THE CARPENTER'S DAUGHTER

      THE MIDDAY MEAL was being served in Senmen's cookshop, and a glorious smell of boiling stew was drifting down the street. Careful people were hurrying home with their portions of hot meat, or even of gravy, saving themselves the price of fuel without buying a whole meal. Hungry barbers were flashing their razors under people's noses and begging to shave them right in the cookshop for the price of their table scraps. Waiters were placing stools for customers under the awning and as far out into the street as there was any shade. In the back of the shop enormous pans were bubbling ducks were roasting on spits, and servants were carrying fruits, coarse wine, and bread from an inner room. Senmen himself was a round, greasy little man in a limp linen garment and a plain wig, from beneath which trickles of sweat would begin to appear at this time of day. He carried a staff for dignity's sake, but he generally employed it in poking the servants, whacking at thievish dogs, or shaking at beggars. Every familiar customer got a hearty word of welcome, while Senmen, who kept no scribe and did all his accounts in his head, rapidly calculated the present state of his client's credit. Strangers were bowed in with a flourish and after preliminary bargaining were allowed to pay with a fan or a new pair of sandals for a specified amount of roast duck, fruit, and honey cakes, washed down with vinegary wine.

      As the meal hour wore on, the cookshop became hotter and smellier from the combination of the midday heat and the boiling stew. Senmen passed his hand over his face more often, while some of the customers, deciding to have their siesta where they were, slid off their stools and arranged themselves comfortably along the wall. Presently servants began to linger around the latecomers, and actually hustled away one unlucky barber before he could touch the remains that his customer had promised. Senmen liked to have a late meal with his particular cronies and generally managed to clear the shop of diners in excellent time.
      "Don't make him a goldsmith," a wrinkled, dark-skinned man was saying in decided tones as the cookshop proprietor pulled up a stool and began to devour a half-cold portion of his stew. "There used to be a good living in our trade until the rich men bought their own artisans to make their jewelry Nowadays we spend half our time in the street looking for business, and when we get any, it is the crudest work and miserably paid."
      “Change trades with me if you like," retorted a dyer, holding up his wrinkled hands, stained an indelible purple color and smelling horribly of rotten fish. "At least people don't turn the other way when you come past."
       "Nor do you work day and night to keep from starving," chimed in a shoemaker. I declare that I have pulled so many straps tight with my teeth that even Senmen's stew tastes of badly cured leather."
      "Well, don't suppose I find it particularly attractive myself ,” retorted Senmen, "after serving it for hours in the boiling heat."
      "Make him a scribe," said the elderly little goldsmith, sticking firmly to his original theme. "It is a huge sacrifice to keep him more than ten years in school, where he will earn nothing and eat enormously. Still, think of the results! I had an uncle who was keeper of one of the big temple granaries and lived like a rich man, and all because he learned how to read and write."
      "Not much of an uncle, though," declared a man with red-rimmed eyes and heavily calloused hands who was a stonemason, and to whom the goldsmith's advice had been addressed. "He might have sent you to school and made you a scribe too, as it seems to me."
      "He would have," asserted the goldsmith with a twinkle, “if it had not just then been discovered that he had stolen eight thousand bushels of wheat from the granary and sold them. But for this sad misfortune, I too should have become a great man."
      "My sister's son is a scribe," commented Senmen, pushing aside his table with the remains of the loathsome stew. "He keeps the accounts of a master carpenter and was to marry my daughter. Strangely enough, in spite of his excellent prospects, she will not look at him."
      "Toui will not look at him?" cried the shoemaker, raising his long, lean hands in shocked surprise. "Your own sister's son, and actually a scribe?"
      "Beat her," suggested the stonemason laconically.
      "I did," replied Senmen, "and she poured some horrible mixture into my beer which spoiled it all. It is cheaper to leave her alone."
      "I wondered why we were drinking this wine," commented the dyer, shaking his head over its miserable quality. "Young people have no respect for their elders any more."
      "Toui has some other lover," declared the shoemaker positively, "or she would not be such a silly girl."
      "She has as many as there are flies in my cookshop," cried Senmen, dislodging a buzzing swarm from the remains of food on his table to illustrate his point. "All the riffraff in the district is crawling about my yard. It is high time she was settled with Tinro, who is perfectly steady and never looks at any other girl."
      "That is undoubtedly the trouble," remarked the goldsmith sagely. "Get him to pay some attention to the carpenter's daughter for a change."
      "The carpenter hasn't one," retorted Senmen gloomily, “and in any case, Tinro is not at all that kind of young man.”
