by Betty Smith
She smiled back. He's trying to place me she thought. He
doesn't remember he saw me ifs the store.
"I'll fetch you a chair," he said to .~1aggie-Now.
[ '73 ]
"She gets personal service yet," whispered one girl to
another. He went into the dentist's lavatory and brought
out a threelegged stool. They stood a second, the stool
between them, and looked steadily at each other.
She sat apart from the rest on the low stool. Claude's
eyes roved over the others but alv,~a~7s came back to
rest on her. She wore a plainly made, russet-colored dress.
It was high in the neck and had long sleeves and a full
skirt. Her thick, straight, dark brown hair was in two
braids wound around her head. He thought her mouth
was too wide but then he realized it was not
foreshortened by lipstick. In fact, she wore no makeup
and no ornaments.
She's as wholesome, he thou kit, as an apple on an
India'~-s?'mmer afternoon.
She felt his interest. Oh, why, she moaned, didn't 1 wear
my blue dress with the lace collar and cuffs and my
rhinestone neck1dee and a hat, and I moist plot lipstick on
hereafter so my mouth don't look so big.
He stood up and tapped the edge of the table with his
pencil. The jingle-jangle of the bracelets stopped suddenly
and the waves of scent seemed to settle in the room like
a fog.
"This is a course in salesmanship. Salesmanship is the
art of using friendly persuasion to induce people to buy
merchandise that they are quite certain they do not
Avant." He paused. The "class" looked stunned. This
unnerved him. He didn't know it was their way of paying
absolute attention. He continued. "To sell, one must have
a product and," he paused, "personality." He looked at
Maggie-Novv.
"This is our product." He picked up one of the small
books. "This is The Book of Everything."
There was a rustle among the girls and a perfumed
murmur of "Everything?'
"Everything," he said fimlly.
From somewhere, he got a stack of matted colored
litho,,raphs. He held one up. "It tells you how to set a
table for guests." The picture showed a table with a lace
cloth and candles and American beauty roses and silver
and crystal with a turkey on a platter and champagne in
a cooler. "How to fix a stopped-up sink." He showed a
picture of a naked sink. "How to dress a
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baby." They saw a pink and blue and golden chernh in a
lacebedecked bassinette. "How to clean wallpaper . . ."
Then he showed them the pictures as transferred to the
book. There was some disappointment. In the book, the
illustrations were two by four inches and in black and
white.
After extolling the book and illustrations, he went into
the sales approach. "The best time to approach the
prospect is after dinner when he is relaxed and in a
mellow mood." One of the men raised his hand.
"(question?" asked Claltde Bassett.
"I work in the afternoon," said the man.
"He means after supper," explained one of the other men.
"Of course," said Claude "Thank you." He continued.
"After supper, then. You hold the book in the crook of
your arm . . . so. You ring the bell or knock on the door
and greet the prospect with a pleasant smile. Your
approach is: 'I am . . .'" He looked at Maggie-Now.
"What's your name`" he asked.
"Me?" she said.
"Please."
"Margaret Moore."
Now, he thought, I know how, she books. 1 knave the
so~`n`1 of her voice and I know her name.
"You smile, then, and say: 'I am Margaret Moore. I live
down the block a way and I came over to see how you
folks are getting along.' Allow the prospect to talk, and
then, as if by the way, mention the book...."
The hour dragged on. I^1ATO of the men sitting on
the floor played a surreptitious game of odds-and-evens
with their fingers. The old man was sound asleep, legs
spread out, back against the wall and snoring in rhythm to
the rise and fall of Claude's voice. The fourth man sat
with his chin in his hand staring moodily at the pattern of
the oilcloth covering the floor. Maggie-Now sat with her
hands loosely clasped in her lap with a serene half smile
on her lips. The other girls leaned forward tensely, staring
at Claude, not hearing a word he said, but trying
subconsciously to project themselves as desirable females
to the attractive male.
At last, Claude got to the heart of the matter: making
money. He told them that the first lesson was free. There
would be four more at a quarter a lesson. At the end of
that time, each would be given a certificate and a copy of
The Book of Everything,
~ 17s:1
free. They would then go forth and sell the book for two
dollars. With that money, they'd get two books from him
at the salesman's price of one dollar per copy. They'd sell
these and buy four; sell those, buy eight . . . sixteen . . .
thirty-two . . . s~xtyfour . . . And so on into infinity, it
seethed. And all for an initial investment of one dollar
and a little spare time!
Maggie-Now recalleci the time in her childhood when
she had tried pyramiding her capital. She had a weekly
allowance of five cents. Wishing merely to double her
money, she bought ten pretzels from the cellar pretzel
baker at the wholesale price of two for a cent. She
borrowed her mother's market basket, stuck a stick in the
end, put the pretzels on the stick and sold the ten that
afternoon in Cooper's Park.
It seemed easy to double her money again. The next day
after school, she bought twenty pretzels and managed to
sell them although she had to stay out longer. The next
day v. as Saturday. She debated whether to take her profit
and quit or go on. She bought fony pretzels. She sold two.
