Cheerful—By Request

y), are familiar with the region known as the Loop. For those others of you to whom Chicago is

ress to Lake Street, from Wabash almost to the river, those thunderous tracks make a complete circle, or loop. Within it lie the retail shops, the commercial hotels, the theatres, the r

with careless cordiality to the head waiter, the while his eye roved expertly from table to table as he removed his gloves. He ordered things under glass, so that his table, at midnight or thereabouts, resembled a hot-bed that favours the bell system. The waiters fought for him. He was the kind of man who mixes

him. Jo Hertz, in one of those pinch-waist belted suits and a trench coat and a little green hat, walking up Michigan Avenue of a bright winter's afternoon, tryin

s is an under dog. The tale of how Jo Hertz came to be a Loop-hound should not be compressed within the limits of a short story. It should be told as are the photo plays, wi

ooked close you would have seen that now and then a double wrinkle would appear between Jo's eyes-a wrinkle that had no business there at twenty-seven. Then Jo's m

as they are seriously made. The dead have no ri

her high, thin voice, "

Ma," Jo h

arry till the girls are all provided for." Then as Joe ha

e, Ma," h

d, comfortably, leaving him

aithful copies of it. Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needle knack. She could skim the State Street windows and come away with a mental photograph of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon. Heads of departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and she went home and reproduced them with the aid of a two-dollar-a-day seamstress. Stell,

Carrie taught school, and hated it. Eva kept house expertly and complainingly. Babe's profession

sters, it means that you must constantly be calling for, escorting, or dropping one of them somewhere. Most men of Jo's age were standing before their mirror of a Saturday night, whistling blithely and abstractedly while they discarded a blue polka-dot for a maroo

't you? I just got home. You girls have been layin

day, and the inalienable right of any unwed male under thirty, in any day. On those rare occasions when his business necessitated an out-of-town trip, he would spend half a day flou

t in the world do

didn't have one

I never go

his way when disturbed. "I just thought you'd like one. I tho

r pity'

lk stockings, Jo." Or, "You brough

wake, red-eyed, to a snatch of conversation such as, "Yes, but if you get a blue you can wear it anywhere. It's dressy, and at the same time it's quiet, too." Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed old smoking-jacket had banished them all from the room long ago; had banished himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled evening clothes. The kind o

ke, if you're going

I fall

se all evening. A person would thin

dull, grey, commonplace brothe

r bring home any of your men friends? A girl might

ears loses the knack, somehow, of comradeship with men. He acquires, too, a knowledge of women, and

ays a Sunday night supper of potato salad, and cold meat, and coffee, and perhaps a fresh cake. Jo rather enjoyed it, being a hospitable soul. But he regarded the guests with the undazzled eyes of a man to whom they were just so many petticoats, timid of the night stre

turned out to be on

arrie, "this is

iends. Drab-looking women in the late thirti

ds. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy, and blue-eyed, and sort of-well, crinkly looking. You know. The corners of her mouth when

that grip, as does a baby's unexpected clutch on your patronising forefinger. As Jo felt it in his own big clasp, the strangest thing happened to him. Something inside Jo Hertz stopped working f

ool-teacher, E

first year. And don't

he world." Which he hadn't meant to say at all. In fact, he wa

ed, until everybody laughed again, and E

ness. She just made you feel you wanted her

he would suggest, with a carelessness that deceived no one, "Don't you want one of your girl friends to come along?

ngs for Emily. He wanted to buy things for Emily-useless, pretty, expensive things that he couldn't afford. He wanted to buy everything that Emily needed, and everything that Emily desired. He wanted to marry

he matter

tte

n a ghost or found a gold

aid Jo. And th

as the automobile business began its amazing climb. Jo tried to stop it. But he was not that kind of business man. It never occurre

w. Not the way things are. But if you'll wait. If you'

ourse I'll wait. But we mustn't just sit back

irs, and en masse. She arranged parties at which Babe could display the curl. She got up picnics. She stayed home while Jo took the three about. When she was present she tried to

ningly as prices advanced and allowance retreated. Stell was still Babe, the family beauty; but even she knew that the time wa

ay. There's plenty of room at the house. Lots of people begin that way. Of co

k now. Just two rooms, all their own, all alone, and Emily to work for. That w

ettes she had bought with what she saved out of the housekeeping money. So then she tried to picture herself allowing the reins of Jo's house to remain in Eva's hands. And everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she'd want to put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, a

know. Even if they didn't object.

