One On The House by Mary Lasswell Page B

a cheap pair of gabardine pants and an inexpensive tweed jacket. “Poor booger’s Sunday best,” she sighed. “Ain’t nobody touchin’ the lad’s cot.” She folded up the blankets and then the cot. Mrs. Rasmussen went over and lit the gas-ring.
    “Good it ain’t shut off,” she said. She took a corn broom from behind the door and began to sweep the room.
    “S’pose he has relatives, or help comin’ in later on? What do we do then?”
    “Start worryin’ about that when the time comes,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Whatever happens, we gotta keep our mouths shut an’ let the other fellers do all the talkin’. We gotta hold the fort till Miss Tinkham gets back anyway.” She went back to the bar and began examining the taps.
    “This door must go to the basement…I’m goin’ down an’ look!” In a few moments she came back upstairs. “You know what? They ain’t hardly no beer left!”
    Mrs. Rasmussen took her broom and began on the barroom. “This kid is sure on short rations! There’s a reek o’ poverty around here you could cut with a knife. A kinda despairin’ smell…”
    “It’s cause he’s all by himself…betcha! Here!” Mrs. Feeley shoved a mop-stick at Old-Timer. “Get up on the tables an’ sweep down that goddam Irish crape! Pull down them flypapers while you’re at it!” Old-Timer spread a pink newspaper on the table and attacked the cobwebs. Mrs. Feeley continued her inspection.
    “Just beer an’ wine…not much of either! Guess he musta started up when he come back from the war. Wonder where he keeps the money? Don’t want none of it to be missin’ when he gets back…might think we took it.” On a shelf under the bar she found a cigar-box.
    “Here it is!” She looked inside and found two greasy one-dollar bills, three quarters, four dimes, six nickels, and two pennies. “Got a pencil?” she asked Mrs. Rasmussen.
    “Write this down: on hand, belongin’ to Timothy: three dollars an’ forty-seven cents. If we have a beer, we gotta charge it off against ourselfs. We’ll pay him back somehow. Gawd! I wish Miss Tinkham would come back.” She looked at the clock. “Ain’t but four twenty. Seems like she’s been gone a year.” She went into the back room and came out with a cleaning cloth and a cake of yellow soap:
    “Won’t help none to have a sticky bar an’ tables. It’s the least we can do for him. Here!” She handed Old-Timer a bucket. “Fill this an’ heat it on the stove. These glasses ain’t nothin’ but clap-traps! Boil ’em!”
     

     
    Mrs. Rasmussen had finished the floor and began arranging the tables and chairs neatly and squarely.
    “Don’t just straight lines make a difference?” she said. The place did look different. Mrs. Feeley straightened up the meager row of bottles in front of the mirror. She pushed a box of toothpicks and a box of book matches out of sight. Mrs. Rasmussen opened the door of the toilet gingerly.
    “No more corps!” she grinned. “Look!” She pointed to two large brass cuspidors.
    “The gobboons!” Mrs. Feeley said. She grabbed them and set them in front of the bar. “Now the place begins to look kosher!”
    Mrs. Rasmussen attacked the lavatory with a brush she found standing in a tin of creosote.
    “Might’s well, long as we’ll be usin’ it ourselfs.”
    “Don’t know why we’re workin’ so hard,” Mrs. Feeley said. “It’s clear he ain’t had a customer since Custer’s last stand.”
    The words were scarcely uttered when the door banged open and two men in overalls and caps came in.
    “Something new has been added to,” one of the men said. “Don’t Timmy know they don’t allow no barmaids in Jersey? Not even lookers like you, Grandma!”
    Mrs. Feeley folded her arms and stared at the men.
    They may be right, she thought, but if I don’t take no pay for drawin’ the beer, ’twon’t hurt till we get the lay of the land.
    She continued to stare without moving.
    “Beer, Grandma, beer!” the