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diff --git a/28101.txt b/28101.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..801d3c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/28101.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3412 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Van Dwellers, by Albert Bigelow Paine + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Van Dwellers + A Strenuous Quest for a Home + + +Author: Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +Release Date: February 17, 2009 [eBook #28101] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAN DWELLERS*** + + +E-text prepared by Annie McGuire from digital material generously made +available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 28101-h.htm or 28101-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/1/0/28101/28101-h/28101-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/1/0/28101/28101-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/vandwellersstren00painiala + + + + + +THE VAN DWELLERS + +by + +ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE + +[Illustration: "WELL, AND WHEN DID YEZ ORDER IT TURNED +ON?"--_Frontispiece_.] + +THE VAN DWELLERS + +A Strenuous Quest for a Home + +by + +ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE + +Author of "The Bread Line" + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +_"We were strangers and they took us in"_ + + + +New York +J. F. Taylor & Company +1901 + +Copyright, 1901 +by +J. F. Taylor & Company + + + + +_TO THOSE_ + +WHO HAVE LIVED IN FLATS + +_TO THOSE_ + +WHO ARE LIVING IN FLATS + +_AND TO THOSE_ + +WHO ARE THINKING OF + +LIVING IN FLATS + + + + +Contents. + + PAGE + + I. The First Home in the Metropolis. 1 + + II. Metropolitan Beginnings. 13 + + III. Learning by Experience. 28 + + IV. Our First Move. 45 + + V. A Boarding House for a Change. 60 + + VI. Pursuing the Ideal. 72 + + VII. Owed to the Moving Man. 86 + + VIII. Household Retainers. 88 + + IX. Ann 104 + + X. A "Flat" Failure. 114 + + XI. Inheritance and Mania. 133 + + XII. Gilded Affluence. 153 + + XIII. A Home at Last. 177 + + XIV. Closing Remarks. 183 + + + + +I. + + +_The First Home in the Metropolis._ + + +We had never lived in New York. This fact will develop anyway, as I +proceed, but somehow it seems fairer to everybody to state it in the +first sentence and have it over with. + +Still, we had heard of flats in a vague way, and as we drew near the +Metropolis the Little Woman bought papers of the train boy and began to +read advertisements under the head of "Flats and Apartments to Let." + +I remember that we wondered then what was the difference. Now, having +tried both, we are wiser. The difference ranges from three hundred +dollars a year up. There are also minor details, such as palms in the +vestibule, exposed plumbing, and uniformed hall service--perhaps an +elevator, but these things are immaterial. The price is the difference. + +We bought papers, as I have said. It was the beginning of our downfall, +and the first step was easy--even alluring. We compared prices and +descriptions and put down addresses. The descriptions were all that +could be desired and the prices absurdly modest. We had heard that +living in the city was expensive; now we put down the street and number +of "four large light rooms and improvements, $18.00," and were properly +indignant at those who had libeled the landlords of Gotham. + +Next morning we stumbled up four dim flights of stairs, groped through a +black passage-way and sidled out into a succession of gloomy closets, +wondering what they were for. Our conductor stopped and turned. + +"This is it," he announced. "All nice light rooms, and improvements." + +It was our first meeting with a flat. Also, with a janitor. The Little +Woman was first to speak. + +"Ah, yes, would you mind telling us--we're from the West, you know--just +which are the--the improvements, and which the rooms?" + +This was lost on the janitor. He merely thought us stupid and regarded +us with pitying disgust as he indicated a rusty little range, and +disheartening water arrangements in one corner. There may have been +stationary tubs, too, bells, and a dumb waiter, but without the +knowledge of these things which we acquired later they escaped notice. +What we _could_ see was that there was no provision for heat that we +could discover, and no sunshine. + +We referred to these things, also to the fact that the only entrance to +our parlor would be through the kitchen, while the only entrance to our +kitchen would be almost certainly over either a coal-box, an ironing +board, or the rusty little stove, any method of which would require a +certain skill, as well as care in the matter of one's clothes. + +But these objections seemed unreasonable, no doubt, for the janitor, who +was of Yorkshire extraction, became taciturn and remarked briefly that +the halls were warmed and that nobody before had ever required more heat +than they got from these and the range, while as for the sun, he +couldn't change that if he wanted to, leaving us to infer that if he +only wanted to he could remodel almost everything else about the +premises in short order. + +We went away in the belief that he was a base pretender, "clad in a +little brief authority." We had not awakened as yet to the fulness of +janitorial tyranny and power. + +We went farther uptown. We reasoned that rentals would be more +reasonable and apartments less contracted up there. + +Ah, me! As I close my eyes now and recall, as in a kaleidoscope, the +perfect wilderness of flats we have passed through since then, it seems +strange that some dim foreboding of it all did not steal in to rob our +hearts of the careless joys of anticipation. + +But I digress. We took the elevated and looked out the windows as we +sped along. The whirling streets, with their endless procession of front +steps, bewildered us. + +By and by we were in a vast district, where all the houses were +five-storied, flat-roofed, and seemed built mainly to hold windows. This +was Flatland--the very heart of it--that boundless territory to the +northward of Central Park, where nightly the millions sleep. + +Here and there were large signs on side walls and on boards along the +roof, with which we were now on a level as the train whirled us along. +These quoted the number of rooms, and prices, and some of them were +almost irresistible. "6 All Light Rooms, $22.00," caught us at length, +and we got off to investigate. + +They were better than those downtown. There was a possibility of heat +and you did not get to the parlor by climbing over the kitchen +furniture. Still, the apartment as a whole lacked much that we had set +our hearts on, while it contained some things that we were willing to