      "Well then, he needs a helping hand, and we'll invent a girl for him," said the goldsmith laughing. "It would be hard if my own five daughters had not taught me how to manage such things. Will you pay me a month's free meals, Senmen, if I show you how to make your Toui change her mind?"
      "Potluck, then," said Senmen, calculating values.
      "In that case I must have beer with the meal, and not this wine."
      "How much beer?"
      "Look here," cried the goldsmith impatiently, "do you want Toui settled, or don't you? Is it a bet?"
      "A bet!" exclaimed the shoemaker vigorously, bringing down the flat of his hand on his table. "We three will play umpire and see that the goldsmith has a fair chance."

     The house of Senmen was built over and behind his shop, looking out on to a courtyard that had once belonged to a single house but was now common ground for several families. Behind the cookshop itself lay the bakery and storeroom, from which a passage led to the ground-floor sleeping rooms. During the day it was cooler upstairs, where a breeze was brought down by funnels from the roof, and where wide shaded balconies gave light through doorways to the almost windowless rooms. Here after the siesta Senmen found his daughter pressing linen garments into folds, which she produced by dampening the starched material and smoothing it with her hand over corrugated boards. He noted with annoyance that the clothes were but half done, though she had found time to tint her lips, paint blue shadows around her large, liquid eyes, and attend to the elaborate dressing of her hair. Furthermore, the pastry cook's son from next door was below in the courtyard, instead of preparing almond paste as he should be doing for tomorrow's cakes. He was an unattractive, pimply fellow, who was known to be far too often at the beer shop. Senmen felt there was no accounting for young women’s tastes.
 

      Aroused by these disturbing reflections, he strode out onto the balcony and began to expostulate with his daughter in ringing tones. "I told you that Tinro would tire of your flightiness," he cried, plucking off his wig and filling his palm with water to cool his shaven head. "Now he has written a wonderful poem to the carpenter's daughter, Tausert."
      "She is welcome to it,"' declared Toui, giving her head a scornful toss that set dancing the countless little clay balls she had worked into the ends of her hair to make it stand out in masses around her face. "I hope for her sake that what Tinro writes is a little less dull than what he says to me.”
      "It is a beautiful love poem," retorted her father, conscious of interest from the opposite balcony where the pastry cook's plain and ill-natured daughters had pricked up their ears. "As for what it says about you, I must admit that you have deserved every word by your flirtatious ways."
      "How dare Tinro mention my name?” cried Toui, stamping.  "I will never speak to him again as long as I live."
      “I don't suppose you will ever have the chance," replied Senmen, slapping back his wig into place. "The carpenter's daughter is a better match, and pretty too."
      With this last shot he withdrew and was able to report to his friends by the next afternoon that three different versions of Tinro's poem, all insulting, had been audibly recited in the courtyard, accompanied by titters. "Toui spoiled a whole batch of honey cakes in her fury," he added in complaining tones. "Really, the expense of this plan is too great to be born."
      "The next stage will be even more costly," the goldsmith asserted, unmoved by this lamentation. "Surely you must know by this time that young girls are a terrible expense!”
      Two or three days after this conversation, Senmen made his peace with his daughter by giving her a little bracelet which he had bought from the goldsmith after many protesting groans. "I got it cheaply because it is broken," he told her untruly, "but the goldsmith is enough in my debt to repair it if you take it to him."
      Toui thanked him with a kiss and set out across the market square, not omitting to brighten the effect of her tight linen dress with a necklet of beads, two other bracelets, and a flower tucked into the fillet around her hair. Thus attired, she attracted a considerable number of admiring glances. She felt her spirits rising for the first time since they had been crushed by Tinro's unspeakable behavior. She looked from under her long lashes at a young man selling pots, and the young man smiled at her. She tossed her head at a handsome fellow in immaculate linen, and wriggled her shoulders as a fishmonger turned to admire her retreating back. By the time she entered the street of the goldsmiths, she looked very much like a honey pot that had sailed through the market, collecting a noisy train of attendant flies.
      Toui was making a greater error than she knew, since the goldsmith, who had been waiting for her arrival since the siesta, might easily have missed it during an exciting argument over a poor old woman's beads. Warned by the noise of a too familiar whistle, he perceived her just in time to give up the battle and send out his slave to bring Tinro on to the scene.
      "Tell him that Toui wants him to buy a bracelet, and make sure that he comes running immediately," he ordered.
      Toui sailed briskly into the shop of the goldsmith and showed him her bracelet, while the more devoted of her admirers disposed themselves in lounging attitudes outside in the street. In a leisurely fashion the goldsmith set out his smallest hammer by the anvil, took up his pincers, and put his blowpipe to his lips to heat the flame. He was able to spin the job out to two or three operations, since as he observed, he could not toss the ornament into the crucible and melt it all down, but must heat and hammer out a very small piece at a time.
