I followed Mike’s advice to the letter. Every night I was home for dinner at six o’clock, even though I might have to leave later and return to the store. My routine was established. I ate, slept, and worked, and after store hours I gave myself to the problems that beset all parents of small children: changing diapers and being concerned over unexpected rashes and fevers in the night. I remembered Tolstoy’s answer to the question: When is a man free? A man is free when he recognizes his burden, like the ox that recognizes its yoke.
I learned that I was not alone. It was not only old friends like Claire Sampson bringing over a turkey for our dinner, or Lollie Wexler, early one wintry morning unbuttoning the hood about her blonde hair and, flushed with the cold and her own tremendous effort, saying ever so softly, “Can I help?” It was also people I scarcely knew, such as the strange man whose name I invariably forgot, but who dressed so elegantly, a stickpin in his tie, his moustache beautifully trimmed, a small flower in his lapel, and who called everybody, “Kid.” He came in now on a wet November night and bought some detective stories. To my astonishment, when I handed him the books, he began to weep. The tears were irresistible, so I looked at him and wept also. “You’re a sweet kid,” he said, strangling, and turned and left the shop.
There was Marvin Glass, a genius at toy design, devoted like Mann’s Herr Settembrini to the total encompassment of human knowledge. I almost had to hire a girl to take care of his special orders alone, dispatching telegrams, night letters, even cablegrams for books he wanted yesterday. He spoke in confidential whispers, but his expression was always so precise that you invariably found yourself watching carefully over every word you uttered in response.
There was Bert Liss, who wore the most beautiful coats I had ever seen and a fantastic series of elegant hats: a Tyrolean hat, a checkered cap, a Cossack fur hat, a dashing black homburg. Whenever he went crazy over a book, at least twenty of his friends would order a copy. But more than that, he was a gentleman, firm in his belief in the goodness of man.
Sidney Morris, the architect who helped design the interior of the shop (and never sent a bill) was there, not only to buy, but more important, whenever I needed someone to confide in. There was Oscar Getz—Oscar, in vaguely Prince Albert dress, forgetting a life of business and[and] civic responsibility the moment he entered the world of letters. Upon encounter with ideas, his eyes lit up and his body began to quiver. There was no doubt about his ability to entrance his listeners. Once, while driving him home after an evening spent at a small café[café] listening to gypsy music, I became so absorbed in what he was saying that I was presented with tickets for two traffic violations, one for failing to stop at a red light and another for going in the wrong direction down a one-way street.
Another scholarly business man, Philip Pinsof, came in with his brothers, Oscar and Eddie, and together they made it clear that I was being cared for. In later years I was to enjoy Sabbath dinners at the Pinsofs’—where Phil’s wife was a most gracious hostess who would seat her husband on a red pillow, as if to say, “For five days you have received the slings and arrows of the marketplace, but on Friday night you are as a king in your own home.”
George Lurie came not only to buy books but to regale me with stories, such as the episode in which he attended the board of governors meeting of a major university and was invited to sign a book in which each guest had inscribed not only his name but his alma mater. George wrote his name in the book and cryptically added H & M. The gentleman sitting next to him asked, “Harvard and what? Massachusetts Institute of Technology?” “No,” said George, “Halsted and Maxwell”—the address of Chicago’s famous and still extant open air market.
Everett Kovler, president of the Jim Beam whiskey company, made it clear to me that I could call him and say, “Everett, I need a sale.” There were times when I did, and he always replied, “Fine, send it.” Another official of the same firm, George Gabor, was also my benefactor. Through a strange twist of fate, he was able to cancel a debt that plagued me, muttering under his breath as he bought a book, “About that ... it’s all been washed out.”
While the kindness of my customers served to cheer my heart no little, my peace of mind was greatly augmented by the personal friendship and professional concern of Dr. Arthur Shafton, the kind of pediatrician who would come to the house at a moment’s notice to treat bleeding or feverish children and soothe their hysterical father, the kind of physician who views medicine as an art. Sometimes when he dropped into the shop, he would take me in hand too, suggesting, “Perhaps you ought to go home now, you look tired.”
For a brief time, I also thought I had found a gem of an office girl. She was certainly unique and physically striking: a high breasted young creature at least six feet tall who responded to instructions by taking a deep breath, blinking her grey-blue eyes, and intoning, “Will do!” Then she would wheel on her spike heels, pick up her knees with an elevation that threatened to strike her chin, and walk away, a marvel of strange symmetry. She was the most obedient employee I ever had and the tidiest. My desk was always clean as a whistle. But when the time came for the month’s billings, I could find no accounts. I rushed to Miss “Will do” in consternation. She fluttered her lashes and said, “I threw them away.” That was how she kept my desk so clean!