do +without. + +It contained, also, certain novelties. Among these were the stationary +washtubs in the kitchen; the dumb-waiter, and a speaking-tube connection +with the basement. + +The janitor at this place was a somber Teutonic female, soiled as to +dress, and of the common Dutch-slipper variety. + +We were really attracted by the next apartment, where we discovered for +the first time the small button in the wall that, when pressed, opens +the street door below. This was quite jolly, and we played with it some +minutes, while the colored janitor grinned at our artlessness, and said +good things about the place. Our hearts went out to this person, and we +would gladly have cast our lot with him. + +Then he told us the price, and we passed on. + +I have a confused recollection of the other flats and apartments we +examined on that first day of our career, or "progress," as the recent +Mr. Hogarth would put it. Our minds had not then become trained to that +perfection of mentality which enables the skilled flat-hunter to carry +for days visual ground-plans, elevations, and improvements, of any +number of "desirable apartments," and be ready to transcribe the same +in black and white at a moment's notice. + +I recall one tunnel and one roof garden. Also one first floor with +bake-shop attachment. The latter suggested a business enterprise for the +Little Woman, while the Precious Ones, who were with us at this stage, +seemed delighted at my proposition of "keeping store." + +Many places we did not examine. Of these the janitors merely popped out +their heads--frowsy heads, most of them--and gave the number of rooms +and the price in a breath of defiance and mixed ale. At length I was the +only one able to continue the search. + +I left the others at a friendly drug store, and wandered off alone. +Being quite untrammeled now I went as if by instinct two blocks west and +turned. A park was there--a park set up on edge, as it were, with steps +leading to a battlement at the top. This was attractive, and I followed +along opposite, looking at the houses. Presently I came to a new one. +They were just finishing it, and sweeping the shavings from the +ground-floor flat--a gaudy little place--the only one in the house +untaken. + +It was not very light, and it was not very large, while the price was +more than we had expected to pay. But it was clean and new, and the +landlord, who was himself on the premises, offered a month's rent free +to the first tenant. + +I ran all the way back to the Little Woman, and urged her to limp as +hastily as possible, fearing it might be gone before she could get +there. When I realized that the landlord had held it for me in the face +of several applicants (this was his own statement), I was ready to fall +on his neck, and paid a deposit hastily to secure the premises. + +Then we wandered about looking at things, trying the dumb waiter, the +speaking tube, and the push-button, leading to what the Precious Ones +promptly named the "locker-locker" door, owing to a clicking sound in +the lock when the door sprang open. + +We were in a generous frame of mind, and walked from room to room +praising the excellence of everything, including a little gingerbread +mantel in the dining-room, in which the fireplace had been set +crooked,--from being done in the dark, perhaps,--the concrete backyard, +with its clothesline pole, the decorated ceilings, the precipitous park +opposite that was presently to shut off each day at two P.M. our +western, and only, sunlight; even the air-shaft that came down to us +like a well from above, and the tiny kitchen, which in the gathering +evening was too dark to reveal all its attractions. + +As for the Precious Ones, they fairly raced through our new possession, +shrieking their delight. + +We had a home in the great city at last. + + + + +II. + +_Metropolitan Beginnings._ + + +We set out gaily and early, next morning, to buy our things. + +We had brought nothing with us that could not be packed into our trunks, +except my fishing rod, some inherited bedding and pictures which the +Little Woman declined to part with, and two jaded and overworked dolls +belonging to the Precious Ones. Manifestly this was not enough to begin +housekeeping on, even in a flat of contracted floor-space and limitless +improvements. + +In fact the dolls only had arrived. They had come as passengers. The +other things were still trundling along somewhere between Oshkosh and +Hoboken, by slow freight. + +We had some idea of where we wanted to go when we set forth, but a +storehouse with varied and almost irresistible windows enticed us and we +went no farther. It was a mighty department store and we were informed +that we need not pass its doors again until we had selected everything +we needed from a can-opener to a grand piano. We didn't, and the +can-opener became ours. + +Also other articles. We enjoyed buying things, and even to this day I +recall with pleasure our first great revel in a department store. + +For the most part we united our judgments and acted jointly. But at +times we were enticed apart by fascinating novelties and selected +recklessly, without consultation. + +As for the Precious Ones, they galloped about, demanding that we should +buy everything in sight, with a total disregard of our requirements or +resources. + +It was wonderful though how cheap everything seemed, and how much we +seemed to need, even for a beginning. It was also wonderful how those +insidious figures told in the final settlement. + +Let it be understood, I cherish no resentment toward the salesmen. +Reflecting now on the matter, I am, on the whole, grateful. They found +out where we were from, and where we were going to live, and they sold +us accordingly. + +I think we interested them, and that they rather liked us. If not, I am +sure they would have sold us worse things and more of them. They could +have done so, easily. Hence my gratitude to the salesmen; but the man at +the transfer desk remains unforgiven. + +I am satisfied, now, that he was an unscrupulous person, a perjured, +case-hardened creature whom it is every man's duty to destroy. But at +the time he seemed the very embodiment of good intentions. + +He assured us heartily, as he gave us our change, that we should have +immediate delivery. We had explained at some length that this was +important, and why. He waved us off with the assurance that we need give +ourselves no uneasiness in the matter--that, in all probability, the +matting we had purchased as a floor basis would be there before we were. + +He knew that this would start us post-haste for our apartment, which it +did. We even ran, waving and shouting, after a particular car when +another just like it was less than a half block behind. + +We breathed