When she displeased
him, he beat her, and knocked her frail form on the floor. The
children could tell when this had happened. Her eyes would be
red, and there would be blue marks on her face and neck. "Poor
Mrs. Tony," they would say, and nestle close to her. Tony did
not roar at her for petting them, perhaps, because they spent
money on the multi-hued candy in glass jars on the shelves.
Her mother appeared upon the scene once, and stayed a short time;
but Tony got drunk one day and beat her because she ate too much,
and she disappeared soon after. Whence she came and where she
departed, no one could tell, not even Mrs. Murphy, the Pauline
Pry and Gazette of the block.
Tony had gout, and suffered for many days in roaring
helplessness, the while his foot, bound and swathed in many folds
of red flannel, lay on the chair before him. In proportion as
his gout increased and he bawled from pure physical discomfort,
she became light-hearted, and moved about the shop with real,
brisk cheeriness. He could not hit her then without such pain
that after one or two trials he gave up in disgust.
So the dull years had passed, and life had gone on pretty much
the same for Tony and the German wife and the shop. The children
came on Sunday evenings to buy the stick candy, and on week-days
for coal and wood. The servants came to buy oysters for the
larger houses, and to gossip over the counter about their
employers.
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