Read Friday the Rabbi Slept Late for Free Online Page A

along. Sometimes he walked with the two women, his little fist tightly clutching the side or the chrome handle of the carriage, and sometimes he would clamber aboard and insist on being pushed.
    Elspeth and Celia would walk about fifty feet and then stop to check on the whereabouts of their charges. If they had fallen behind they called to them, or ran back to pull them apart or make them drop something they had found in the gutter or a trash barrel.
    Celia tried to persuade her friend to spend Thursday, their day off, together in Salem. “They’re having a sale at Adelson’s, and I wanted to see about another bathing suit. We could take the one o’clock bus –”
    “I was thinking of going to Lynn,” said Elspeth.
    “Why Lynn?”
    “Well, I’ve been feeling sort of, you know, sickly lately and I thought I ought to have a checkup by a doctor. Maybe he could give me a tonic, or something.”
    “You don’t need no tonic, El. What you need is a little exercise and some relaxation. Now you take my advice. You come into Salem with me and we can do some shopping, and then we can take in a movie in the afternoon. We can have a bite somewhere and after that we can go bowling. There’s the nicest bunch of fellows come down the alleys Thursday nights. We have the grandest times just kidding around. No rough stuff and nobody gets fresh. We just have a lot of fun hacking around.”
    “Hm – I guess it’s nice all right, but I just don’t feel up to it, Cele. I’m tired most afternoons, and in the mornings I wake up and I feel light-headed, kind of.”
    “Well, I know the reason for that,” said Celia positively. “You do?”
    “You just don’t get enough sleep. That’s your trouble. Staying up until two or three o’clock every morning, it’s a wonder to me you can stand on your feet. And six days a week. I don’t know of another girl who doesn’t get Sundays off. Them Serafinos are taking advantage of you – they’re working you to death.”
    “Oh, I get enough sleep. I don’t have to stay up until they get home.” She shrugged. “It’s just that alone in the house with only the kids, I kind of don’t like to get undressed and into bed. Most of the time, I nap on the couch. And then I nap in the afternoon, too. I get plenty of sleep, Cele.”
    “But Sundays –”
    “Well, it’s the only day they have for visiting their friends. I don’t mind really. And Mrs. Serafino told me when I first came that anytime I wanted a Sunday off she would arrange for it. They’re really quite nice to me. Mr. Serafino said that if I wanted to go downtown to church, he’d drive me – the buses being so bad on Sundays.”
    Celia halted in her stride and looked at Elspeth. “Tell me, does he ever bother you any?”
    “Bother me?”
    “You know, does he ever try to get fresh when the missus isn’t around?”
    “Oh no,” said Elspeth quickly. “Where’d you get that idea?”
    “I don’t trust those nightclub types. And I don’t like the way he looks at a girl.”
    “That’s silly. He hardly says two words to me.”
    “Is it? Well, let me tell you something – Gladys, that’s the girl that had your job before you – Mrs. Serafino fired her because she caught her husband fooling around with her. And she didn’t have half your looks.”
    Stanley Doble was a typical Barnard’s Crosser. Of a certain segment of Old Town society, he might even be considered the prototype. He was a thick-set man of forty, with sandy, graying hair. His deeply tanned, leathery skin indicated that he spent most of his time outdoors. He could build a boat. He could repair and install the plumbing and electric wiring in a house. He could take care of a lawn, trimming and mowing and raking tirelessly in the hot summer sun. He could repair an automobile, or the engine of a launch as it rose and fell in a heavy sea. At one time or another, he had earned his living doing each of these as well as by fishing and lobstering. At no time did he