A little pleasure trip."
The little face, littler with each year, broke into smile.
"So, little Sadie-sha, you got good times, not? A good husband and good
times? New York! To New York she goes, Bertha?"
"Yes, mamma."
Mrs. Schulien fell to crooning slightly, redigesting with the senility
of years.
"To New York! Nowadays young wives got it good. How long you stay,
Hermie?"
"It's just my Pittsburgh-New York trip, grandma."
"Sadie, come here by grandma."
She approached with the tears drying on her face, her bosom heaving in
suppressed jerks.
"Yes, grandma." And patted the little clawlike hand, and the bit of
white hair beneath the fluted cap, and a bit of old lace fastened with
an old ivory cameo and covering the old throat.
"You got good times, not?"
"Yes, grandma."
"And you'm a good girl, Sadie. Eh? Eh?"
"Y-yes, grandma."
"When you come back from New York, you bring grandma a fine present,
not?"
"Yes, yes, grandma."
"A quilted under jacket wholesale, for when grandma rides out in the
wheel-chair."
"Y-yes, grandma."
To the saturnine, New York of its spangled nights is like a Scylla of a
thousand heads, each head a menace.
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