{"product_id":"2940012074812","title":"THE INNOCENTS A STORY FOR LOVERS","description":"CHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. and Mrs. Seth Appleby were almost old. They called each other\u003cbr\u003e\"Father\" and \"Mother.\" But frequently they were guilty of holding hands,\u003cbr\u003eor of cuddling together in corners, and Father was a person of stubborn\u003cbr\u003eyouthfulness. For something over forty years Mother had been trying to\u003cbr\u003emake him stop smoking, yet every time her back was turned he would sneak\u003cbr\u003eout his amber cigarette-holder and puff a cheap cigarette, winking at\u003cbr\u003ethe shocked crochet tidy on the patent rocker. Mother sniffed at him and\u003cbr\u003esaid that he acted like a young smart Aleck, but he would merely grin in\u003cbr\u003eanswer and coax her out for a walk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs they paraded, the sun shone through the fuzzy, silver hair that\u003cbr\u003epuffed out round Father's crab-apple face, and an echo of delicate\u003cbr\u003esilver was on Mother's rose-leaf cheeks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey were rustic as a meadow-ringed orchard, yet Father and Mother had\u003cbr\u003ebeen born in New York City, and there lived for more than sixty years.\u003cbr\u003eFather was a perfectly able clerk in Pilkings's shoe-store on Sixth\u003cbr\u003eAvenue, and Pilkings was so much older than Father that he still called\u003cbr\u003ehim, \"Hey you, Seth!\" and still gave him advice about handling lady\u003cbr\u003ecustomers. For three or four years, some ten years back, Father and Mr.\u003cbr\u003ePilkings had displayed ill-feeling over the passing of the amiable\u003cbr\u003eelastic-sided Congress shoe. But that was practically forgotten, and\u003cbr\u003eFather began to feel fairly certain of his job.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are three sorts of native New-Yorkers: East Side Jews and\u003cbr\u003eItalians, who will own the city; the sons of families that are so rich\u003cbr\u003ethat they swear off taxes; and the people, descendants of shopkeepers\u003cbr\u003eand clerks, who often look like New-Englanders, and always listen with\u003cbr\u003etimid admiration when New-Yorkers from Ohio or Minnesota or California\u003cbr\u003egive them information about the city. To this meek race, doing the\u003cbr\u003ecity's work and forgotten by the city they have built, belonged the\u003cbr\u003eApplebys. They lived in a brown and dusky flat, with a tortoise-shell\u003cbr\u003etabby, and a canary, and a china hen which held their breakfast boiled\u003cbr\u003eeggs. Every Thursday Mother wrote to her daughter, who had married a\u003cbr\u003eprosperous and severely respectable druggist of Saserkopee, New York,\u003cbr\u003eand during the rest of her daytimes she swept and cooked and dusted,\u003cbr\u003ewent shyly along the alien streets which had slipped into the\u003cbr\u003ecobblestoned village she had known as a girl, and came back to dust\u003cbr\u003eagain and wait for Father's nimble step on the four flights of stairs up\u003cbr\u003eto their flat. She was as used to loneliness as a hotel melancholiac;\u003cbr\u003ethe people they had known had drifted away to far suburbs. In each other\u003cbr\u003ethe Applebys found all life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn July, Father began his annual agitation for a vacation. Mr. Pilkings,\u003cbr\u003eof Pilkings \u0026amp; Son's Standard Shoe Parlor, didn't believe in vacations.\u003cbr\u003eHe believed in staying home and saving money. So every year it was\u003cbr\u003enecessary for Father to develop a cough, not much of a cough, merely a\u003cbr\u003esmall, polite noise, like a mouse begging pardon of an irate bee, yet\u003cbr\u003eenough to talk about and win him a two weeks' leave. Every year he\u003cbr\u003eschemed for this leave, and almost ruined his throat by sniffing snuff\u003cbr\u003eto make him sneeze. Every year Mr. Pilkings said that he didn't believe\u003cbr\u003ethere was anything whatever the matter with Father and that, even if\u003cbr\u003ethere was, he shouldn't have a vacation. Every year Mother was\u003cbr\u003efrightened almost to death by apprehension that they wouldn't be able to\u003cbr\u003eget away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFather laughed at her this July till his fluffy hair shook like a dog's\u003cbr\u003eears in fly-time. He pounded his fist on the prim center-table by which\u003cbr\u003eMother had been solemnly reading the picture-captions in the _Eternity\u003cbr\u003eFilmco's Album of Funny Film Favorites_. The statuettes of General\u003cbr\u003eLafayette and Mozart on the false mantel shook with his lusty thumping.\u003cbr\u003eHe roared till his voice filled the living-room and hollowly echoed in\u003cbr\u003ethe porcelain sink in the kitchen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Why,\" he declaimed, \"you poor little dried codfish, if it wasn't for me\u003cbr\u003eyou'd never have a vacation. You trust old dad to handle Pilkings. We'll\u003cbr\u003eget away just as sure as God made little apples.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You mustn't use curse-words,\" murmured Mother, undiscouraged by forty\u003cbr\u003eyears of trying to reform Father's vocabulary. \"And it would be a just\u003cbr\u003ejudgment on you for your high mightiness if you didn't get a vacation,\u003cbr\u003eand I don't believe Mr. Pilkings will give you one, either, and if it\u003cbr\u003ewa'n't for--\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Why, I've got it right under my hat.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, you always think you know so much more--\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFather rounded the table, stealthily and treacherously put his lips at\u003cbr\u003eher ear, and blew a tremendous \"Zzzzzzzz,\" which buzzed in her ear like\u003cbr\u003ea file on a saw-blade.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081045098736,"sku":"2940012074812","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012074812_p0.jpg?v=1763552041","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012074812","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}