Books at bedtime by Calming Anxiety, a pair of silk stockings by Kate Choppin.
Little Miss Summers, one day, bound herself, the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars.
It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged
her worn old, Port Monet gave her a feeling of importance, such as she had never enjoyed
for years.
The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly.
For a day or two, she walked about apparently in a dreamy state, but rarely absorbed in speculation
and calculation.
She did not wish to act hastily.
To do anything she might afterward regate.
But it was during the still hours of the night when she lay awake revolving plans in
her mind, that she seemed to see her way clearly towards a proper and judicious use of the
money.
A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie's shoes, which would
ensure their lasting and appreciable time longer than they usually did.
She would also buy so and so many yards of parcel for the new wastes for the boys and
Janie and Mag.
She had intended to make the old ones do by skillful patching.
Mag should have another gown.
She had seen some beautiful patterns, veritable bargains in the shop windows, and still there
would be left enough for new stockings, two pairs of peace, and what darning that would
save for a while.
She would get caps for the boys and sailor hats for the girls.
The vision of her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives
excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation.
The neighbours sometimes talked of certain better days that little Mrs. Summers had known
before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Summers.
She herself indulged in no such more bidretrospection.
She had no time, no second of time to devote to the past.
The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty.
A vision of the future, like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily
tomorrow never comes.
Mrs. Summers was one who knew the value of bargains, who could stand for hours making her way
inch by inch towards the desired object that was selling below cost.
She could elbow her way if need be.
She had learned to clutch a piece of goods and hold it and stick to it with persistence
and determination till her turn came to be served, no matter when it came.
But that day she was a little faint and tired.
She had swallowed a light luncheon, no, when she came to think of it, between getting the
children fed and the place righted and preparing herself for a shopping-bout.
She had actually forgotten to eat any luncheon at all.
She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was comparatively deserted,
trying to gather strength and courage to charge through an eager multitude that was besieging
breastworks of shirting and figured lawn.
An all-gone-limp feeling had come over her and she rested her hand aimlessly upon the counter.
She wore no gloves.
By degrees she grew aware that her hand had encountered something very soothing, very pleasant to touch.
She looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings.
A placard nearby announced that they had been reduced in price from $2.50 to $1.98.
And a young girl who stood behind the counter asked if she wished to examine their line of
silk rosary.
She smiled, just as if she had asked to inspect Tiara of diamonds with the ultimate view of
purchasing it.
But she went on feeling the soft, sheany, luxurious things with both hands now, holding
them up to see them glisten and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers.
Two hectic plotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks.
She looked up at the girl.
Do you think they are any eights and a half a month these?
They were any number of eight and a half.
In fact they were more than a size than any other.
Here was a light blue pair.
There was some lavender, some all black and various shades of tan in grey.
This is Summers selected a black pair and looked at them very long and closely.
She pretended to be examining their texture, which the clerk assured her was excellent.
A dollar and $0.98 she moosed aloud.
Well, I'll take this pair, she handed the girl a $5 bill and waited for her change and
her parcel.
Not a very small parcel it was.
It seemed lost in the depths of her shabby old shopping bag.
Mrs Summers, after that did not move in the direction of the bargain counter.
She took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into the region of the ladies
waiting room.
Here in a retired corner, she exchanged her cotton sockings for the new silk ones which
she had just bought.
She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself.
Nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive her action.
She was not thinking at all.
She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from the laborious and fatiguing function and
to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed
her of responsibility.
How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh.
She felt like lying back in a cushion chair and reveling for a while in the luxury of
it.
She did for a little while.
Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together and thrust them into
her bag.
After doing this, she crossed straight over to the shoe department and took her seat to
be fitted.
She was fastidious.
The clerk could not make her out.
He could not reconcile her shoes with her stockings and she was not too easily pleased.
She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head the other way.
She glanced down at the polished pointed tipped boots.
Her foot and ankle looked very pretty.
She could not realise that they belonged to her and were part of herself.
She wanted an excellent and stylish fit.
She told the young fellow who served her and she did not mind the difference of a dollar
or two more in the price so long as she got what she desired.
It was a long time since Mrs. Summers had been fitted with gloves.
On rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were always bargains, so cheap that would
have been preposporous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand.
Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter and a pretty pleasant young
creature delicate and deft of touch drew a long rested kid over Mrs. Summers hand.
She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly and both lost themselves for a second
or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical glove hand.
But there were other places where money might be spent.
There were books, magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street.
Mrs. Summers bought two high price magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in
the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things.
She carried them without wrapping as well as she could she lifted her skirts at the crossings.
Her stockings and boots and well fitting gloves had worked marvels in her bearings and had
given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude.
She was very hungry.
Another time she would have still the cravings for food until reaching her own home where
she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available.
With the impulse that was guiding her we'd not suffer her to entertain any such thought.
There was a restaurant at the corner.
She had never entered its doors.
From the outside she had sometimes caught glimpses of spotless damascan shining crystal
and soft stepping-waiters serving people of fashion.
When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation as she had half feared it
might.
She seated herself at a small table alone and an attentive waiter at once approached
to take her order.
She did not want a profusion.
She craved a nice and tasty bite, a half dozen plu-points, a plump chop with crest, a
something sweet.
A creme frappe, for instance, a glass of rind wine and after all a small cup of black coffee.
While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her.
Then she picked up her magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge
of her knife.
It was all very agreeable.
The damascan was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window and the crystal
more sparkling.
There were quiet ladies and gentlemen who did not notice her, launching at the small
tables like their own.
A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard and a gentle breeze was blowing through
the window.
She tasted a bite and she read a word or two and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her
toes in the stocking shoes.
The price of it made no difference.
She counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on its tray, whereupon he
bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.
There was still money in her purse and her next temptation presented itself in the shape
of a matinee poster.
It was a little later when she entered a theatre.
The play had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed.
But there were vacant seats here and there and into one of them she was ashered, between
brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy and display their
cordy attire.
There were many others who were there solely for the play in acting.
It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs.
Summers did to her surroundings.
She gathered in the whole stage and players and the people in one wide impression and absorbed
it and enjoyed it.
She laughed at the comedy and wept and she and the gaudy lady next to her wept over the
tragedy and they talked a little together over it.
And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of flimsy perfumed lace
and passed little Miss Summers a box of candy.
The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out.
It was like a dream ended.
People scattered in all directions.
Mrs. Summers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes who sat opposite her seemed to like the study of her small pale face.
It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there.
In truth he saw nothing.
Unless he were a wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the
cable car would never stop anywhere but go on and on with her forever.