelina. Inthe shop the blinds had been drawn down, the counters cleared andthe wares in the window lightly covered with an old sheet; but theshop-door remained unlocked till Evelina, who had taken a parcel tothe dyer's, should come back.
In the back room a kettle bubbled on the stove, and Ann Elizahad laid a cloth over one end of the centre table, and placed nearthe green-shaded sewing lamp two tea-cups, two plates, a sugar-bowland a piece of pie. The rest of the room remained in a greenishshadow which discreetly veiled the outline of an old-fashionedmahogany bedstead surmounted by a chromo of a young lady in anight-gown who clung with eloquently-rolling eyes to a cragdescribed in illuminated letters as the Rock of Ages; and againstthe unshaded windows two rocking-chairs and a sewing-machine weresilhouetted on the dusk.
Ann Eliza, her small and habitually anxious face smoothed tounusual serenity, and the streaks of pale hair on her veinedtemples shining glossily beneath the lamp, had seated herself atthe table, and was tying up, with her usual fumbling deliberation,a knobby object wrapped in paper. Now and then, as she struggledwith the string, which was too short, she fancied she heard theclick of the shop-door, and paused to listen for her sister; then,as no one came, she straightened her spectacles and entered intorenewed conflict with the parcel. In honour of some event ofobvious importance, she had put on her double-dyed and triple-turned black silk. Age, while bestowing on this garment apatine worthy of a Renaissance bronze, had deprived it ofwhatever curves the wearer's pre-Raphaelite figure had once beenable to impress on it; but this stiffness of outline gave it an airof sacerdotal state which seemed to emphasize the importance of theoccasion.
Seen thus, in her sacramental black silk, a wisp of laceturned over the collar and fastened by a mosaic brooch, and herface smoothed into harmony with her apparel, Ann Eliza looked tenyears younger than behind the counter, in the heat and burden ofthe day. It would have been as difficult to guess her approximateage as that of the black silk, for she had the same worn and glossyaspect as her dress; but a faint tinge of pink still lingered onher cheek-bones, like the reflection of sunset which sometimescolours the west long after the day is over.
When she had tied the parcel to her satisfaction, and laid itwith furtive accuracy just opposite her sister's plate, she satdown, with an air of obviously-assumed indifference, in one of therocking-chairs near the window; and a moment later the shop-dooropened and Evelina entered.
The younger Bunner sister, who was a little taller than herelder, had a more pronounced nose, but a weaker slope of mouth andchin. She still permitted herself the frivolity of waving her palehair, and its tight little ridges, stiff as the tresses of anAssyrian statue, were flattened under a dotted veil which ended atthe tip of her cold-reddened nose. In her scant jacket and skirtof black cashmere she looked singularly nipped and faded; but itseemed possible that under happier conditions she might still warminto relative youth.
"Why, Ann Eliza," she exclaimed, in a thin voice pitched tochronic fretfulness, "what in the world you got your best silk onfor?"Ann Eliza had risen with a blush that made her steel-browedspectacles incongruous.
"Why, Evelina, why shouldn't I, I sh'ld like to know? Ain'tit your birthday, dear?" She put out her arms with the awkwardnessof habitually repressed emotion.
Evelina, without seeming to notice the gesture, threw back thejacket from her narrow shoulders.
"Oh, pshaw," she said, less peevishly. "I guess we'd bettergive up birthdays. Much as we can do to keep Christmas nowadays.""You hadn't oughter say that, Evelina. We ain't so badly offas all that. I guess you're cold and tired. Set down while I takethe kettle off: it's right on the boil."She pushed Evelina toward the table, keeping a sideward eye onher sister's listless movements, while her own hands were busy withthe kettle. A moment later came the exclamation for which shewaited.
"Why, Ann Eliza!" Evelina stood transfixed by the sight ofthe parcel beside her plate.
Ann Eliza, tremulously engaged in filling the teapot, lifteda look of hypocritical surprise.
"Sakes, Evelina! What's the matter?"The younger sister had rapidly untied the string, and drawnfrom its wrappings a round nickel clock of the kind to be boughtfor a dollar-seventy-five.
"Oh, Ann Eliza, how could you?" She set the clock down, andthe sisters exchanged agitated glances across the table.