more easily when we arrived at our new address and found +that we were in good season. When five minutes more had passed, however, +and still no signs of our matting, a vague uneasiness began to manifest +itself. + +It was early and there was plenty of time, of course; but there was +something about the countless delivery wagons that passed and re-passed +without stopping which impressed us with the littleness of our +importance in this great whirl of traffic, and the ease with which a +transfer clerk's promise, easily and cheerfully made, might be as easily +and as cheerfully forgotten. + +I said presently that I would go around the corner and order coal for +the range, ice for the refrigerator, and groceries for us all. I added +that the things from down town would surely be there on my return, and +that any way I wanted to learn where the nearest markets were. Had I +known it, I need not have taken this trouble. Our names in the mail-box +just outside the door would have summoned the numerous emissaries of +trade, as if by magic. + +It did so, in fact, for the Little Woman put the name in while I was +gone, and on my return I found her besieged by no less than three +butchers and grocerymen, while two rival milkmen were explaining with +diagrams the comparative richness of their respective cans and bottles. +The articles I had but just purchased were even then being sent up on +the dumb waiter, but our furnishings from below were still unheard +from. + +A horrible fear that I had given the wrong address began to grow upon +us. The Little Woman was calm, but regarded me accusingly. She said she +didn't see how it could have happened, when in every accent of her voice +I could detect memories of other things I had done in this line--things +which, at the time, had seemed equally impossible. + +She said she hadn't been paying attention when I gave the number or she +would have known. Of course, she said, the transfer clerk couldn't make +a mistake putting it down--he was too accustomed to such things, and of +course I must have given it to him correctly--only, it did seem +strange---- + +We began debating feverishly as to the advisability of my setting out +at once on a trip down town to see about it. We concluded to telephone. + +I hastened around to the drug store not far away and "helloed" and +repeated and fumed and swore in agony for half an hour, but I came back +in high spirits. The address was correct and the delivery wagons were +out. I expected to find them at the door when I got back, but found only +the Little Woman, sitting on the doorstep, still waiting. + +We told each other that after all it must necessarily take some little +time to get up this far, but that the matting would certainly be along +presently, now, and that it would take but a short time to lay it. + +Then we would have a good start, and even if everything didn't come +to-night it would be jolly to put the new mattresses down on the nice +clean matting, and to get dinner the best way we could--like camping +out. Then we walked back and forth in the semi-light of our empty little +place and said how nice it was, and where we should set the furniture +and hang the pictures: and stepped off the size of the rooms that all +put together were not so big as had been our one big sitting-room in the +West. + +As for the Precious Ones, they were wildly happy. They had never had a +real playhouse before, big enough to live in, and this was quite in +accordance with their ideals. They were "visiting" and "keeping store" +and "cooking," and quarreling, and having a perfectly beautiful time +with their two disreputable dolls, utterly regardless of the shadow of +foreboding and desolation that grew ever thicker as the hours passed, +while the sun slipped down behind the steep stone-battlemented park +opposite, and brought no matting, no furniture, no anything that would +make our little nest habitable for the swiftly coming night. + +But when it became too dark for them to see to play, they came +clamorously out to where we stood on the doorstep, still waiting, and +demanded in one breath that we tell them immediately when the things +were coming, where they were to get supper, how we were to sleep, and if +they couldn't have a light. + +I was glad that I could give them something. I said that it was pretty +early for a light, but that they should have it. I went in and opened a +gas burner, and held a match to it. There was no result. I said there +was air in the pipes. I lit another match, and held it till it burned +my fingers. There was air in the pipes, I suppose, but there was no gas. +I hurried down to inform the janitor. + +She was a stern-featured Hibernian, with a superior bearing. I learned +later that she had seen better days. In fact, I have yet to find the +janitor that _hasn't_ seen better days, or the tenant, either, for that +matter, but this is another digression. She regarded me with +indifference when I told her there was no gas. When I told her that we +_wanted_ gas, she inspected me as if this was something unusual and +interesting in a tenant's requirements. Finally she said:-- + +"Well, and when did yez order it turned on?" + +"Why," I said, "I haven't ordered it at all. I thought----" + +"Yez thought you could get it of me, did yez?" + +I admitted that this seemed reasonable, but in view of the fact of the +water being turned on, I had really given the matter of gas no +deliberate consideration. + +I think she rather pitied my stupendous ignorance. At least she became +more gentle than she had seemed at the start, or than she ever was +afterwards. + +She explained at some length that I must go first to the gas office, +leave a deposit to secure them, in case of my sudden and absent-minded +departure from the neighborhood, and ask that a man be sent around to +put in a meter, and turn on the gas in our apartment. With good luck +some result might be obtained by the following evening. + +I stumbled miserably up the dark stairs, and dismally explained, while +the Precious Ones became more clamorous for food and light, as the +shades of night gathered. I said I would go and get some candles, so in +case the things came--not necessarily the matting--we didn't really need +the matting first, anyway--it would get scuffed and injured if it were +put down first--it was the other things we needed--things to eat and go +to bed with!