Doctor Winton

I

DOCTOR WINTON had his dental offices above Sam Kooperman’s grocery store. He was a tall, thin man in his late fifties and was slightly stoop-shouldered from bending over many patients. His face was rather sallow, he dressed well, and he liked to smoke very strong dark cigars. He was married to a large, florid woman with a handsome figure who had dyed her hair red and was fond of bridge playing. They had no children.

The first week Sam Kooperman moved into the store the doctor came down and introduced himself. He owned the little building, but the renting had gone through an agent. He came down in the morning, to make the new grocer’s acquaintance. He had been in the neighborhood for over twenty years, had seen young people grow up to manhood and womanhood, and he told Sam which families could be trusted for ‘book’ trade and which families could not. At that time the neighborhood was made up largely of railroad workers who were employed by the Northwestern, and the various rooming houses which sprang up later had not yet put in an appearance. The new grocer was grateful for the advice and thanked the doctor. The doctor stood around a while longer, then, noticing Sam’s small boy, Sidney, reading a Wild Western behind the counter, he cleared his throat, asking Sidney how old he was.

‘I’m nine, but I’m going on ten,’ Sidney answered.

‘He’ll be ten in August,’ Sam put in.

‘A big boy,’ said the doctor.

‘No, not so big,’ said the grocer. ‘He’s rather small for his age.’

‘How many children have you got?’ the doctor asked after a while.

Sam Kooperman, who had been having a hard time feeding even one son beside his wife and himself, threw up his hands. ‘I’ve got only one, but, God bless him, he eats like an army!’

‘I suppose he wants to be President,’the doctor said, chuckling.

‘No, all he wants is to ride like a cowboy.’

The doctor chuckled again, then went upstairs. Sidney could see the dentist liked his father and also that his father liked the dentist. ‘Always wait on him nice when he comes down here!’ Sam told him. ‘He’s a gentleman!’

The dentist came down every day to buy four cigars. He smoked a special brand and Sam kept them in a box under the counter especially for him. He kept them out of sight because they were two-for-a-quarter cigars and he did not want the railroad workers who smoked three-for-ten-centers to see them; there had been a big strike a few months before, and the men were still sensitive about things which other people could afford and they could not.

In a few weeks the Koopermans began to realize that the doctor was a lonely man. Sidney heard his mother and father talking about the dentist, and they brought up the matter of the cigars. Both of them knew the doctor had Sam buy the special brand just so that he could come down and talk awhile. The doctor could have bought the cigars himself by the box from a dealer, saving time and money, but instead he came down to Sam, who charged him the strictly retail price and who made almost two dollars profit on each and every box.

‘He’s a gentleman!’ said the grocer.

Then Mrs. Kooperman, a short fleshy vigorous woman, said, speaking quietly: ‘He’s a Jew.’

Her husband was astonished. ‘ What! How can you tell?’

‘His eyes are so sad,’ his wife said, compressing her lips firmly.

Sam scratched his ear. He stood there short and stocky, thinking. ‘ Winton, Winton? No, it can’t be possible.’

But his wife had already sowed the seed and the suspicion grew. The suspicion grew until the stocky little grocer was on pins and needles. Every time the doctor came down for cigars, which was every day, Sam looked as if he wanted to ask him a question; and every time he looked that way the doctor in turn looked expectant but strained. The doctor appeared to be fighting something, hesitating to make up his mind about some matter. He’d go up to his dental offices above the little grocery, puffing a strong fresh cigar, and, when he’d open the first door which led inside, his wife would always come in from the living rooms behind the partition because a little buzzer buzzed every time the outer door was opened. She’d come in looking as though she were about to greet another of her husband’s patients, with a polite smile on her face, but when she saw it was her husband her manner relaxed a bit.