assent. Then, "But you do

and love you-and love

all the time, really. I ju

ittle shudder, as though what they saw was terrible to look upon. Emily's hand, the tiny hand that was so

nning of the end,

ne to lurch and then thump at the feel of a soft, fluttering, incredibly small hand in their grip. One year later

ch model at Field's, and a suit she had contrived with a home dressmaker, aided by pressing on the part of the little tailor in the basement over on Thirty-first Street. It was the last of that, though. The next time they saw her, she had on a hat that even she would have d

ould say contemptuously. Babe's nose, always a little inclined to sharpnes

do, Sis. Business i

of-" Ben was Eva's husband, and q

'm sick of your everlasting Ben. Go and get a Ben of your own,

rised young man in the brokerage way, who had made up his mind not to marry for years and y

s, understand? I guess I'm not broke-yet. I'll furnish the

to find a grim pleasure in providing them. But it left him pretty well pinched. After Babe's marriage (she insisted that they call her Estelle now) Jo

orderly-and she made a great success of it. Her dream was to live at the Settlement House and give all her time to the work. Upon the little household she bestowed a certain amount of grim, ca

rgain in a ham, or a sack of potatoes, or fifty pounds of sugar, or a window clamp, or a new kind of paring knife.

w in her leathery cheeks, and her eyes alight wit

ident worker. And I'm going to take it. Take it! I know fifty

und the little dining room, with its ugly tan walls and its heavy, dark furn

e?" Carrie laid down her fork. "Well,

od's full of dirt, and disease, and crime, and the L

tle laugh. "Let me! That's eighteenth-century

she

he could, stored or gave away the rest, and took a room on Michigan Avenue in on

arly. A rather frumpy old bachelor, with thinning hair and a thickening neck. Much has been written about the unwed, middle-aged woman; her fussiness, her

er his chin and openly enjoyed the home-made soup and the well-cooked meats. After dinner he tried to t

Take, f'rinstance your

, downhill style as completely as does the method of a great criminal detective differ from that of a village constable. They would listen, restively, and say, "Uh-uh," at intervals, and at the first chance they would sort of fade out of the room, with a meaning glance at their wives. Eva had two children now. Girls. They treated Uncle Jo with good-natu

gether and decided t

im. "I never saw a man who too

d Jo, almost s

ou act like a frig

olitics, and economics, and boards. They rather terrified Jo. He didn't understand much that they talked about, and he felt humbly inferior, and yet a little resentful, as if something had passed him by. He escorted them home,

y Eva would say, "How

Jo would s

Matt

's s

mean the girl who was here for dinner. The on

d her all right. Seem

a perfectly

would agree

n't you

acher I had in the fifth reader. Name of Himes. As I recall her, she must have bee

ently. "A man of your age. You don't ex

o marry anybody,"

truth, lonely tho

e Loop knows the significance of a move to a north-shore suburb, and a house.

d to Sunday dinners, anyway. Besides, they were unhealthy, old-fashioned things. They always meant to ask Jo to come along, but by the time their friends were placed, a

Except Wednesday-that's our bridge night-and Saturday. And, of cou

te restaurants, their paper propped up against the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly and w

over night, from a baggy-kneed old bachelor, whose business was a failure, to a prosperous manufacturer whose only trouble was the shortage in h

poured in. Jo Hertz had inside information on the War. He knew about troops and horses. He talked with French and English and Italian buyers-noblemen, many of them-commissioned

hed and ignored began to bloom, unhealthily. At first he spent money on his rather contemptuous nieces. He sent them gorgeous fans, and watch bracelets, and velvet bags. He took two expensiv

ce-water! Any hour

red-faced and rather awkward at the wheel. You saw him, too, in the Pompeian room at the Congress Hotel of a Saturday afternoon when doubtful and roving-eyed matrons in kolinsky capes are wont to congregate to sip pale amber drinks. Actors grew to recognise the semi-bald head and

say carelessly. "Bean, of the T

. In New York he might have

ment, many-roomed and expensive, with a man-servant in charge, and furnished it in styles and periods ranging through all the Louises. The living room was mostly rose colour. It was like an unhealthy and bloated boudoir. And yet there was nothing sybaritic or uncleanly in the sigh

ow. She described what she sought with a languid conciseness, and stood looking about her after the saleswoman had vanished in quest of it. The room was becomingly rose-illumined and somewhat dim, so that some minutes had passed before she realised that a man seated on a raspberry brocade settee no

returning, hat-laden. "Not to-day," she gasped. "I'm

pidgin-English devised by every family of married sisters as prot

tened to a baby stare, and couldn't, she was so crazy to get her hands on those hats. I saw it all in one awful minute. You know the way I do. I suppose some people would call her pretty. I don't.