Then the rains came. It rained three days. The pretzels
got soggy and MaggieNow lost not only her profit but her
initial investment of five cents. In addition, her father had
been angry and made her eat most of the pretzels in lieu
of bread, for almost a week. Remembering, she laughed
aloud.
Claude looked up Prickly. "You are amused, Iliss
Moore-' he asked.
"No. I was just remembering the pretzels."
"The zvEat-" he asked, astonished. He tilted his head
sharply to hear better.
"The pretzels." (Only she pronounced it the Brooklyn
wav Pretzels.)
He threw his head hack and burst into laughter. The
men laughed. The girls stirred and the room was full of
jingle-jangle and disturbed layers of perfume.
One of the men said "She's full of life."
Another answered. 'Yeah. I
wish my wife . . ." He put
away the disloyal thought. 'Anyway, my wife's a hard
worker."
The other girls relaxed their tense attitude of sweet
attentivencss. They knew they had lost. This Miss
Margaret Moore had captured the handsome teacher's
interest and attention. They
~ 17
whispered to each other under the laughter of the men.
"I wouldn't be found dead in a tacky dress like hers."
"I bet she made it herself."
"Yeah. Without a pattrin, too."
"And that old-time hair comb she's got!"
"I couldn't be forward like her. I'd sooner die a old maid."
Claude tapped for silence. "All who wish to continue,
please remain to register."
It seemed that everyone tried to get out of the door at
once. When the smoke had settled that is, when the
waves of scent stopped swirling and the jingle-jangle died
away there were five people left behind: three women,
the old man and MaggieNow.
Oh, well, thought one of the women, maybe the old man
has a nice son I can get to meet.
Another, about thirty with graying hair, thought: He
might have a brother . . . a little younger.
The third one wiped her glasses and thought: It's hard
for a decent girl to get a chance to meet a decent man any
man. Just the same, though, it's better to sit here nights than
to sit alone in that hall room of mine.
Maggie-Now registered last, after the others had left.
She wrote her name slowly and carefully because she
knew he was watching her and she wanted to write nicely.
Watching, he thought: Beautiful hands. Strong, shapely,
capable and thank God she doesn't file her nails to a point
like so many wom:erl do.
Why, oh ~why, she thought, didn't I take time to file my
nails and buff then? My hands must look just awful to him.
"Thank you," he said, when she returned his leaky
fountain pen, the point toward herself, as the nuns had
taught her to do.
He gave her a slow smile. She grinned back. He stood
up and took a deep breath. "Tell fine about the pretzels,"
he said.
"I'll put the stool away first," she said.
She carried it into the dentist's lavatory. She looked at
herself in the mirror. She was surprised she looked the
same as before because she felt that some great change
had taken place in her during the evening.
She searched her mirrored face and thought how queer it
was
[ ~7~?]
that she didn't know him at all and yet had that feeling
that she had known him always. And how natural and
right it seemed that they were alone together in this
place sort of like keeping house.
She straightened the hanging mirror. She noticed some
spilled face powder on the basin's ledge and wiped it off
with a piece of toilet paper. She pulled the roller towel
down until a clean place showed up. Lastly, she put the
seat down on the toilet. The cubicle looked neater that
way. She gave the place a last searching look before she
left it.
There! she told herself with satisfaction.
She went back into the waiting room and told him
about the pretzels. She straightened the room as she
talked. He'd put the magazines back on the little table.
(They had been put on the floor to make room f`,r his
copies of The Book of l~verytinng.) The magazines were
piled helter skelter. She interrupted her story to chick,
"Tech! Tsch!" vhile she stacked the magazines neatly.
I hope she's not a `'oily straightener, he thought. If she is,
I'il break her of it
"So I had twenty cents . . ." she went on with her story.
She started to push the settee back to the wall.
"No, no," he protested. "You stand there and look pale
and helpless while I move it."
"Helpless?" she asked, pu7.71ed.
No sense of humor. 'he told himself.
". . . Then you bought fort pretzels."
"And it rained . . ."
Under the settee, she found an orange powder puff
Iying in a little nimbus of face powder that had shaken off
when the puff dropped to the floor. ',he threw it into the
wastebasket. He fished it out and put it in his pocket.
"Have to get rid of it," he said. "Compromising. Dr.
Cohen may be married."
So may you, she thought.
As if divining her thought, he said: "lout I'm not;."
First she looked startled, then relieved. She finished the
pretzel stores He tucked his books and pictures under his
arm. They stood
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at the door ready to lease. She looked around the room
lingeringly as some women are prone to do when they
leave a room which belongs to them and which they had
attended to.
"Now 1'1] wind the cat and chuck out the clock," he said.
"What?" she asked, puzzled.
Serious minded. I warns you, Bassett, he admonished
himself, she's not one to like joking.
"Nothing," he replied. "A poor joke. Something out of
my childhood."