II

Doctor and Mrs. Winton got on well enough together, but there were times when she was full of spite for him. It was not because they were poor — they were n’t; or that he denied her anything— he did n’t; but because of something which they never mentioned between themselves. Once she had almost talked about it, after coming home from a West Side shopping trip and buying some dry goods which did not look so well in the bright daylight of the flat as they had looked under the flashy bulbs over the counter of the store. She had become very angry then, saying that Goldstein’s was not a fit or honest place to shop and that the people who owned stores along Goldstein’s street were all alike, dishonest and tricky. She said a few more things and the doctor stood around, his face going pale, and did not answer. A half hour later, when Mrs. Winton poked her head into the office and saw that the doctor was still looking very pale, she rushed toward him, half sobbing, and gathered him into her arms. Her breasts were large and comfortable and she pressed him toward her. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Milton, so sorry, so sorry,’ she said over and over, kissing his cheek. ‘Really I am; I’m nothing but an old fool.’ She dried her eyes soon after, and when he smiled she laughed shortly and the small gold cross between her breasts jumped a little with her short quick breathing. They stood looking at each other for a little while, liking each other, then the matter was forgotten and Mrs. Winton went humming into the kitchen — they had nice neat rooms behind the offices — and made her husband an apple pie just the way he liked it.

Doctor Winton, however, could not eat apple pie very often, only once or twice a month. His stomach gave him trouble. His doctors had ordered him to give up smoking, but when he had refused they began advising him about his diet. They had to draw the line on something, they told him. However, he fooled them once in a while. Two or three times a year he went for a big full meal to a restaurant on Roosevelt Road near Halsted Street which was patronized mostly by clothing merchants and dry-goods jobbers. He went by himself, as Mrs. Winton did not like that sort of spicy cooking, He would sit down at a side table, call over his favorite waiter, — the waiters never seemed to change at Silver’s, — and instruct the man just how he wanted his food prepared. To hear the doctor speak in such detail about food was a trifle strange, seeing that he rarely ate much at home and then ate anything put before him. In Silver’s, however, he was particular, even fussy, though genial about it. He would order a full-course dinner, would eat it slowly and with relish, then go home. It always happened that his stomach bothered him for a few weeks afterwards, but the meal apparently was worth it, for he never stopped going.

He came down to the grocery one day after Sam Kooperman had had the store three or four months and he seemed to be more talkative than usual. He came down in the morning when little Sidney was at school. The door behind the curtain was half open and the smell of the grocer’s dinner drifted slowly toward the store. The dentist sniffed it.

‘My wife should close the door,’ the grocer apologized, ‘but there’s no draft back there and the kitchen gets so hot. I tell her time after time —’

‘No, let her keep it open. It smells good. ’

‘Yes? But these people around here don’t like the smell, maybe. My wife don’t cook like these women cook around here. After all, she cooks like her own people.’

‘I’ll have four of those cigars,’ the doctor said, pointing under the counter.

Sam reached under the counter, brought the box forth, and the doctor took four. He laid a dollar bill down, getting a half dollar change. The grocer handed him a large box of big wooden matchers and the doctor struck one against the side of the counter. The counter, made of cheap pine, was old and stained, and where the doctor had struck the match the wood was worn and burnt. Teamsters and the railroad workers had been striking big wooden matches against that spot for years.

‘Well,’ said the dentist, looking out into the quietness of Kedzie Avenue, ‘a nice sunny day, a nice spring morning.’

‘No business,’ said the gloomy grocer.

‘No business?’

‘No business — only bills.’

The doctor chuckled. ‘How much money would you take for Sidney?’

‘Sidney? Ten million dollars, five million cash.’

The doctor chuckled again, then smelled the cooking, stronger than ever. The smell came floating from the kitchen behind the store, warm and full of flavor. The doctor’s face grew quiet, but a strange look stole into his eye. ‘What kind of meat is cooking?’

‘Breast of lamb, but we call it brust. My wife makes it a special way, like her people. It’s gedampte brust.’

Slow and heavy the full-flavored odor came floating past the gingham curtain. They could hear Mrs. Kooperman bustling around there, rattling a pan and stirring something. The grocer was watching the doctor’s face. He took the bit between the teeth. ‘ Maybe my wife could spare you a little something — Sidney don’t eat so much on Tuesdays.’

He took the dentist back behind the curtain. It was half-past eleven, a little too early for the meal, but they sat down at the table. Mrs. Kooperman set the table and asked no questions, taking things as a matter of course. The meal did n’t take long — soup, the meat, followed by boiled big prunes and raisins. The doctor liked it. No customers came into the store and they ate without interruption, Sam eating in his long white grocer’s apron, ready to jump up if the front door opened.