"Well," the elder retorted, "AIN'T it your birthday?""Yes, but--""Well, and ain't you had to run round the corner to the Squareevery morning, rain or shine, to see what time it was, ever sincewe had to sell mother's watch last July? Ain't you, Evelina?""Yes, but--""There ain't any buts. We've always wanted a clock and nowwe've got one: that's all there is about it. Ain't she a beauty,Evelina?" Ann Eliza, putting back the kettle on the stove, leanedover her sister's shoulder to pass an approving hand over thecircular rim of the clock. "Hear how loud she ticks. I was afraidyou'd hear her soon as you come in.""No. I wasn't thinking," murmured Evelina.
"Well, ain't you glad now?" Ann Eliza gently reproached her.
The rebuke had no acerbity, for she knew that Evelina's seemingindifference was alive with unexpressed scruples.
"I'm real glad, sister; but you hadn't oughter. We could havegot on well enough without.""Evelina Bunner, just you sit down to your tea. I guess Iknow what I'd oughter and what I'd hadn't oughter just as well asyou do--I'm old enough!""You're real good, Ann Eliza; but I know you've given upsomething you needed to get me this clock.""What do I need, I'd like to know? Ain't I got a best blacksilk?" the elder sister said with a laugh full of nervous pleasure.
She poured out Evelina's tea, adding some condensed milk fromthe jug, and cutting for her the largest slice of pie; then shedrew up her own chair to the table.
The two women ate in silence for a few moments before Evelinabegan to speak again. "The clock is perfectly lovely and I don'tsay it ain't a comfort to have it; but I hate to think what it musthave cost you.""No, it didn't, neither," Ann Eliza retorted. "I got it dirtcheap, if you want to know. And I paid for it out of a littleextra work I did the other night on the machine for Mrs. Hawkins.""The baby-waists?""Yes.""There, I knew it! You swore to me you'd buy a new pair ofshoes with that money.""Well, and s'posin' I didn't want 'em--what then? I'vepatched up the old ones as good as new--and I do declare, EvelinaBunner, if you ask me another question you'll go and spoil all mypleasure.""Very well, I won't," said the younger sister.
They continued to eat without farther words. Evelina yieldedto her sister's entreaty that she should finish the pie, and pouredout a second cup of tea, into which she put the last lump of sugar;and between them, on the table, the clock kept up its sociabletick.
"Where'd you get it, Ann Eliza?" asked Evelina, fascinated.
"Where'd you s'pose? Why, right round here, over acrost theSquare, in the queerest little store you ever laid eyes on. I sawit in the window as I was passing, and I stepped right in and askedhow much it was, and the store-keeper he was real pleasant aboutit. He was just the nicest man. I guess he's a German. I toldhim I couldn't give much, and he said, well, he knew what hardtimes was too. His name's Ramy--Herman Ramy: I saw itwritten up over the store. And he told me he used to work atTiff'ny's, oh, for years, in the clock-department, and three yearsago he took sick with some kinder fever, and lost his place, andwhen he got well they'd engaged somebody else and didn't want him,and so he started this little store by himself. I guess he's realsmart, and he spoke quite like an educated man--but he looks sick."Evelina was listening with absorbed attention. In the narrowlives of the two sisters such an episode was not to be under-rated.
"What you say his name was?" she asked as Ann Eliza paused.
"Herman Ramy.""How old is he?""Well, I couldn't exactly tell you, he looked so sick--but Idon't b'lieve he's much over forty."By this time the plates had been cleared and the teapotemptied, and the two sisters rose from the table. Ann Eliza, tyingan apron over her black silk, carefully removed all traces of themeal; then, after washing the cups and plates, and putting themaway in a cupboard, she drew her rocking-chair to the lamp and satdown to a heap of mending. Evelina, meanwhile, had been roamingabout the room in search of an abiding-place for the clock. Arosewood what-not with ornamental fret-work hung on the wall besidethe devout young lady in dishabille, and after much weighing ofalternatives the sisters decided to dethrone a broken china vasefilled with dried grasses which had long stood on the top shelf,and to put the clock in its place; the vase, after fartherconsideration, being relegated to a small table covered with blueand white beadwork, which held a Bible and prayer-book, and anillustrated copy of Longfellow's poems given as a school-prize totheir father.
This change having been made, and the effect studied fromevery angle of the room, Evelina languidly put her pinking-machineon the table, and sat down to the monotonous work of pinking a heapof black silk flounces. The strips of stuff slid slowly to thefloor at her side, and the clock, from its commanding altitude,kept time with the dispiriting click of the instrument under herfingers.