The Innocents, A Story for Lovers

MP3 Audio CD. THE INNOCENTS

CHAPTER I


Mr. and Mrs. Seth Appleby were almost old. They called each other
"Father" and "Mother." But frequently they were guilty of holding hands,
or of cuddling together in corners, and Father was a person of stubborn
youthfulness. For something over forty years Mother had been trying to
make him stop smoking, yet every time her back was turned he would sneak
out his amber cigarette-holder and puff a cheap cigarette, winking at
the shocked crochet tidy on the patent rocker. Mother sniffed at him and
said that he acted like a young smart Aleck, but he would merely grin in
answer and coax her out for a walk.

As they paraded, the sun shone through the fuzzy, silver hair that
puffed out round Father's crab-apple face, and an echo of delicate
silver was on Mother's rose-leaf cheeks.

They were rustic as a meadow-ringed orchard, yet Father and Mother had
been born in New York City, and there lived for more than sixty years.
Father was a perfectly able clerk in Pilkings's shoe-store on Sixth
Avenue, and Pilkings was so much older than Father that he still called
him, "Hey you, Seth!" and still gave him advice about handling lady
customers. For three or four years, some ten years back, Father and Mr.
Pilkings had displayed ill-feeling over the passing of the amiable
elastic-sided Congress shoe. But that was practically forgotten, and
Father began to feel fairly certain of his job.