-- + +When I came back there was a wild excitement around our entrance. A +delivery wagon had driven up in great haste, and by the light of the +street lamp I recognized on it the sign of our department store. A +hunted-looking driver had leaped out and was hastily running over his +book. Yes, it was our name--our things had come at last--better late +than never! The driver was diving back into his wagon and presently +hauled out something long and round and wrapped up. + +"Here you are," he said triumphantly. "Sign for it, please." + +"But," we gasped, "where's the rest of the things? There's ever so much +more." + +"Don't know, lady. This is all I've got. Sign please, it's getting +late." + +"But----" + +He was gone. We carried in our solitary package and opened it by the +feeble flickering of a paraffine dip. + +It was a Japanese umbrella-holder! + +The Precious Ones and their wretched dolls held a war dance around it +and admired the funny men on the sides. To us it was an Oriental +mockery. + +Sadly we gathered up our bags, and each taking by the hand a hungry +little creature who clasped a forlorn doll to a weary little bosom, we +set forth to seek food and shelter in the thronging but pitiless city. + + + + +III. + +_Learning by Experience._ + + +Day by day, and piece by piece, our purchases appeared. Now and then a +delivery wagon would drive up in hot haste and deliver a stew-pan, or +perhaps a mouse trap. At last, and on the third day, a mattress. + +Of course, I had been down and protested, ere this. The cheerful liar at +the transfer desk had been grieved, astonished, thunderstruck at my +tale. He would investigate, and somebody would be discharged, at once. +This thought soothed me. It was blood that I wanted. Just plain blood, +and plenty of it. I know now that it was the transfer-man's blood, that +I needed, but for the moment I was appeased and believed in him. + +Our matting, promised within two hours from the moment of purchase, was +the last thing to arrive. This on the fourth day--or was it the fifth? I +was too mad by this time to remember dates. What I do recall is that we +laid it ourselves. We had not, as yet, paid for the laying, and we said +that rather than give that shameless firm another dollar we would lay +that matting if it killed us. + +Morally it did. I have never been quite the same man since that terrible +experience. The Little Woman helped stretch, and held the lamp, while I +pounded my thumb and swore. She said she had never realized until that +night how well and satisfactorily I could swear. It seemed to comfort +her and she abetted it. + +I know now that the stripes on matting never match. We didn't know it +then, and we tried to make them. We pulled and hauled, and I got down on +my stomach, with one ear against the wall, and burned the other one on +the lamp chimney which the Little Woman, in her anxiety to help, held +too close. When I criticised her inclination to overdo matters, she +observed that I would probably be able to pull the matting along more +easily if I wouldn't lie down on the piece I was trying to pull. Then we +both said some things that I suppose we shall regret to our dying day. +It was a terrible night. When morning came, grim and ghastly, life +seemed a failure, and I could feel that I had grown old. + +But with breakfast and coffee and sunshine came renewed hope. + +We were settled at last, and our little place looked clean and more like +a playhouse than ever. + +Our acquaintance with the janitor was not, as yet, definite. I had met +her once or twice informally, it is true, but as yet we could not be +said to have reached any basis of understanding. As to her appearance, +she was brawny and Irish, with a forbidding countenance. She had a +husband whom we never saw--he being employed outside--but whose +personality, nevertheless, became a factor in our subsequent relations. + +Somehow, we instinctively avoided the people below stairs, as cats do +canines, though we had no traditions concerning janitors, and we are +naturally the most friendly and democratic people in the world. + +Matters went on very well for a time. We congratulated ourselves every +morning on how nice and handy everything was, now that we were once +settled, and laughed over our recent difficulties. The Precious Ones +were in their glory. They had appropriated the little four-by-six closet +back of the kitchen--it had been shown to us as a servant's room--and +presently we heard them playing "dumb waiter," "janitor," "locker-locker +door," "laying matting," and other new and entertaining games incidental +to a new life and conditions. The weather remained warm for a time, and +it was all novel and interesting. We added almost daily to our household +effects, and agreed that we had been lucky in securing so pleasant and +so snug a nest. + +But one morning when we awoke it was cold. It was early October, but +there was a keen frosty feeling in the air that sent us shivering to the +kitchen range, wondering if steam would be coming along presently. It +did not come, and after breakfast I went down to interview our janitor +on the subject. + +I could see that she was not surprised at my errand. The incident of the +gas supply had prepared her for any further eccentricity on my part. She +merely waited with mild interest to hear what I really could do when I +tried. Then she remarked tersely:-- + +"Yez get steam on the fifteenth." + +"Quite so," I assented, "but it's cold to-day. We may not want it on the +fifteenth. We do want it now." + +These facts did not seem to impress her. + +"Yez get steam on the fifteenth," she repeated, with even more +decision, and I could tell from her manner that the interview was +closed. + +I went back to where the Little Woman was getting breakfast (she had +laughed at the idea of a servant in our dainty little nest) and during +the morning she and the Precious Ones hugged the kitchen range. In the +afternoon the sun looked in at our parlor windows and made the room +cheerful for an hour. Then it went out behind the precipitous hillside +park opposite, and with the chill shadow that crept up over our windows +came a foreboding that was bad for the romance and humor of the +situation. It had been like a spiritless Arctic day. + +In the evening we crept to the kitchen range; and we hibernated there, +more or less, while the cold spell lasted. It was warm by the +fifteenth, but on that day, in the hours of early dawn, we were awakened +by a Wagnerian overture in the steam radiators. It became an anvil +chorus ere long and there was no more sleep. By breakfast time we had +all the things open that we could get open to let in fresh air and we +were shouting to each other above the din and smell of the new pipes. We +made allowance, of course, for the fact that things _were_ new, and we +said we were glad there would be enough heat in cold weather, anyway, by +which you will see how really innocent we were in those days. + +It grew cold in earnest by November first. And then, all at once, the +gold-painted radiators, as if they had shown what they could do and were +satisfied, seemed to lose enthusiasm. Now and