Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

"Didn't she get wise?"

"I wish so. Then she don't come here no more." Ele made a rationalization. "A lady what likes to be snotty, is right she pays extra for the thumb."

It was these things that Otto knew and that he wanted to be known by someone before he died. Ele stopped worrying that the knowledge would be lost with his death, now that he had Denny to teach these things to.

In time, he taught Denny how to cut meat. Denny learned fast. He had a great aptitude for meat. Denny became very popular with the customers. Mothers told their children: "When you go by Winer's ask that Denny should wait on you. He don't skin people."

Winer called Denny "I)inny," because Den-iss was too difficult for him to say and the name Dinny was like an affectionate

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souvenir of the fate that had sent Denny to his store that day.

Winer depended a lot on Denny. Winer found he could take things a little easier now. He experimented with new combinations of food, because Dennv ate lunch with him now and Winer liked to surprise him. Winer took walks in the morning and naps in the afternoon while Denny tended the store alone.

Came the time when he left Denny in charge of the store for a whole day. Winer was going over to Yorkville to spend the day with a Landsmann, also a butcher. Denny had long since been promoted to sweater, straw cuffs and white bib apron. On this day, he got his stripes-a straw hat to wear in the store.

"There," said Winer, placing it on Denny's head with two hands as though it were a crown. "Today you are full butcher. Now I go to Yorkville and I would not stay all dav if I did not trust you, Dinny."

Denny was so accustomed to being mistrusted that he didn't know whether Winer's remark was a compliment or a warning. Denny tipped his nev. straw hat over one eye.

Winer frowned and set it straight on his head. Denny always wore it straight after that.

Denny had always wanted to know why butchers wore straw hats in the store even in winter. At first, he thought it was to prevent dandruff from falling on the meat. Then he decided it Noms to prevent a butcher from running bloody hands through his hair. Now he had a chance to find out the truth.

"Otto," he asked, "why do butchers always wear straw hats in the store?"

"So people should know they're butchers," said Otto Winer.

THE neighbors who once eagerly discussed Denny's bad ways, because they had to talk about so1~et~ing, IIOW discussed his success just as eagerly because they still had to talk about some t/'i~zg. They used to warn their boys not to be like that Dennv

~'86'1 Moore, now. Now they asked their kids, why couldn't they be like Denny Moore? Once it had been agreed that he'd end up in Sing Sing. Now it was agre. d that he'd own his own butcher shop before too long.

Mothers of marriageable daughters put off buying meat until the daughter came home from work. Then it was: "Go to Winer's before they close and tell Denny you want four loin pork chops." At six each evening, there was always a rush of girls in the store. Each time a girl came in, Denny hoped it wasn't "That" Tessie and when it wasn't Tessie he was disappointed.

Maggie-Now and Wine r laid the foundation for a teasing friendship. She bought all her meat at Winer's now, and brought her foster children along A hen she shopped.

Nearly every Saturday night, Winer gave Denny some delicacy to take home to Missus Now: a couple of veal kidneys or a sweetbread or a Delmonico steak. She was touched and grateful. And she told Winer so.

He said: "I ain't so dumb like I look. If I give Dinny meat to take home, how can he ask me for a raise?" And he knew MaggieNow didn't believe that.

She said: "Why, Mr. Winer! You're just terrible!" And she knew Winer didn't believe that.

Pat, of course, had to take a dark view of Denny's profession. "Do you know, me boy," he said, "that when you went in the butcher business, you gave up your great right as far as the constitution is concerned?"

"No, I didn't. I can still vote when I'm twenty-one."

"I mean the right to serve on a jury. In a murder trial, they don't take butchers on the jury, because a butcher is use' to blood and chopping off bones."

"Were you ever on a jury, Papa-" "No. I had better things to do with me time."

"Gee, Papa," said Denny "if I live until I'm a hundred, I'll never understand how you figure thUlos out."

"I'm deep," explained Pat.

One Sunday morning, Denny just happened to wander over to the church on l\lontrose Avenue. He wanted to see Tessie, he convinced himself, to drum up business for Winer. He planned 1'38-, 1

to say that they had just gotten a side of prime beef and, if she'd like to stop in after her work, he'd give her a good cut of steak.

Tessie came out Title a young man. She saw Denny and smiled all over. "Hello, Dennis," she said. "Hello, Tessie,"

he answered and started to walk an ay. Tessie spoke to the man she was with and the man tipped his hat and left her. Tessie started after Denny, then decided that she v.

as not the sort of girl who ran after a man.

Denny hung around the house all that afternoon and was short-tempered with everybody. He told his sister: "So her mother wouldn't let her go out with me! And you ought to see the bum that Tessie's going out with now."

A few nights later, after Denny had had supper, Maggie-Now said: "Denny, will yolk do something for me?"

"Sure. What?"

"I pressed your good suit today and polished your other shoes…."

"Gee, Maggie-l!Tow, I don't want you shining my shoes."

"Oh, I love to do it. I want you to get all dressed up and go over to see Annie."

"Do you think I'm crazy or something?" he asked in sheer astonishment.

"I want her to see how very nice you turned out to be."

"Who cares what she thinks of me, one way or the other."

"I was over to see Annie a couple of Sundays ago and Tessie asked all about you. She said that every Sunday when she comes out of church she alvv: lys hopes you'll be waiting for her. ."

". . when your sister brought you here. How old was she then? Yes, she had eighteen years, and you was a baby, Denty, and Tessie was in my arms yet and Albie wasn't even here yet."

"I hardly remember that," said Denny, and Tessie smiled as though he had said something very significant.

"My, think on it!" said Annie. "And now you are such a big man."

She s.w that Denny wasn't listening. He sat there looking at Tessie and Tessie sat there looking at him.

"I talk too much," said Annie, suddenly embarrassed.

"Mrs. Vernacht," said Denny suddenly, "would you mind if took your daughter out?"

~,8Y 1 "Take my Tessie out?"

"Yes. Take Tessie out."

"She has the say of that," said Annie.

"Well, what do you say, Tessie?" he asked.

"When: " she asked right back.

In this way was the pact between them made and it would endure for all of Tessie's life.

Annie knew the inevitable. She sighed as she thought: He ain't rich, but he has a good trade and now he is a good plan. What more could a mother ask from God, only that her daughter gets a good man?

A two-year courtship started with that first date. In that more leisurely era, courtship was considered the happiest time of a young girl's life. It was a tender interlude of man and girl adoring each other; of presenting their best aspects to each other; of considerate attentions given and received; presents given each other that would be kept and cherished and handed down to the children.