The Dream Merchants Read Online Free PDF

interrupted you might cut yourself.
    At last his father was through and he turned to Mark. “Ready?” he asked.
    Mark nodded. He didn’t dare open his mouth to speak because he had covered it with lather and if he did he would swallow some.
    Peter knelt down near him. “Turn your head,” he told Mark.
    Mark turned his head and shut his eyes. “Don’t cut me,” he said.
    “I’ll be careful,” his father promised. Peter turned the razor so that the back of it was against Mark’s face and began to wipe off the lather.
    A few seconds and he was through. He stood up. “You’re all finished now,” he said.
    Mark opened his eyes and rubbed his face with his hand. “Smooth now,” he said happily.
    Peter smiled down at him while he rinsed the razor and dried it. Then he carefully laid it away in its case and rinsed out the mug and brush. He finished washing the spots of lather off his face, and after drying himself he picked Mark up and swung him to his shoulders. “Let’s go in to eat now,” he said.
    They paraded into the kitchen and he swung Mark into his chair. He sat down in his own chair.
    Doris came over and kissed him. “Good morning, Daddy,” she said in her high clear voice.
    He squeezed her. “
Gut’ morgen, liebe kind, zeese kind.
” That was the way he always spoke to her. Especially since Mark was born. Mark was his favorite and he had a guilty feeling about it, and so he made more of a fuss over Doris than he had before Mark was born.
    She went back to her chair and sat down. Peter looked at her. She was a pretty little girl. Her golden hair was tied in braids up around her head, and her blue eyes were soft and warm. Her cheeks were fair and rosy in color. Peter felt good. She had been a sick little child and because of her they had moved to Rochester from the crowded lower East Side of New York.
    Esther came over to the table carrying a plate. Heaped high on it and giving off deliciously tantalizing odors were scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, and onions, all fried together in butter.
    Peter sniffed. “Lox and eggs!” he exclaimed. “How did you manage it, Esther?”
    She smiled proudly. Lox was something you couldn’t get in Rochester, but she had had some sent from New York. “My cousin, Roochel, sent it from New York,” she told him.
    He looked at her as he filled his plate. She was a year younger than he, still slim, still good-looking, with the same quiet dark beauty that had first attracted him when he came to work in her father’s hardware store right after he had come to America. She wore her thick black hair tied up in the back in the style of the times, her brown eyes gazed levelly and serenely from out of a round smooth face. She began to fill Mark’s plate.
    “I got a shave,” Mark told her.
    “I can see,” she answered, giving the side of his face a rub with the back of her hand. “Very nice.”
    “When can I start shaving myself?” he asked.
    Doris laughed. “You’re too young yet,” she said. “You don’t even have to shave now.”
    “I do too,” he protested.
    “Be quiet and eat,” Esther told them.
    By the time she sat down Peter was almost finished. Taking out his watch, he looked at it; then, gulping down his coffee, he ran down the stairs to open his shop. He didn’t say anything as he left the table. No one seemed to mind it. Papa was always late in opening the store and it was a few minutes after eight o’clock now.
    The morning passed by slowly. There wasn’t any business; it was too warm for the time of year, and the heat kept people from becoming ambitious enough to attempt any extra work.
    About eleven o’clock a drayman came into the store. He walked over to Peter. “What time does the guy next door open up?” he asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of Johnny’s place.
    “About twelve,” Peter answered. “Why?”
    “I got a machine to deliver, but I find the place shut up and I can’t come back.”
    “Knock on the door,” Peter