O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 Part 30

"I hate it, ma, if they breathe on my neck."

"Leon darlink, did mamma promise to fix it? Have I ever let you plan a concert where you wouldn't be comfortable?"

His long, slim hands suddenly prehensile and cutting a long, upward gesture, Leon Kantor rose to his feet, face whitening.

"Do it now! Now, I tell you! I won't have them breathe on me. Do you hear me? Now! Now! Now!"

Risen also, her face soft and tremulous for him, Mrs. Kantor put out a gentle, a sedative hand upon his sleeve.

"Son," she said, with an edge of authority even behind her smile, "don't holler at me."

He grasped her hand with his two, and, immediately quiet, placed a close string of kisses along it.

"Mamma," he said, kissing them again and again into the palm, "mamma--mamma!"

"I know, son; it's nerves."

"They eat me, ma. Feel--I'm like ice. I didn't mean it; you know I didn't mean it."

"My baby," she said, "my wonderful boy, it's like I can never get used to the wonder of having you! The greatest one of them all should be mine--a plain woman's like mine!"

He teased her, eager to conciliate and ride down his own state of quivering.

"Now, ma--now--now--don't forget Rimsky!"

"'Rimsky!' A man three times your age who was playing concerts before you was born! Is that a comparison? From your clippings-books I can show Rimsky who the world considers the greatest violinist. Rimsky he rubs into me!"

"All right then, the press-clippings, but did Elsa.s.s, the greatest manager of them all, bring me a contract for thirty concerts at two thousand a concert? Now I've got you! Now!"

She would not meet his laughter.

"'Elsa.s.s!' Believe me, he'll come to you yet. My boy should worry if he makes fifty thousand a year more or less. Rimsky should have that honour--for so long as he can hold it. But he won't hold it long.

Believe me, I don't rest easy in my bed till Elsa.s.s comes after you. Not for so big a contract like Rimsky's, but bigger--not for thirty concerts but for fifty!"

"_Brava! Brava!_ There's a woman for you. More money than she knows what to do with, and then not satisfied!"

She was still too tremulous for banter.

"'Not satisfied?' Why, Leon, I never stop praying my thanks for you!"

"All right then," he cried, laying his icy fingers on her cheek; "to-morrow we'll call a _Mignon_--a regular old-fas.h.i.+oned Allen Street prayer-party!"

"Leon, you mustn't make fun."

"Make fun of the sweetest girl in this room?"

"'Girl!' Ah, if I could only hold you by me this way, Leon! Always a boy--with me--your poor old mother--your only girl. That's a fear I suffer with, Leon--to lose you to a--girl! That's how selfish the mother of such a wonder-child like mine can get to be."

"All right. Trying to get me married off again. Nice! Fine!"

"Is it any wonder I suffer, son? Twenty-one years to have kept you by me a child. A boy that's never in his life was out after midnight except to catch trains. A boy that never has so much as looked at a girl and could have looked at princesses. To have kept you all these years--mine--is it any wonder, son, I never stop praying my thanks for you? You don't believe Hanc.o.c.k, son, the way he keeps teasing you always you should have a--what he calls--affair--a love-affair? Such talk is not nice, Leon--an affair!"

"Love-affair poppyc.o.c.k!" said Leon Kantor, lifting his mothers face and kissing her on eyes about ready to tear. "Why, I've got something, ma, right here in my heart for you that--"

"Leon, be careful your s.h.i.+rt-front!"

"That's so--so what you call 'tender,' for my best sweetheart that I--oh, love affair--poppyc.o.c.k!"

She would not let her tears come. "My boy--my wonder-boy!"

"There goes the overture, ma."

"Here, darlink--your gla.s.s of water."

"I can't stand it in here; I'm suffocating!"

"Got your mute in your pocket, son?"

"Yes, ma; for G.o.d's sake, yes! Yes! Don't keep asking things."

"Ain't you ashamed, Leon, to be in such an excitement? For every concert you get worse."

"The chairs--they'll breathe on my neck."

"Leon, did mamma promise you those chairs would be moved?"

"Where's Hanc.o.c.k?"

"Say--I'm grateful if he stays out. It took me enough work to get this room cleared. You know your papa he likes to drag in the whole world to show you off--always just before you play. The minute he walks in the room, right away he gets everybody to trembling just from his own excitements. I dare him this time he should bring people--no dignity has that man got, the way he brings everyone."

Even upon her words came a rattling of door, of door-k.n.o.b and a voice through the clamour.

"Open--quick--Sarah! Leon!"

A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the s.h.i.+vering door.

"Open--Sarah!"

With a narrowing glance, Mrs. Kantor laid to her lips a forefinger of silence.

"Sarah, it's me! Quick, I say!"

Then Leon Kantor sprang up, the old prehensile gesture of curving fingers shooting up.

"For G.o.d's sake, ma, let him in! I can't stand that infernal battering."

"Abrahm, go away! Leon's got to have quiet before his concert."

"Just a minute, Sarah. Open quick!"