When the meal was finished the doctor joked and thanked them. Mrs. Kooperman, warm and rosy from the kitchen, smiled. There was a silence, during which they all stood awkwardly. Mrs. Kooperman finally said something warmly in Yiddish, looking frankly at the dentist. Sam held his breath, keeping back a bit. After a short electrical pause, the doctor relieved the tension. Flushing, half joking, he answered, speaking Yiddish. His words were not quite perfect, as though he had not mouthed Yiddish for many years, but what he said had been apt and correct. Mrs. Kooperman, a big spoon in her hand, beamed all over. ‘Nu,’ she said, I was right, was n’t I, Sam?’

Sidney came stamping in, carrying his school books. In the dimness of the rear rooms he did n’t see the doctor. He came in frowning, making a lot of noise. ‘Ma, I’m hungry! Make way for me right away!’ He did this every day, to assure his mother he was healthy. Mrs. Kooperman, who used to scold him back for answer, to-day grabbed him up in her arms and began kissing his cheek passionately. Sidney began to struggle. Then he saw the doctor. He grew shy, then sheepish. ‘Ma, let me down,’ he said quietly. ‘I ’m a big boy now.’

III

Once or twice a week thereafter the doctor came down to eat. He ate quickly and simply, but always on parting was a trifle awkward. The food cost money, but he was afraid to offer payment, He did not know what to do about it. The Koopermans took it as a matter of course, — hospitality was hospitality, — but he was troubled about it. Owning the little building, he thought he ought to reduce the rent. He said to Sam: ‘You’re not doing so much business; I think I ought to reduce your rent.’ If he had gone about it in another way he might have succeeded. He could have told the grocer the taxes had been cut or something. Instead he had blundered. Sam’s face had grown heavy as timber. The doctor walked upstairs to his office. His wife had become aware of her husband’s little visits, but said nothing about them. He told her she ought to start buying some things at Sam’s store. She traded by telephone at Starbuck’s, a fine big grocery near Lake Street, and had been buying there for years. Starbuck’s carried the goods she wanted, also a line of meats. She had only to phone and the delivery boy came over — a comfortable arrangement. Sam’s stock was so limited, so puny — and sometimes rather dusty. Mrs. Winton tried hard, however. She came down a few times and did a little trading. Mrs. Kooperman, standing at the partition door at the rear, greeted her. It was a trifle awkward at first, naturally. Mrs. Winton was no fool and knew the Koopermans knew everything. The thirty years of married life had lulled her husband’s sense of raciality, and now, by this family’s moving in, it had been aroused again. She made a few small purchases, paid cash, and carried the things upstairs.

A few weeks later she did not come down any more. Sam had such a limited stock, and once a box of crackers had not been fresh. Her husband understood. She did not go down again. But when she had to go out to shop, or to see friends, and had to pass Sam’s windows, she always turned her head toward the store and nodded, to show there was no ill feeling. Sam, if he was near the window, nodded and touched his hat. They smiled a little in greeting each other, but Mrs. Winton was never sure what was behind the little plump grocer’s eyes.

Doctor Winton liked better than anything else, if he had no patients coming, to come down on Friday evenings when the Sabbath candles were burning. It was dark behind the store, the rooms were close and overcrowded, but there was something about the little rear-room living quarters which warmed him every time. He grew very fond of Sidney and began to give him money. Mr. Kooperman objected, so the doctor switched to presents. Mr. Kooperman still objected, so the doctor switched back to money, slipping Sidney quarters. Sidney showed them to his parents. They talked it over. In the end they bought the boy a little iron bank, but told him to take only one quarter at a time from the doctor. ‘No more,’ said Sam. ‘What are we, beggars? Take only one, as it gives him pleasure, but no more!’

When the hot weather came the patients dropped off a little and Doctor Winton came down more often. The heat made him uncomfortable and restless and also talkative. He sent his wife away to the country, as usual, saying he’d join her for two weeks in late August. An old spinster they had yearly engaged as housekeeper for the summer returned to clean the flat and cook for him. It was all according to tradition. The spinster phoned Starbuck’s, like Mrs. Winton, and gave her order. She cooked, also, just as Mrs. Winton had instructed.

Doctor Winton took to coming downstairs more often. He took to sitting in the afternoon in the rear-room kitchen, where it was cooler. Sidney was old enough to wait on trade now and could take care of simple orders. If there was cold meat to be cut or a long sum to figure he’d call out to his father, however. Sam would then come from the back room, would wait on the customer politely, then would go back to his wife and the doctor.

