"Mother," said Nettie, standing on tiptoe to reach the tall woman's ear, and speaking in an awe-stricken whisper, "father was in church!"
"For the land of pity!" said Mrs. Decker, speaking low and solemnly.
And all through the next morning's meal, which was an unusually quiet one, she waited on her husband with a kind of respectful reverence, which if he had noticed, might have bewildered him. It seemed to her that the event of the evening before had lifted him into a higher world than hers, and that she could not tell now, what might happen.
The event of the day was the concert; all other plans were set aside for that. At first Norm scoffed and declared that his ticket might be used to light the fire with, for all he cared; he didn't want to go to one of their "swell" concerts. But this talk Nettie laughed over good-naturedly, as though it were intended for a joke, and continued her planning as to when to have supper, and just when she and Norm must start.
In the course of the day, that young man discovered it to be a fine thing to own tickets for this special concert. Before noon tickets were at a premium, and several of Norm's fellow-workmen gayly advised him to make an honest penny by selling his. During the early morning it had been delicately hinted by one young fellow that Norm Decker's tickets were made of tissue paper, which was his way of saying, that he did not believe that Norm had any; but, thanks to Nettie's thoughtful tact, the tickets were at that very moment reposing in her brother's pocket, and he drew them forth in triumph, wanting to know if anybody saw any tissue paper about those. Good stiff green pasteboard with the magic words on them which would admit two people to what was considered on all sides the finest entertainment of the sort the town had ever enjoyed.
"Where did you get 'em, Norm? Come, tell us, that's a good fellow. You was never so green as to go and pay a dollar for two pieces of pasteboard."
"They are complimentaries," said Norm, tossing off a shaving with a careless air, as though complimentary tickets to first-class concerts were every-day affairs with him.
"Complimentary? My eyes, aren't we big!" (I am very sorry that the boys in Norm's shop used these slang phrases; but I want to say this for them: it was because they had never been taught better. Not one of them had mother or father who were grieved by such words; some of them were so truly good-hearted that I believe if such had been the case, they would never have used them again; and I wish the same might be said of all boys with cultured and careful mothers.)
"How did you get 'em? Been selling tickets for the show, or piling chairs, or what?"