then in the night, when +we didn't want it, they would remember and start a little movement Fromm +the Gotterdammerung, but by morning they seemed discouraged again and +during the day they were of fitful and unresponsive temperature. + +At last I went once more to the janitor, though with some hesitation, I +confess. I don't know why. I am not naturally timid, and usually demand +and obtain the rights of ordinary citizenship. Besides, I was ignorant +then of janitorial tyranny as the accepted code. It must have been +instinct. I said:-- + +"What's the matter with our heat up-stairs?" + +She answered:-- + +"An' it's what's the matter with yer heat, is it? Well, thin, an' what +_is_ the matter with yer heat up-stairs?" + +She said this, and also looked at me, as if she thought our heat might +be afflicted with the mumps or measles or have a hare lip, and as if I +was to blame for it. + +"The matter is that we haven't got any," I said, getting somewhat +awakened. + +She looked at me fully a minute this time. + +"Yez haven't got any! Yez haven't got any heat! An' here comes the madam +from the top floor yesterday, a bilin' over, an' sayin that they're sick +with _too much_ heat. What air yez, then, sallymandhers?" + +"But yesterday isn't to-day," I urged, "and I'm not the woman on the top +floor. We're just the people on the first floor and we're cold. We want +heat, not comparisons." + +I wonder now how I was ever bold enough to say these things. It was my +ignorance, of course. I would not dream of speaking thus disrespectfully +to a janitor to-day. I had a dim idea at the time that the landlord had +something to do with his own premises, and that if heat were not +forthcoming I could consult him and get action in the matter. I know +better than that, now, and my enlightenment on this point was not long +delayed. + +It was about twelve o'clock that night, I think, that we were aroused by +a heart-breaking, furniture-smashing disturbance. At first I thought +murder was being done on our doorstep. Then I realized that it was below +us. I sat up in bed, my hair prickling. The Little Woman, in the next +room with the Precious Ones, called to me in a voice that was full of +emotion. I answered, "Sh!" + +Then we both sat still in the dark while our veins grew icy. Somebody +below was begging and pleading for mercy, while somebody else was +commanding quiet in a voice that meant bloodshed as an alternative. At +intervals there was a fierce struggle, mingled with destruction and +hair-lifting language. + +Was the janitor murdering her husband? Or could it be that it was the +other way, and that tardy justice had overtaken the janitor--that, at +the hands of her husband or some outraged tenant, she was meeting a +well-merited doom? Remembering her presence and muscular proportions I +could not hope that this was possible. + +The Little Woman whispered tremblingly that we ought to do something. I +whispered back that I was quite willing she should, if she wanted to, +but that for my own part I had quit interfering in Hibernian domestic +difficulties some years since. In the morning I would complain to the +landlord of our service. I would stand it no longer. + +Meantime, it was not yet morning, and the racket below went on. The very +quantity of it was reassuring. There was too much of it for real murder. +The Precious Ones presently woke up and cried. None of us got to sleep +again until well-nigh morning, even after the commotion below had +degenerated into occasional moans, and final silence. + +Before breakfast I summoned up all my remaining courage and went down +there. The janitor herself came to the door. She was uninjured, so far +as I could discover. I was pretty mad, and the fact that I was afraid +of her made me madder. + +"What do you mean?" I demanded, "by making such a horrible racket down +here in the middle of the night?" + +She regarded me with an amazed look, as if I had been dreaming. + +"I want to know," I repeated, "what was all that noise down here last +night?" + +She smiled grimly. + +"Oh, an' is _that_ it? Yez want to know what was the _ni'se_, do yez? +Well, thin, it was none o' yer business, _that's_ what it was. Now go on +wid yez, an' tend to yer _own_ business, if yez have any. D'y' mind?" + +With the information that I was going at once to the landlord, I turned +and hurried up the stairs to avoid violence. She promptly followed me. + +"So yez'll be after telling the landlord, will yez? Well, thin, yez can +just tell the landlord, an' yez can just sind him to me. You'll sind Tim +Reilly to me. Maybe yez don't know that Tim Reilly once carried bricks +fer my old daddy, an' many's the time I've given him a bite an' a sup at +our back door. Oh, yes, sind him to me. Sind Tim Reilly to me, an' I'll +see, when me ol' man comes home late wid a bit of liquor in his head, if +it's not for me to conthrol 'im after our own fashions, widout the +inquisitin' of people who better be mindin' of their own n'ise. Kep' yez +awake, eh? Well, thin, see that yez never keep anybody else awake, an' +sind Tim Reilly to me!" + +She was gone. We realized then that she had seen better days. So had we. +Later, when I passed her on the front steps, she nodded in her usual +expressionless, uncompromising manner. + +I did not go to the landlord. It would be useless, we said. The +helplessness of our position was becoming daily more evident. + +And with the realization of this we began to discover other defects. We +found that the house faced really almost north instead of west, and that +the sun now went behind the precipice opposite nearly as soon as it +touched the tops of our windows, while the dining-room and kitchen were +wretchedly dark all day long. + +Then, too, the crooked fireplace in the former was a disfigurement, the +rooms were closets, or cells, the paper abominable, the wardrobe damp, +the drawers swollen or exasperating muftis, the whole apartment the +flimsiest sort of a cheap, showy, contract structure, such as no +self-respecting people should occupy. + +We said we would move. We recited our wrongs to each other in detail and +began consulting Sunday papers immediately. + + + + +IV. + +_Our First Move._ + + +It was the Little Woman who selected our next habitation. Education +accumulates rapidly in the Metropolis, and I could see that she already +possessed more definite views on "flats and apartments" than she had +acquired on many another subject familiar to her from childhood. + +Politics, for instance, do not exist for the Little Woman. Presidents +come and go, torchlight processions bloom and fade and leave not so much +as a wind-riffle on the sands of memory. The stock market, too, was at +this time but a name to her. Both of us have acquired knowledge since +in this