By this time the dentist had told them a great deal about, himself. He did not really mean to, but before he knew it he was talking about himself. In the dimness of the kitchen he sat in one of the old black leather rockers, watching Mrs. Kooperman, who always sat near the stove where grapes or pears or some other kind of fruit was cooking. Fruits were fairly cheap that season and she was always preserving. While the doctor talked she served tea in tall thick glasses, also jelly. The doctor sipped his slowly, flavoring it with the jelly, while Sam drank his tea as in the old country, hissing it between his teeth, which held a cube of sugar, apologizing for the noise. ‘It tastes so good,’ he said.

The doctor told them about his youth. He was the son of Polish Jews who had settled in Macon, Georgia. His father had been a tailor, Zachariah Weinstein, and he had prospered in a moderate fashion — enough at any rate to send his son through two years of school. Then the old man had died and his wife sold the little shop and went north to Boston, to live with a sister. There was now no income, and young Weinstein at school — he had changed his name to Winton upon enrollment — had to work his way. He got a job with the local express company, rolling merchandise into wagons on the night shift. Mrs. Winton at that time was back in Macon waiting for him. She had gone into nursing against the wishes of her people, and her marriage to young Weinstein also caused a scene. The young graduate had gone back home to get married, but her people were so hostile that he did n’t stay long. At that time in Georgia there was feeling against intermarriage. The young dentist put an advertisement in a dental journal for a place and came north to Chicago. He bought out a small office on the South Side and started practice. His mother died and left him a little money. He moved once or twice, then came to Kedzie Avenue. He had been practising above the little grocery for over twenty years now.

That was his story. There was not much else to tell, but he always seemed to be remembering small incidents about his home and his people. Little stories and happenings would come back to him and he would describe them. At some times he sounded like an old man already, though he was not far gone in years. His practice came from all over, sometimes from the suburbs. People who grew up and married and moved away would return to Kedzie Avenue when their teeth needed fixing. The old associations pulled them back. Besides, the doctor was a good dentist and his fees were reasonable. Those who married and raised families sent their children also. The doctor knew them all. But, though he was widely and favorably known, he did not go out very often.

The Koopermans, without saying much, made him feel they understood. Mrs. Kooperman sometimes dropped a word of Yiddish or spoke a proverb which somehow summed up everything. This homely philosophy she had learned from her mother, who had learned it from her mother, and so on back into generations. The doctor would listen, would smile wanly, then, after all the talking, would go up to his office moodily, sorry he had spoken so freely. Once or twice he did not come down for one or two days after and Mrs. Kooperman took the blame. ‘We let him talk too much, that’s the trouble.’

But her husband disagreed. ‘He has a lot inside himself which has to come out. Even if it hurts him.’

‘You know what I think,’ she told him. ‘He’s worried. He’s a sick man and he’s worried how he’s going to die, whether a Gentile or a Jew. That’s what he’s always thinking about. What did he ask you yesterday, “Where have you got your grave lots?" for? He’s a sick man, Sam.’

‘God forbid,’ said her husband. ‘God forbid that he should pass away for a long time yet.’

‘Nu, talk to God, then,’ said his wife crisply, standing over the stove. ‘In the meantime go into the store — I heard the door bang. Maybe a big customer wants to buy a bottle of milk where there’s one cent profit!’

Sam went into the store, uneasy. His wife had sharp eyes, a sharp instinct, and he knew it.

IV

In due time Doctor Winton took a two-weeks vacation and came back with his wife. He came back looking a little older, a little thinner. His face had slightly tanned out in the country, but something about him was more sallow than ever. And for some reason or other, for the first time since his early childhood, he looked a trifle Jewish. His nose, which had thinned perceptibly, and the hollows of his forehead, which had grown deeper, caused him to resemble one of those learned men of the Torah whose eyes burn constantly with the light of knowledge. The people out in the country had thought him ‘distinguished.’ The women, especially, had liked him. Mrs. Winton, however, was glad to bring him away. She was uneasy.

In the fall, soon after Sidney went back to school, Sam Kooperman put a small sign in his window one morning and closed up for the day. The sign read: ‘Store closed on account of holiday. Will open to-morrow.’ He put the sign in the window and took his wife and small son to the synagogue. As it was forbidden to ride, they walked almost three miles, to Ashland Avenue. Mr. Kooperman was not religious, but two times a year, at Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashonah, he locked his doors. He took his wife and son to the synagogue, fasted and said prayers until sundown, then walked home. After sundown his wife made a hearty meal. They broke their fast in the rear of the store, still dressed up in their best clothes. Mrs. Kooperman tied an apron around herself, so as not to spot her clothing.