With her finger extends d toward the switch plate, she
paused. She had seen the dentist's mezuzah higher up on
the door frame. Something out of her childhood . . .
Ida was a friend. Maggie-Now was in Ida's kitchen,
visiting just before supper. There were the candles on the
table and the kitchen smelled of chicken soup and baked
fish. Ida's father came in from work. He closed the door,
turned and touched the mezuzah with two fingers.
"Why did he do that?" asked Maggie-Now in a whisper.
The father overheard and answered.
"So we shouldn't forget," he said. "This is a mezuzah. It
holds the prayer." Then he intoned: "Hear, oh Israel! The
Lord our God is one Lord . . .
"The prayer is here. I touch it and I remember. In the
old times the prayer was written on the posts of the house.
It was the Hebrew law." He quoted: "And thou shall write
them upon the posts of thy house."
"But we move away all the time we Jews. We own no
house posts to write the prayer on. The mezuzah is the
post the house post that we carry with us when we
move."
If Mama were here now, she thought, she'd say, "And they
touch the mezuzah the way we dip our fingers in holy water."
He noticed her abstraction. "Tell me," he said.
"As you said: It's something I remembered out of my
childhood." Outside in the hall, she said: "It's funny, but
tonight seems to be the night for remembering things of
when I was a little child."
('7Y]
He was about to say that was because she was sorting
out her past and putting it away because she had no need
of it now that her future was starting. Instead, he said as
they went down the stairs: "I don't believe you were e
ver
a little girl."
"Oh, yes. I was," she somberly. "And for a long time,
too."
I told you before, he reminded himself. She is a serious
~vo~na,~. And very literal, too.
Down on the street, she held out her hand and said:
"Good night, Mr. Bassett. I enjoyed the lesson."
"I have to go past your house on my way home, and, if
I may, I'd like to walk with you."
"I would like you to walk with me," sue said frankly.
"Thank you. Now v here do V U live?"
"But you said . . ."
I warned you, Bassett . . .
"Anyhow, we turn at the next corner and then it's three
blocks."
"Thank you, Miss Floors. It is Bliss isn't it?' he asked
suddenly.
"It's 'bliss' all right,' she said.
"All the men around here must be stupid or blind.''
"Oh, no."
"Yes. Else you would have been snatched up long ago
by one of them and put away in cotton wool."
"You mean, marry me?" she said in her frank way. "No.
No one ever asked me. You see, I have a brother and
some people think he's my son. (He's just started in
school.) My mother died when he was born. I brought him
up. I mean, new people coming to the neighborhood think
he's my child and . . ." She thought briefly of the yard and
the boy from upstairs. "Anyway, a man wouldn't want to
marry a girl and take her brother, too." She sighed.
"Another thing: My father's strict. He wouldn't let me go
out with anyone."
"I'd like to meet your father and shake his hand."
";lly father?" She was astonished. "But why?"
"For heating oflf all the boys and men. For keeping
N' U locked up. I mean for keeping you safe for me."
He's kind of rip, she thought critically, pleased that she had
1: I8'() 1
found a flaw in him. I'm Clad I Jocund that out so I don't
fall in love with him so quick.
Again, as if reading her mind, he said: "You think I'm
flippant, don't you? "
"Flip . . . flippant . . .? '
"I)on't you?" he persisted.
"I don't know what to think," she said honestly. "I never
knew anyone like you before. I don't know whether you're
serious or making fun of me."
"Of you? Never!" he said earnestly. "Really, I'm a
serious person. Or so I like to believe. I say things lightly.
I mean, I say light things. I've traveled around a lot, met
many people, got to know none of them well and got into
the way of saying things quickly and lightly . . . no time to
really get to knov. anyone enough to be sincere . . . that
takes a little time . . ."
"You must have traveled a lot."
He gave her a quick fool`. He decided she vasut being
sarcastic. She wouldn't know how.
"Quite a lot," he said. "And you?"
"I've never been out of Brooklyn, except . . ."
"San Francisco," he said dreamily. "Cincinnati . . .
Chicago, Boston . . ."
". . . except once. When 1 went to Btlston. '
"I'm crazy- about big cities. Denver . . . a mile nearer
the sky than other cities . . ."
Suddenly she knew they weren t in tune with each other.
He w as in a world of his own. She shivered. Someo~e's
Stalking offer my grave, she thought.
She stopped walking and he, talking, walked on ahead,
not knowing he was alone.
"Good night," she called ahead to hiill.
He whirled around and came back to her. "What
happened?"
"I'm home."
"What's the matter with me? Could you overlook my
rudeness? "
"There is nothing to overlook. And it was interesting .
. . about the cities."
"But you weren't interested."
"A person must say the`` are, anN-ll`3\!. to be polite. lent I'm
1 it'll
not really. I like Brooklyn and . . . anyway, I have to go in
now." "Not yet. Not yet," he said. He grasped her arms as
she stood on the step above him and he spoke rapidly as
though time was short. "I wanted to tell you I need to
