d then, waiting for the weary little figures to climb the stairs,
would turn out the light, and, hairpins in one hand, corset in the
other, perhaps, mount to bed.

By nine o'clock the little household would be sleeping, the children
sweetly and dreamlessly, the tired woman restlessly and fitfully, her
overwrought brain still surging with the day's problems. It was not like
a household at rest, somehow. It was like a spirited thing standing,
quivering for a moment, its nerves tense, its muscles twitching.

Perhaps you have quite forgotten that here were to be retailed two
epochal events in Fanny Brandeis's life. If you have remembered, you
will have guessed that the one was the reading of that book of social
protest, though its writer has fallen into disfavor in these fickle
days. The other was the wild and unladylike street brawl in which she
took part so that a terrified and tortured little boy might escape his
tormentors.

CHAPTER FIVE

There was no hard stock in Brandeis' Bazaar now. The packing-room was
always littered with straw and excelsior dug from hogsheads and great
crates. Aloysius lorded it over a small red-headed satellite who
disappeared inside barrels and dived head first into huge boxes,
coming up again with a lamp, or a doll, or a piece of glassware, like
a magician. Fanny, perched on an overturned box, used to watch him,
fascinated, while he laboriously completed a water set, or a tea set.
A preliminary dive would bring up the first of a half dozen related
pieces, each swathed in tissue paper. A deft twist on the part of
the attendant Aloysius would strip the paper wrappings and disclose
a ruby-tinted tumbler, perhaps. Another dive, and another, until six
gleaming glasses stood revealed, like chicks without a hen mother. A
final dip, much scratching and burrowing, during which armfuls of hay
and excelsior were thrown out, and then the red-headed genie of the
barrel would emerge, flushed and triumphant, with the water pitcher
itself, thus completing the happy family.

Aloysius, meanwhile, would regale her with one of those choice bits of
gossip he had always about him, like a jewel concealed, and only to be
brought out for the appreciative. Mrs. Brandeis disapproved of store
gossip, and frowned on Sadie and Pearl whenever she found them, their
heads close together, their stifled shrieks testifying to his wit. There
were times when Molly Brandeis herself could not resist the spell of his
tong