ng, enormous Sunday
newspapers and bottles of cream waited in the doorways. Fasting women,
with contented faces, chatted in the bakery and the dairy, and in the
push-cart at the curb ice melted under a carpet cover. It was going to
be a scorcher--said the eager boys and girls, starting off in holiday
wear, coatless, gloveless, frantic to be away. Little families were
engineered to the surface cars, clean small boys in scalloped blue wash
suits, mother straining with the lunch-basket, father carrying the
white-coated baby and the newspaper and the children's cheap coats.
Martie, kissing Teddy as a preliminary to her delayed breakfast, came
home to discuss the order of events. The route and the time were
primarily important: Teddy's bucket, John's camera, her own watch, must
not be forgotten. There were last words for Henny and Aurora, good-byes
for Grandma; then they were out in the Sunday streets, and the day was
before them!
John took charge of the child; Adele and Martie talked and laughed
together all the long trip. The extraordinary costumes of the boys and
girls about them, the sights that filled the streets, these and a
thousand other things were of fresh interest. Adele's costume was
discussed.
"My gloves washed so beautifully; he said they would, but I didn't
believe him! My skirt doesn't look a bit too short, does it, Martie? I
put this old veil on, and then if we have dinner any place decent, I'll
change to the other. I wore these shoes, because I'll tell you why:
they only last one summer, anyway, and you might as well get your wear
out of them. Listen, does any powder show? I simply put it on thick,
because it does save you so. It's that dead white. I told her I didn't
have colour enough for it; she said I had a beautiful colour--absurd,
but I suppose they have to say those things!"
And Adele, her clear brown eyes looking anxiously from her slender
brown face, leaned toward Martie for inspection. Martie was always
reassuring. Adele looked lovely; she had her hat on just right.
At Coney Teddy played bare-legged in the warm sand. Adele had a beach
chair near by. She put on her glasses, and began her sewing; later they
would all read parts of the paper, changing and exchanging constantly.
Martie and John, beaming upon all the world, joined the long lines that
straggled into the bath-houses, got their bundled suits and their gray
towels, and followed the attendant along the aisles that were echoing
wi
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