“Hurry! You have only ten minutes now in which to get to school. There is no time to lose!”... “How comes it that you are five minutes late to-night? What were you doing?”... “Your teacher made you stay? You had to stop and look for a blank book?”... “Why didn’t you come home first and let me look for it with you afterwards?” (It was her stepmother talking.) “You know your father doesn’t want you to stay after school.”... “And just what were you doing on Warren Avenue between twelve and one to-day? Your father said you were with some girl.”... “Vilma Balet? And who is Vilma Balet? Where does she live? And how long has it been that you have been going with her? Why is it that you have not mentioned her before? You know what your father’s rule is. And now I shall have to tell him. He will be angry. You must obey his rules. You are by no means old enough to decide for yourself. You have heard him say that.”
Notwithstanding all this, Ida, though none too daring or aggressive mentally, was being imaginatively drawn to the very gayeties and pleasures that require courage and daring. She lived in a mental world made up of the bright lights of Warren Avenue, of which she caught an occasional glimpse. The numerous cars speeding by! The movies and her favorite photographs of actors and actresses, some of the mannerisms of whom the girls imitated at school. The voices, the laughter of the boys and girls as they walked to and fro along the commonplace thoroughfare with its street-cars and endless stores side by side! And what triumphs or prospective joys they planned and palavered over as they strolled along in their easy manner—arms linked and bodies swaying—up the street and around the corner and back into the main street again, gazing at their graceful ankles and bodies in the mirrors and windows as they passed, or casting shy glances at the boys.
But as for Ida—despite her budding sensitivity—at ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen—there was no escape from the severe regimen she was compelled to follow. Breakfast at seven-thirty sharp because the store had to be opened by her father at eight; luncheon at twelve-thirty, on the dot to satisfy her father; dinner invariably at six-thirty, because there were many things commercial and social which fell upon the shoulders of William Zobel at night. And between whiles, from four to six on weekdays and later from seven to ten at night, as well as all day Saturdays, store duty in her father’s store. No parties, no welcome home atmosphere for the friends of her choice. Those she really liked were always picked to pieces by her stepmother, and of course this somewhat influenced the opinion of her father. It was common gossip of the neighborhood that her parents were very strict and that they permitted her scarcely any liberties. A trip to a movie, the choice of which was properly supervised by her parents; an occasional ride in an automobile with her parents, since by the time she had attained her fifteenth year he had purchased one of the cheaper cars.
But all the time the rout of youthful life before her eyes. And in so far as her home life and the emotional significance of her parents were concerned, a sort of depressing grayness. For William Zobel, with his gray-blue eyes gleaming behind gilt-rimmed glasses, was scarcely the person to whom a girl of Ida’s temperament would be drawn. Nor was her stepmother, with her long, narrow face, brown eyes and black hair. Indeed, Zobel was a father who by the very solemnity of his demeanor, as well as the soberness and practicability of his thoughts and rules, was constantly evoking a sense of dictatorship which was by no means conducive to sympathetic approach. To be sure, there were greetings, acknowledgments, respectful and careful explanations as to this, that and the other. Occasionally they would go to a friend’s house or a public restaurant, but there existed no understanding on the part of either Zobel or his wife—he never having wanted a daughter of his own and she not being particularly drawn to the child of another—of the growing problems of adolescence that might be confronting her, and hence none of that possible harmony and enlightenment which might have endeared each to the other.
Instead, repression, and even fear at times, which in the course of years took on an aspect of careful courtesy supplemented by accurate obedience. But within herself a growing sense of her own increasing charm, which, in her father’s eyes, if not in her stepmother’s, seemed to be identified always with danger—either present or prospective. Her very light and silky hair—light, grayish-blue eyes—a rounded and intriguing figure which even the other girls at Miss Hohstauffer’s school noticed and commented on. And in addition a small straight nose and a full and yet small and almost pouting mouth and rounded chin. Had she not a mirror and were there not boys from her seventh year on who looked at her and sought to attract her attention? Her father could see this as well as his second wife. But she dared not loiter here and there as others did, for those vigorous, bantering, seeking, intriguing contacts. She must hurry home—to store or house duty or more study in such fields as Zobel and his wife thought best for her. If it was to run errands she was always timed to the minute.
And yet, in spite of all these precautions, the swift telegraphy of eyes and blood. The haunting, seeking moods of youth, which speaks a language of its own. In the drugstore at the corner of Warren and Tracy, but a half-block from her home, there was at one time in her twelfth year Lawrence Sullivan, a soda clerk. He seemed to her the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The dark, smooth hair lying glossed and parted above a perfect white forehead; slim, graceful hands—or so she thought—a care and smartness in the matter of dress which even the clothing of the scores of public school boys passing this way seemed scarcely to match. And such a way where girls were concerned—so smiling and at his ease. And always a word for them as they stopped in on their way home from school.
“Why, hello, Della! How’s Miss McGinnis to-day? I bet I know what you’re going to have. I think pretty blonde girls must like chocolate sundaes—they contrast with their complexions.” And then smiling serenely while Miss McGinnis panted and smiled: “A lot you know about what blonde girls like.”
And Ida Zobel, present on occasion by permission for a soda or a sundae, looking on and listening most eagerly. Such a handsome youth. All of sixteen. He would as yet pay no attention to so young a girl as she, of course, but when she was older! Would she be as pretty as this Miss McGinnis? Could she be as assured? How wonderful to be attractive to such a youth! And what would he say to her, if he said anything at all? And what would she say in return? Many times she imitated these girls mentally and held imaginary conversations with herself. Yes, despite this passive admiration, Mr. Sullivan went the way of all soda-clerks, changing eventually to another job in another neighborhood.
But in the course of time there were others who took her eye and for a time held her mind—around whose differing charms she erected fancies which had nothing to do with reality. One of these was Merton Webster, the brisk, showy, vain and none too ambitious son of a local state senator, who lived in the same block she did and attended Watkins High School, which she was not permitted to attend. So handsome was he—so debonair. “Hello, kid! Gee, you look cute, all right. One of these days I’ll take you to a dance if you want to go.” Yet, because of her years and the strict family espionage, blushes, her head down, but a smile none the less.
And she was troubled by thoughts of him until Walter Stour, whose father conducted a realty and insurance business only a little way west of her father’s store, took her attention—a year later. Walter was a tall, fair complexioned youth, with gay eyes and a big, laughing mouth, who, occasionally with Merton Webster, Lawrence Cross, a grocer’s son, Sven Volberg, the dry-cleaner’s son, and some others, hung about the favorite moving-picture theatre or the drugstore on the main corner and flirted with the girls as they passed by. As restricted as she was still, because of her trips to and fro between home and school and her service as a clerk in her father’s store, she was not unfamiliar with these several figures or their names. They came into the store occasionally and even commented on her looks: “Oh, getting to be a pretty girl, isn’t she?” Whereupon she would flush with excitement and nervously busy herself about filling a customer’s order.