direction, but that is another story. Shares might rise and fall +in those early days, and men clutch at each other's throats as ruin +dragged them down. The Little Woman saw but a page of figures in the +evening paper and perhaps regarded them as a sort of necessary +form--somewhat in the nature of the congressional reports which nobody +ever reads. Yet all her life she had been amid these vital issues, and +now, behold, after two short months she had acquired more information on +New York apartment life than she would ever have on both the others put +together. She knew now what we needed and she would find it. I was +willing that this should be so. There were other demands on my time, and +besides, I had not then contracted the flat-disease in its subsequent +virulent form. + +She said, and I agreed with her, that it was a mistake to be so far from +the business center. That the time, car fare, and nerve tissue wasted +between Park Place and Harlem were of more moment than a few dollars' +difference in the monthly rent. + +We regarded this conclusion somewhat in the light of a discovery, and +wondered why people of experience had not made it before. Ah, me! we +have made many discoveries since that time. Discoveries as old as they +are always new. The first friendly ray of March sunlight; the first +green leaf in the park; the first summer glow of June; the first dead +leaf and keen blast of autumn; these, too, have wakened within us each +year a new understanding of our needs and of the ideal habitation; +these, too, have set us to discovering as often as they come around, as +men shall still discover so long as seasons of snow and blossom pass, +and the heart of youth seeks change. But here I am digressing again, +when I should be getting on with my story. + +As I have said, the Little Woman selected our next home. The Little +Woman and the Precious Ones. They were gone each day for several hours +and returned each evening wearied to the bone but charged heavily with +information. + +The Little Woman was no longer a novice. "Single and double flats," +"open plumbing," "tiled vestibule," "uniformed hall service," and other +stock terms, came trippingly from her tongue. + +Of some of the places she had diagrams. Of others she volunteered to +draw them from memory. I did not then realize that this was the first +symptom of flat-collecting in its acute form, or that in examining her +crude pencilings I was courting the infection. I could not foresee that +the slight yet definite and curious variation in the myriad city +apartments might become a fascination at last, and the desire for +possession a mania more enslaving than even the acquirement of rare rugs +or old china and bottles. + +I examined the Little Woman's assortment with growing interest while the +Precious Ones chorused their experiences, which consisted mainly in the +things they had been allowed to eat and drink, and from the nature of +these I suspected occasional surrender and bribery on the part of the +Little Woman. + +It was a place well down town that we chose. It was a second floor, +open in the rear, and there was sunlight most of the day. The rooms were +really better than the ones we had. They could not be worse, we +decided--a fallacy, for I have never seen a flat so bad that there could +not be a worse one--and the price was not much higher. Also, there was a +straight fireplace in the dining-room, which the Precious Ones described +as being "lovelly," and the janitress was a humble creature who had won +the Little Woman's heart by unburdening herself of numerous sad +experiences and bitter wrongs, besides a number of perfectly just +opinions concerning janitors, individually and at large. + +Altogether the place seemed quite in accordance with our present views. +I paid a month's rent in advance the next morning, and during the day +the Little Woman engaged a moving man. + +[Illustration: THE PRECIOUS ONES WERE RACING ABOUT AMONG BOXES AND +BARRELS IN UNALLOYED HAPPINESS.] + +She was packing when I came home and the Precious Ones were racing about +among boxes and barrels in unalloyed happiness. It did not seem possible +that we had bought so much or that I could have put so many tacks in the +matting. + +The moving men would be there with their van by daylight next morning, +she said. (It seems that the man at the office had told her that we +would have to get up early to get ahead of him, and she had construed +this statement literally.) So we toiled far into the night and then +crept wearily to bed in our dismantled nest, to toss wakefully through +the few remaining hours of darkness, fearful that the summons of the +forehanded and expeditious moving man would find us in slumber and +unprepared. + +We were deeply grateful to him that he had not arrived before we had +finished our early and scrappy breakfast. Then presently, when we were +ready for him and he did not appear, we were still appreciative, for we +said to each other that he was giving us a little extra time so that we +would not feel upset and hurried. Still, it would be just as well if he +would come, now, so that we might get moved and settled before night. + +It had been a bright, pleasant morning, but as the forenoon advanced the +sky darkened and it grew bitterly cold. Gloom settled down without and +the meager steam supply was scarcely noticeable in our bare apartment. +The Precious Ones ran every minute to the door to watch for the moving +van and came back to us with blue noses and icy hands. We began to +wonder if something had gone wrong. Perhaps a misunderstanding of the +address--illness or sudden death on the part of the man who had made the +engagement--perhaps-- + +I went around at last to make inquiries. A heavy, dusty person looked +into the soiled book and ran his finger down the page. + +"That's right!" he announced. "Address all correct. Van on the way +around there now." + +I hurried back comforted. I do not believe in strong language, but that +heavy individual with the soiled book was a dusty liar. There is no +other word to express it--if there was, and a stronger one, I would use +it. He was a liar by instinct and a prevaricator by trade. The van was +not at our door when I returned. Neither had it started in our +direction. + +We had expected to get down to our new quarters by noon and enjoy a +little lunch at a near-by restaurant before putting things in order. At +lunch time the van had still not appeared, and there was no near-by +restaurant. The Precious Ones began to demand food and the Little Woman +laboriously dug down into several receptacles before she finally brought +forth part of a loaf of dry bread and a small, stony lump of butter. But +to the Precious Ones it meant life and renewed joy. + +The moving man came at one