      After the soldering, the gold must be cooled in water, cleaned carefully with sand, and polished up. "I do not know when I have seen a prettier bracelet," remarked the goldsmith, holding it to the light, breathing on it, and rubbing away at a dirty spot with his thumb. "Or a prettier girl to wear it," he added smiling.
      Toui lifted her eyebrows a little, not that compliments ever surprised her, but that experience had made her suspicious. The goldsmith's second daughter had good cause to complain about Toui, whose conscience made her wonder uneasily where this conversation would end. Looking around for a change of subject, she started to fidget with some unfinished work by the anvil. "Is that just a plain bracelet which you are hammering there?" she inquired.
     The goldsmith appeared equally happy to talk of this bracelet, which he described as the only good order he had lately received. Ten minutes passed while he got out the stones that were to be set in it and showed them to Toui, scratching diagrams in the dust on the floor to explain how they might be arranged. "It is a bridal gift," remarked he, sitting back on his heels and glancing out at the street, in which a young man in a violent hurry had finally appeared. "It is for a master carpenter's daughter from her bridegroom, a talented young scribe."
      "How delightful!" said Toui in a strained voice, crimsoning with fury, but relieved to find that the goldsmith was no longer looking at her.
      "Why, here is the scribe himself," he exclaimed with an air of surprise which was on the whole well affected, considering that he had been wondering whether Tinro would ever appear.
      "Toui!" cried Tinro, stretching out both hands to her and delightedly beaming.
     Toui looked at him speechlessly for a moment, while tears of indignation gathered in her beautiful eyes. "How dare you speak to me?" she cried at last, pushing hastily past him and fleeing up the street, pursued by the calls of her waiting admirers.
     Tinro stared unhappily after her. He was a very tall, thin young man with knobbly knees and elbows who poked his head and frowned in a shortsighted way that gave him a worried expression. "How am I to marry her without ever speaking to her?" he objected, I wish she would not treat me in this unreasonable way."
      "She is shy of you, perhaps," suggested the goldsmith with kindly interest. Tinro pondered this idea in his slow fashion, and shook his head.
      "No," he said decidedly, dismissing the notion. "Not Toui! "
      "Well then, you should manage her better," retorted the goldsmith, "and a man with five daughters of his own is the very individual to teach you how to do so properly."
      Tinro responded to his education so gratifyingly that the goldsmith was able to report the sale of the beautiful bracelet when next he dined with Senmen. "Tinro is not as stupid as he looks," he remarked with approval, “and he perfectly well understands when I tell him that actions speak louder than words. I think we might now have him jilt the carpenter's daughter, whom we will make exceedingly ill from chagrin,"
      "And what is this new move going to cost me?” asked Senmen with sour suspicion.
      "A month's free meals," replied the goldsmith with confidence, "including beer."

      He might have felt more dubious about this result, had he realized that Toui was at that moment painting red on her lips with the intention of going down to deal with the carpenter's daughter. Actually, it had never occurred to her not to marry Tinro, who was, as she perfectly well knew, an excellent match. She had, however, frequently wondered if anything would make him more dashing, and had even sighed slightly for the pastry cook's son, who was wicked enough to drink too much. She had never gone so far as to dream of such unheard-of, such outrageous behavior as breaking off a marriage arranged by her father and agreed on by the neighborhood at large, Toui was now angry that she had not thought of this expedient before Tinro had done so, but she was also perfectly aware that her position would be awkward if she did not get her lover back. Even the pastry cook's son was affianced to the goldsmith's second daughter, and, wicked as he was, he would never throw over his bride for a girl who had been jilted by somebody else. Mingled with all these new ideas in Toui's mind was an increased respect for Tinro. She never would have thought he had it in him to take such decided steps.
      Absorbed in these reflections, Toui made her way through the market, rewarding her various admirers with a blank unseeing stare. As she turned into one of the narrow streets, she stepped into a recess to avoid a pair of asses laden with hay which were taking up the road. A shopkeeper lying in wait for customers darted out like a spider. Toui shook him indifferently off her arm, but the incident served to make her wonder how she could get into the carpenter's house. A young girl could not loiter in the Theban streets, even for a moment, without children, beggars, Negro porters, foreign soldiers, peddlers, shopkeepers, or even priests combining to hustle her or make her the target for rough jokes. Though perfectly used to this situation, and even enjoying it, Toui had no desire to be noticed in the carpenter's street.
      Fortunately the carpenter's shop contained only two workmen, one planing a board with quick, skillful strokes of the adze, the other smoothing with pumice the roughly finished leg of a bed. Both stopped immediately at the sight of Toui and welcomed her in.
