It was through Etelka Shomel, the daughter of a German neighbor who was also a friend of William Zobel, that she learned much of these boys and girls. Her father thought Etelka a safe character for Ida to chum with, chiefly on account of her unattractiveness. But through her, as well as their joint pilgrimages here and there, she came to hear much gossip about the doings of these same. Walter Stour, whom she now greatly admired, was going with a girl by the name of Edna Strong, who was the daughter of a milk-dealer. Stour’s father was not as stingy as some fathers. He had a good car and occasionally let his son use it. Stour often took Edna and some of her friends to boathouse resorts on the Little Shark River. A girl friend of Etelka’s told her what a wonderful mimic and dancer he was. She had been on a party with him. And, of course, Ida lent a willing and eager ear to all this. Oh, the gayety of such a life! Its wonders! Beauties!
And then one night, as Ida was coming around the corner to go to her father’s store at about seven-thirty and Stour was on his favorite corner with several other boys, he called: “I know who’s a sweet kid, but her daddy won’t let her look at a guy. Will he?” This last aimed directly at her as she passed, while she, knowing full well who was meant and how true it was, hurried on all the faster. If her father had heard that! Oh, my! But it thrilled her as she walked. “Sweet kid.” “Sweet kid”—kept ringing in her ears.
And then at last, in her sixteenth year, Edward Hauptwanger moved into a large house in Grey Street. His father, Jacob Hauptwanger, was a well-to-do coal-dealer who had recently purchased a yard on the Absecon. It was about this time that Ida became keenly aware that her normal girlhood, with its so necessary social contacts, was being set at naught and that she was being completely frustrated by the stern and repressive attitude of her father and stepmother. The wonder and pain, for instance, of spring and summer evenings just then, when she would stand gazing at the moon above her own commonplace home—shining down into the narrow, commonplace garden at the back, where still were tulips, hyacinths, honeysuckle and roses. And the stars shining above Warren Avenue, where were the cars, the crowds, the moving-picture theatres and restaurants which held such charm for her. There was a kind of madness, an ache, in it all. Oh, for pleasure—pleasure! To go, run, dance, play, kiss with some one—almost any one, really, if he were only young and handsome. Was she going to know no one—no one? And, worse, the young men of the neighborhood calling to her as she passed: “Oh, look who’s here! Shame her daddy won’t let her out.” “Why don’t you bob your hair, Ida? You’d be cute.” Even though she was out of school now, she was clerking as before and dressing as before. No short skirts, bobbed hair, rolled-down stockings, rouge.
But with the arrival of this Edward Hauptwanger, there came a change. For here was a youth of definite and drastic impulses—a beau, a fighter, a fellow of infinite guile where girls of all sorts were concerned—and, too, a youth of taste in the matter of dress and manner—one who stood out as a kind of hero to the type of youthful male companions with whom he chose to associate. Did he not live in a really large, separate house on Grey Street? And were not his father’s coal-pockets and trucks conspicuously labelled outstanding features of the district? And, in addition, Hauptwanger, owing to the foolish and doting favor of his mother (by no means shared by his father), always supplied with pocket money sufficient to meet all required expenditures of such a world as this. The shows to which he could take his “flames”; the restaurants, downtown as well as here. And the boat club on the Little Shark which at once became a rendezvous of his. He had a canoe of his own, so it was said. He was an expert swimmer and diver. He was allowed the use of his father’s car and would often gather up his friends on a Saturday or Sunday and go to the boat club.
More interesting still, after nearly a year’s residence here, in which he had had time to establish himself socially after this fashion, he had his first sight of Ida Zobel passing one evening from her home to the store. Her youthful if repressed beauty was at its zenith. And some remarks concerning her and her restricted life by youths who had neither the skill nor the daring to invade it at once set him thinking. She was beautiful, you bet! Hauptwanger, because of a certain adventurous fighting strain in his blood, was at once intrigued by the difficulties which thus so definitely set this girl apart. “These old-fashioned, dictatorial Germans! And not a fellow in the neighborhood to step up and do anything about it! Well, whaddya know?”
And forthwith an intensive study of the situation as well as of the sensitive, alluring Ida Zobel. And with the result that he was soon finding himself irresistibly attracted to her. That pretty face! That graceful, rounded figure! Those large, blue-gray, shy and evasive eyes! Yet with yearning in them, too.
And in consequence various brazen parades past the very paint store of Zobel, with the fair Ida within. And this despite the fact that Zobel himself was there—morning, noon and night—bent over his cash register or his books or doing up something for a customer. And Ida, by reason of her repressed desires and sudden strong consciousness of his interest in her as thus expressed, more and more attracted to him. And he, because of this or his own interest, coming to note the hours when she was most likely to be alone. These were, as a rule, Wednesdays and Fridays, when because of a singing society as well as a German social and commercial club her father was absent from eight-thirty on. And although occasionally assisted by her stepmother she was there alone on these nights.
And so a campaign which was to break the spell which held the sleeping beauty. At first, however, only a smile in the direction of Ida whenever he passed or she passed him, together with boasts to his friends to the effect that he would “win that kid yet, wait and see.” And then, one evening, in the absence of Zobel, a visit to the store. She was behind the counter and between the business of waiting on customers was dreaming as usual of the life outside. For during the past few weeks she had become most sharply conscious of the smiling interest of Hauptwanger. His straight, lithe body—his quick, aggressive manner—his assertive, seeking eyes! Oh, my! Like the others who had gone before him and who had attracted her emotional interest, he was exactly of that fastidious, self-assured and self-admiring type toward which one so shy as herself would yearn. No hesitancy on his part. Even for this occasion he had scarcely troubled to think of a story. What difference? Any old story would do. He wanted to see some paints. They might be going to repaint the house soon—and in the meantime he could engage her in conversation, and if the “old man” came back, well, he would talk paints to him.
And so, on this particularly warm and enticing night in May, he walked briskly in, a new gray suit, light tan fedora hat and tan shoes and tie completing an ensemble which won the admiration of the neighborhood. “Oh, hello. Pretty tough to have to work inside on a night like this, ain’t it?” (A most irresistible smile going with this.) “I want to see some paints—the colors of ’em, I mean. The old man is thinking of repainting the house.”
And at once Ida, excited and flushing to the roots of her hair, turning to look for a color card—as much to conceal her flushing face as anything else. And yet intrigued as much as she was affrighted. The daring of him! Suppose her father should return—or her stepmother enter? Still, wasn’t he as much of a customer as any one else—although she well knew by his manner that it was not paint that had brought him. For over the way, as she herself could and did see, were three of his admiring companions ranged in a row to watch him, the while he leaned genially and familiarly against the counter and continued: “Gee, I’ve seen you often enough, going back and forth between your school and this store and your home. I’ve been around here nearly a year now, but I’ve never seen you around much with the rest of the girls. Too bad! Otherwise we mighta met. I’ve met all the rest of ’em so far,” and at the same time by troubling to touch his tie he managed to bring into action one hand on which was an opal ring, his wrist smartly framed in a striped pink cuff. “I heard your father wouldn’t even let you go to Warren High. Pretty strict, eh?” And he beamed into the blue-gray eyes of the budding girl before him, noted the rounded pink cheeks, the full mouth, the silky hair, the while she trembled and thrilled.