At eight o’clock, just as they got ready to go to sleep, they heard knocking against the door, then hammering. Sam got up and walked through the dark store, muttering. Ten or twelve small boys were in the street, making a racket. They were calling Sidney dirty names. Sidney had got out of going to school that day and they did n’t like it. Sam came back and they got into bed, not paying any attention to the racket, which gradually died down.

A half hour later a knocking was heard again. Sam turned over, merely mumbling. The knocking was repeated. This time Sam got out of bed, taking a broom in his hands. He was dressed in his long white winter underwear — though it was only autumn — and he walked determinedly. His wife called out to him, saying anxiously: ‘Don’t hit them, Sam. They’re children; they don’t mean harm.’

Sam came to the door and saw Doctor Winton. He drew back the bolt and let the doctor in right away.

‘Are you in bed already?’

‘No, we were just going to sleep; it’s all right.’

In the rear Mrs. Kooperman, hearing the doctor’s voice, hurriedly slipped a house dress over her plump figure, working quickly in the dark. Sidney, in a small bed in a corner, was already dreaming of cowboys and Indians.

Doctor Winton had seen the small sign in Sam Kooperman’s window and had come in to find out about it. They went back toward the rear, so that no passing people might see Sam in his long white underwear. The grocer, though sleepy, had got back his good humor.

‘A fine Jew you are,’ he said, joking, meaning no harm. ‘To-day is a holiday and next week there is one too. Rosh Hashonah. I took my family to the synagogue.’

‘Did you fast?’

‘Yes, we fasted.’

Doctor Winton did not stay long. He saw they really had been in bed, so he withdrew. He went upstairs, troubled, and the grocer rebolted the door. Before Sam went to sleep he said to his wife, ‘The doctor is a sick man,’ but his wife replied quietly, ‘No, he’s a sick Jew.’

Two days before the holiday of the following week the doctor came down and said, half joking, that he’d like to go to the synagogue with them on Friday. Sam joked back. Mrs. Kooperman, however, did not joke, but said, ‘Well, why not?’ They all grew silent, then Sam sent Sidney outside to play.

The next day, one day before the holiday, the doctor came down again and said he was really going with them. Sam became vaguely uneasy, but his wife was jubilant. ‘How will it look?’ said Sam, being practical. ‘What will the neighborhood say?’

The doctor did n’t answer.

‘To them you’re a Gentile. When they see you walking with us to schul they’ll know something is funny. For myself I don’t care; I’m thinking of you.’

There was a long pause, after which Mrs. Kooperman, dropping her eyes, said the doctor could catch up to them later, meeting them on the corner of Lake Street. Then no one would see.

The whole business became embarrassing. But there was something in the doctor’s sickly face, something in his wavering, straining eyes, which led Sam’s wife to repeat her suggestion, and before the doctor went upstairs they came to an agreement.

The next morning, bright and early, Sam Kooperman stuck the same little sign in his front window: ‘Closed on account of holiday. Will open tomorrow.’ He had instructed the milkman and the breadman to leave no supplies that day. A few customers walked by grumbling, because they had to go two full blocks up the street to Barry’s for food.

Sam and his wife and little Sidney dressed and got ready to go. Sam was in his black suit and held his thick prayer book under his arm, wrapped in newspaper. His wife also carried her prayer book, wrapped in newspaper. Sidney was allowed to carry his father’s talis, the fancy silk shawl his father wore over his shoulders while praying.

Sam locked the door noisily, so that the doctor upstairs would know they were going. His wife called out, in a clear voice, ‘Did you lock it good, Sam?’ and Sam answered, also loudly,

’I locked it good.’ Then they set out up the street, walking. Sidney held his father’s hand. A few neighbors were at their windows, watching.

When they reached Lake Street they stopped and waited. Five minutes went by. Mr. Kooperman did not carry a watch, so he looked at the clock in the barber shop. Ten minutes passed. ‘Maybe the clock is fast,’ said his wife.

They waited.

Forty minutes passed, and when they could wait no longer they set out on their two-and-a-half-mile walk, not talking much to one another. The sun was coming over the factories of California Avenue and burst in a fine earlymorning blaze above the railroad tracks of the Northwestern. Mr. Kooperman walked sturdily, holding his son’s hand.