      "I want to see Tausert, your master's daughter," said Toui. "Is she at home?"
      The man with the pumice merely looked blank, but the one with the adze, who was younger, pushed forward a stool and gave his companion an elaborate wink. "Why not wait for a little?" he suggested, "She will have to come in through here to get into the house."
      "Don't be a fool," said the older man impatiently. "Tell the girl she has come to the wrong shop and let her go."
      "Unfortunately my father has no daughters," admitted the young man, "though I know how sorry he will feel about this when he sees you."
      Crimson with embarrassment, Toui persisted, but the young man only became more positive as she tried to explain. "Tinro write poems"' exclaimed he. "I don't believe it! Neither would you if you had ever seen him yourself!
      "Don't be a fool," said the older man again. "Of course she has seen him. I rather think," he added, turning kindly to Toui, "that the young scribe has been inventing a girl to make you jealous."
      Toui nodded with tears in her eyes. She was beyond speech, but she felt the conclusion was inescapable.
      "You know," said the workman, "I rather like him for being so ingenious. It is really much easier to forgive than if he had flirted with somebody real. Now as far as we are concerned, you never came here, and you do not care about the carpenter's daughter in the least. I should marry Tinro, however, if I were you. He seems to have earned it."
      "That's right," said the younger one. "But if you would like just a little revenge on him first, you might always call on me. It would be very pleasant." He winked at her.
      "Thank you," said Toui, winking back and feeling better. "Perhaps it might be enjoyable sometime."
     "The girl doesn't need any help to make that sort of trouble," commented the older man sourly as they watched Toui's retreating back. "She will not be an easy wife to handle, and I think the better of Tinro for the way he has dealt with her."
      "Whoever would have thought," said the younger one reflectively, "that an earnest young fellow like Tinro had it in him to make up such a tale?"
      This was rather the opinion of Toui when the first embarrassment of her discoveries in the carpenter's shop had worn away. She began to find herself looking forward to marriage, if not with excitement, at least with an interest in the possibilities of Tinro's character. She actually turned her face away from the pastry cook's son as they met in the courtyard, and she received the news that the carpenter's daughter had been jilted with a total lack of concern.
      "I always expected it," she said to her father. "Nobody could be really fond of a girl like that."
      Senmen was completely taken aback by this retort and afraid to continue the conversation, lest too much about the carpenter's daughter be revealed. However, he reported that things were going well and was encouraged a day or two later by Toui's acceptance of the bracelet, which Tinro did not bring in person, on the goldsmith's advice. He was of the opinion that Tinro was not to be trusted with the story of the carpenter's daughter because he was far too stupid to keep up the pretense.
      "If she once gets a chance to speak to him, she will have the truth out of him in half a minute," said he.
      "How are they ever to get married if they do not speak?" asked Semnen reasonably.
      "They need a go-between for the present moment, and later on they may meet each other in public for a while," said the goldsmith. "I will arrange it all." He bustled away.
      Matters were at this agreeable stage for several days, during which the goldsmith boasted insufferably about his coming free meals and beer. The little club at the cookshop, though horrified, was almost pleased when this complacent mood was shattered by the news that Toui had eloped with the pastry cook's young man. They discussed the matter in muffled tones in a corner of the cookshop while Senmen was busy serving a very late customer.
      "I always said," commented the dyer, "that no good would come of Toui's goings-on."
      "He'll beat her," declared the stonemason, a man of one idea.
      "I dare say he will," replied the goldsmith, who seemed strangely undismayed by his disappointment. "It will do her all the good in the world, and she will see that he keeps out of the beer shop. I consider it a most suitable match!"
      "One might think that you had planned the whole thing," said the shoemaker disgustedly. "What happened to that ingenious scheme of yours?"
      "Well,” admitted the goldsmith, "even a man with five daughters cannot be right about girls every time. I made the mistake of choosing my second daughter for a go-between because she is naturally sympathetic. Unfortunately, she was engaged to the pastry cook's son and was jealous because she could not manage him. I am afraid that she must have betrayed the entire plot to him in a fit of pique. Naturally Toui would not think of marrying Tinro, once she heard that we had been laying bets on it."
      "Naturally," agreed the shoemaker. "I must say it serves you and your second daughter right."
      "As a go-between," said the goldsmith smugly, "my daughter found Tinro needed a good deal of sympathy, I expect."
      "You mean--" interrupted the dyer in astonished tones. The goldsmith nodded.
      "It means the end of my free meals," he said regretfully. “But I have made a nice little profit, and after all Tinro is an excellent match."