ey came in late, and occupied the entire third row at the opening performance of "Believe Me!" And Ethel was Nicky's partner. She was glowing like a rose. When the lights went up after the first act Ethel saw that her uncle Jo was seated just ahea

asked. Ethel had pretended not

icate face, and down to her throat. Nicky had looked at

, as she told her mother of it later, weep

ntimate, kimonoed hour that precedes bedtime.

isgusting. There's no fool like an old fool. Ima

l, I don't know," Ben said now, and even grinned a littl

torted. "And I think you know, as well as I, what it

el's uncle went to the theatre with some one who wasn't Ethel's aunt w

man enough to stop it, I'll have to, that's

and asked his man if he expected his master home to dinner that evening. The man had said yes. Eva

ass: Flags, pennants, banners crowds. All the elements that make for demonstration. And over the whole-quiet. No holiday crowd, this. A solid, determined mass of pe

readful!" S

only nineteen,

inches. When at last they reached Jo's apartment they were flushed

dinner with their brother, th

va, sunk in rose-coloured cushions, viewed it with disgu

nd lamps. Stell rose and began to walk about, restlessly. She picked up a vase and laid it down; straightened a picture. Eva got up, too, and w

ed, cupid-surmounted, and ridiculous. It had been the fruit of Jo's first orgy of the senses. But now it stood out in that stark little room with an air as incongruous and ashamed as that of a pink tarleton danseuse who finds herself in a monk's cell. None of those wall-pictures with which bac

hoe-tree in every one of them. There was something speaking about them. They looked so human. Eva shut the door on them, quickly. Some bottles on the dresser. A jar of pomade. An ointment such a

out into the rose-coloured front room again with the air of one who is chagri

she demanded. "It's"-she glanced a

t up, tense. The door opened. Jo came in. He blinke

e! Well! Why didn'

leave. We thought you

me in,

by." He sat down, heavily. The light from the wind

e unfortunates behind him. He waited with the placid interest of one who has subscribed to all the funds and societies to which a prosperous, middle-aged business man is called upon to sub

to beat a mad tattoo on Jo Hertz's broad back. Jo tried to tu

a choked, high little voice-cried, "Let me by! I can't see! You man, you

hat seemed a long, long time. It was really only the fraction of a second. Then Jo put one great arm firmly around Emily's waist and swung her around in front of

y, how in

ant me to come. He said it

re

me promise to say goo

J

o war. So I ran away. I had to

Her gaze was strai

then the crowd gave a great roar. There came over Jo a feel

e is! There he-" And waved a futile little hand. It wasn't so much

? Which on

andsome one. There!" Her

nt him out," he commanded. "Show me." And

ng by, rather stiffly. He was nineteen, and fun-loving, and he had a girl, and he didn't particularly want to go to France and-to go to France. But more t

of a sad old man. And suddenly he was no longer Jo, the sport; old J. Hertz, the gay dog. He was Jo Hertz, thirt

ne, flag-bedecked street-just one of a hundred service-hats bobbing

sappeared

hing, over and over. "I can't. I can't. Don't as

a quee

uldn't want him to do anything different, would we? Not our

hat was waiting, a worried chauffeur in charge. They said

hour later he blinked, dazedly, and when the light from

ush. She sat forward in her chair,

here for a reason. We're here to te

ng?

day. And night before last, Ethel. We're all disgusted. If you must

chair in such a huddle, and he looked so old and fat that she did not heed it. She went

is face even Eva faltered and stopped. It wasn't at all the fa

you two, twenty years ago. And now he belongs to somebody else. Where's my son that should have gone marching by to-day?" He flung his arms out in a great gesture of longing. The red veins stood out on hi

fied. The door b

er his forehead and it came away wet. The telephone rang. He sat still. It sounded far away and unimportant, like something forgotten.

nstantly the voice

u, Jo?"

es

s my

all r

to-night. I've fixed up a little po

ome to-nig

t! Wh

feeling

aid you wer

ght. Just ki

? Then he shall be all comfy on the sofa, and he d

the telephone. He was seeing a procession go

ice took on an anxious

" wea

the matter. You're sick

N

as if you'd been s

ver clacked onto the hook. "Leave me alone. Leave m

e on. All the light had gone out of everything. The zest had gone out of life. The game was over-the game he had been playing against loneliness and