Winnebago was always pretty comfortably crowded with
shoppers who were taking a five-hour run down to Chicago to
get a hat and see the new musical show at the Illinois.

So Schabelitz's coming was an event, but not an
unprecedented one. Except to Theodore. Theodore had a
ticket for the concert (his mother had seen to that), and he
talked of nothing else. He was going with his violin
teacher, Emil Bauer. There were strange stories as to why
Emil Bauer, with his gift of teaching, should choose to bury
himself in this obscure little Wisconsin town. It was known
that he had acquaintance with the great and famous of the
musical world. The East End set fawned upon him, and his
studio suppers were the exclusive social events in
Winnebago.

Schabelitz was to play in the evening. At half past three
that afternoon there entered Brandeis' Bazaar a white-faced,
wide-eyed boy who was Theodore Brandeis; a plump, voluble,
and excited person who was Emil Bauer; and a short, stocky
man who looked rather like a foreign-born artisan--plumber
or steam-fitter--in his Sunday clothes. This was Levine
Schabelitz.

Molly Brandeis was selling a wash boiler to a fussy
housewife who, in her anxiety to assure herself of the
flawlessness of her purchase, had done everything but climb
inside it. It had early been instilled in the minds of Mrs.
Brandeis's children that she was never to be approached when
busy with a customer. There were times when they rushed