When they reached the synagogue the service had already started. All the men kept their hats on, in the orthodox fashion. The women sat together at one side, as was also the custom. The men prayed together, sitting and standing up by turns. The sun was coming through the windows. Later on, two cantors began singing and someone blew the ram’s horn. Sam Kooperman had his talis covering his shoulders and he prayed sturdily with the others.

At sundown they returned to the store. Their windows had been smeared over by the boys, but Sidney rubbed the candle grease off with soap and water. Mrs. Kooperman made a good supper — chicken soup, chopped liver, and flanken, and all ate heartily.

The doctor did not come down for three days. On the fourth day he put in his appearance, looking thinner and more sick than ever. The grocer made no mention of anything; neither did his wife. The doctor bought four cigars and stood around, frowning. Mrs. Kooperman knew he felt bad and invited him back into the kitchen, where his favorite soup was cooking.

With these simple people he did not have to stand on ceremony. He told them he had had an argument with his wife. He had argued with her and was going with them, but at the last moment had backed out. After all, perhaps she was right. He had lived as a Gentile so long, almost thirty years, that going to a synagogue now would have been stranger than going into a church. His wife had argued with him a long time and finally he had given in.

The Koopermans understood. There was little said on either side when the doctor got through talking, but everything was understood. After the doctor went upstairs again Sam placed his fist against his fat cheek and said, ‘The doctor is a sick man,’ and his wife, after a while, answered, ‘Yes, he’s a sick man, Sam.’

V

In the middle of November a young dentist was taken into the practice upstairs to help out Doctor Winton. He was a tall, clean-looking, athletic fellow, four years out of college. Doctor Winton had cancer, and this chap would take over the practice while the older man went to the hospital for an operation. The surgeons had said the cancer was in its early stage yet and ripe for operation.

Two days before he left, Doctor Winton came down and had a talk with the Koopermans. Now that he was going to the hospital to be cut up he did not care much about what other people thought of him, even his wife. He wanted, however, to justify himself to himself. And the only way to do this was to justify himself to some of his people. He came down, therefore, into the grocery store.

‘I’m going to the hospital the day after to-morrow,’ he told them. ‘I don’t know whether I ’ll come out alive. What I want you to do, if I die, is to go to the funeral and say Kaddish for me. I don’t care who hears you. I ’ll leave a letter with my lawyer before I go that will explain it. And when they bury me I want you to do me still another favor. I want you to go out to the cemetery once and say another Kaddish for me. I speak now as one Jew to another. If I die —’

‘God forbid!’ said the grocer, throwing up his hands. But in the end, turning hot and cold by turns, he gave his promise to the doctor.

The doctor went away on Wednesday. He died on the operating table, just as skillful hands were taking the last of the malignant growth from his body. The surgeons were very sorry, because it looked to be such a successful operation.

At the funeral the minister halted the services five minutes, owing to a strange request. A small stocky man in a black suit came close to the coffin and, while the doctor’s widow wept bitterly into her handkerchief, intoned something in a strange language. Embarrassment hampered him at first, but a short fleshy woman at his side gave his ribs a prod. Toward the end his voice was very clear and everybody looked on wonderingly, with rapt attention. The man kept his hat on, had his chubby hands clasped in front of him, and looked down at the dead face as he intoned the Hebrew prayer for the dead.

Afterwards it was explained that the small man in the black suit had been a close friend of the doctor’s, and that . . .

But by that time Sam Kooperman and his wife were well out of the chapel and hurrying storeward. Sidney had been kept out of school a half day, to take care of the trade in his parents’ absence. He had taken care of a few cash customers and a few customers for ‘book,’ or credit. It was almost noon when Sam Kooperman and his wife returned and Sidney’s mother took off her new dress and hurried with the meal. The meal had been cooked beforehand and only had to be warmed up a trifle. Her husband came back into the kitchen, to talk in a low voice to her. ‘Next week, when he’s buried, we’ll go out there to —’

But by this time the food was cooking and Sidney sniffed it, reading a book in the store. He came back frowning, stamping his feet and noisy. In the gloom of the back rooms his small pale face looked determined. ‘Ma, I’m hungry! Make way for me right away!’

His mother rushed toward him hysterically, weeping and kissing him all over.

Sam walked gloomily out into the store, cracking his fingers behind his back.