o'clock and in a great hurry. He seemed +surprised that we were ready for him. There were so many reasons why he +had not come sooner that we presently wondered how he had been able to +get there at all. He was a merry, self-assured villain, and whistled as +he and his rusty assistant hustled our things out on the pavement, +leaving all the doors open. + +We were not contented with his manner of loading. The pieces we were +proud of--our polished Louis-XIVth-Street furniture--he hurried into the +darkness of his mighty van, while those pieces which in every household +are regarded more as matters of use than ornament he left ranged along +the pavement for all the world to gape at. Now and then he paused to +recount incidents of his former varied experience and to try on such of +my old clothes as came within his reach. I realized now why most of the +things he wore did not fit him. His wardrobe was the accumulation of +many movings. + +This contempt for our furniture was poorly concealed. He suggested, +kindly enough, however, that for living around in flats it was too +light, and after briefly watching his handling of it I quite agreed with +him. It was four o'clock when we were finally off, and the shades of +evening had fallen before we reached our new home. + +The generous and sympathetic welcome of our new janitress was like balm. +One was low-voiced and her own sorrows had filled her with a broad +understanding of human trials. She looked weary herself, and suggested +_en passant_ that the doctor had prescribed a little stimulant as being +what she most needed, but that, of course, such things were not for the +poor. + +I had a bottle of material, distilled over the peat fires of Scotland. I +knew where it was and I found it for her. Then the moving man came up +with a number of our belongings and we forgot her in the general +turmoil and misery that ensued. Bump--bump--up the narrow stairs came +our household goods and gods, and were planted at random about the +floor, in shapeless heaps and pyramids. All were up, at last, except a +few large pieces. + +At this point in the proceedings the moving man and his assistant paused +in their labors and the former fished out of his misfit clothing a +greasy piece of paper which he handed me. I glanced at it under the jet +and saw that it was my bill. + +"Oh, all right," I said, "I can't stop just now. Wait till you get +everything up, and then I can get at my purse and pay you." + +He grinned at me. + +"It's the boss's rule," he said, "to collect before the last things is +taken out of the van." + +I understood now why the pieces of value had gone in first. I also +understood what the "boss" had meant in saying that we would have to get +up early to get ahead of him. While I was digging up the money they made +side remarks to each other on the lateness of the hour, the length of +the stairs, and the heaviness of the pieces still to come. I gave them +each a liberal tip in sheer desperation. + +They were gone at last and we stood helplessly among our belongings that +lay like flotsam and jetsam tossed up on a forbidding shore. The +Precious Ones were whimpering with cold and hunger and want of sleep; +the hopelessness of life pressed heavily upon us. Wearily we dragged +something together for beds, and then crept out to find food. When we +returned there was a dark object in the dim hall against our door. I +struck a match to see what it was. It was a woman, and the sorrows of +living and the troubles of dying were as naught to her. Above and about +her hung the aroma of the peat fires of Scotland. It was our janitress, +and she had returned us the empty bottle. + + + + +V. + +_A Boarding House for a Change._ + + +Our new janitor was not altogether unworthy, but she drowned her sorrows +too deeply and too often, and her praiseworthy attributes were +incidentally submerged in the process. She was naturally kind-hearted, +and meant to be industrious, but the demon of the still had laid its +blight heavily upon her. We often found her grim and harsh, even to the +point of malevolence, and she did not sweep the stairs. + +We attempted diplomacy at first, and affected a deep sympathy with her +wrongs. Then we tried bribery, and in this moral decline I descended to +things that I wish now neither to confess nor remember. + +In desperation, at last, we complained to the agent, whereupon she +promptly inundated her griefs even more deeply than usual, and sat upon +the stairs outside our door to denounce us. She declared that a widow's +curse was upon us, and that we would never prosper. It sounded gruesome +at the time, but we have wondered since whether a grass widow's is as +effective, for we learned presently that her spouse, though absent, was +still in the flesh. + +It was at the end of the second month that we agreed upon boarding. We +said that after all housekeeping on a small scale was less agreeable and +more expensive than one might suppose, viewing it at long range. + +We looked over the papers again and found the inducements attractive. We +figured out that we could get two handsome rooms and board for no more, +and perhaps even a trifle less, than we had been expending on the +doubtful luxury of apartment life. Then, too, there would be a freedom +from the responsibility of marketing, and the preparation of food. We +looked forward to being able to come down to the dining-room without +knowing beforehand just what we were going to have. + +It was well that we enjoyed this pleasure in anticipation. Viewed in the +retrospective it is wanting. We did know exactly what we were going to +have after the first week. We learned the combination perfectly in that +time, and solved the system of deductive boarding-house economy within +the month so correctly that given the Sunday bill of fare we could have +supplied in minute detail the daily program for the remainder of any +week in the year. + +Of course there is a satisfaction in working out a problem like that, +and we did take a grim pleasure on Sunday afternoons in figuring just +what we were to have for each meal on the rest of the days, but after +the novelty of this wore off there began to be something really deadly +about the exactness of this household machinery and the certainty of our +calculations. + +The prospect of Tuesday's stew, for instance, was not a thing to be +disregarded or lightly disposed of. It assumed a definite place in the +week's program as early as two o'clock on Sunday afternoon, and even +when Tuesday was lived down and had linked itself to the past, the +memory of its cuisine lingered and lay upon us until we even fancied +that the very walls of our two plush upholstered rooms were tinged and +tainted and permeated with the haunting sorrow of a million Tuesday +stews. + +It is true that we were no longer subject to janitorial dictation, or to +the dumb-waiter complications which are often distressing to those who +live at the top of the house and get the last choice of the meat and ice +deliveries, but our landlady and the boarders we had always with us. + +The former was a very stout person and otherwise afflicted with +Christian science and a weak chest. It did not seem altogether +consistent that she should have both, though we did not encourage a +discussion of the matter. We were willing that she should have as many +things as she could stand up under if she only wouldn't try to divide +them with us. + +I am sure now that some of the other boarders must have been +discourteous and even harsh with this unfortunate female, and that by +contrast we appeared sympathetic and kind. At least, it seemed that she +drifted to us by some natural process, and evenings when I wanted to +read, or be read to by the Little Woman, she blew in to review the story +of her ailments and to expound the philosophy which holds that all the +ills of life are but vanity and imagination. Perhaps her ailments _may_ +have been all imagination and vanity, but they did not seem so to us. +They seemed quite real. Indeed they became so deadly real in time that +more than once we locked our doors after the Precious Ones were asleep, +turned out the gas, and sat silent and trembling in darkness until the +destroying angel should pass by. + +I have spoken of the boarders. They too laid their burdens upon us. For +what reason I can only conjecture. They brought us their whole stock of +complaints--complaints of the landlady, of the table and of each other. +Being from the great wide West we may have seemed a bit more broadly +human than most of those whose natures had been dwarfed and blighted in +the city's narrow soulless round of daily toil. Or it may be all of them +had fallen out among themselves before we came. I don't know. I know +that a good many of them had, for they told us about it--casually at +first, and then in detail. + +As an example, we learned from the woman across the hall that another +woman, who occupied the top floor back and painted undesirable +water-colors, had been once an artist's model, and that she smoked. From +the top floor back, in turn, we discovered that the woman across the +way, now a writer of more or less impossible plays, had been formerly a +ballet girl and still did a turn now and then to aid in the support of a +dissolute and absent husband. + +These things made it trying for us. We could not tell which was the more +deserving of sympathy. Both seemed to have drawn a pretty poor hand in +what was a hard enough game at best. And there were others. + +Within the month we were conversant with all the existing feuds as well +as those of the past, and with the plots that were being hatched to +result in a new brood of scandals and counterplots, which were retailed +to the Little Woman and subsequently to me. We were a regular +clearing-house at last for the wrongs and shortcomings of the whole +establishment, and the responsibility of our position weighed us down. + +We had never been concerned in intrigue before, and it did not agree +with our simple lives. I could feel myself deteriorating, morally and +intellectually. I had a desire to beat the Precious Ones (who were +certainly well behaved for children shut up in two stuffy rooms) or +better still to set the house afire, and run amuck killing and slaying +down four flights of stairs--to do something very terrible in +fact--something deadly and horrible and final that would put an end +forever to this melancholy haunt of Tuesday stews and ghoulish boarders +with the torturing tattle of their everlasting tongues. I shocked the +Little Woman daily with words and phrases, used heretofore only under +very trying conditions, that had insensibly become the decorations of my +ordinary speech. + +Clearly something had to be done, and that very soon, if we were to save +even the remnants of respectability. We recalled with fondness some of +the very discomforts of apartment life and said we would go back to it +at any cost. + +Our furniture was in storage. We would get it out, and we would begin +anew, profiting by our experience. We would go at once, and among other +things we would go farther up town. So far down was too noisy, besides +the air was not good for the Precious Ones. + +It was coming on spring, too, and it would be pleasanter farther up. +Not so far as we had been before, but far enough to be out of the whirl +and clatter and jangle. It was possible, we believed, to strike the +happy medium, and this we regarded somewhat in the light of another +discovery. + +Life now began to assume a new interest. In the few remaining days of +our stay in the boarding-house we grew tolerant and even fond of our +fellow-boarders, and admitted that an endless succession of Tuesday +stews and Wednesday hashes would make us even as they. We went so far as +to sympathize heartily with the landlady, who wept and embraced the +Little Woman when we went, and gave the Precious Ones some indigestible +candy. + +We set forth then, happy in the belief that we had mastered, at last, +the problem of metropolitan living. We had tried boarding for a change, +and as such it had been a success, but we were altogether ready to take +up our stored furniture and find lodgment for it, some place, any place, +where the bill of fare was not wholly deductive, where our rooms would +not be made a confessional and a scandal bureau, and where we could, in +some measure, at least, feel that we had a "home, sweet home." + + + + +VI. + +_Pursuing the Ideal._ + + +I suppose it was our eagerness for a home that made us so easy to +please. + +Looking back now after a period of years on the apartment we selected +for our ideal nest I am at a loss to recall our reasons for doing so. +Innocent though we were, it does not seem to me that we could have found +in the brief time devoted to the search so poor a street, so wretched a +place, and so disreputable a janitor (this time a man). I only wish to +recall that the place was damp and small, with the kitchen in front; +that some people across the air shaft were wont to raise Cain all night +long; that the two men below us frequently attempted to murder each +other at unseemly hours, and that some extra matting and furniture +stored in the basement were stolen, I suspect, by the janitor himself. + +Once more we folded our tents, such of them as we had left, and went far +up town--very far, this time. We said that if we had to live up town at +all we would go far enough to get a whiff of air from fresh fields. + +There was spring in the air when we moved, and far above the Harlem +River, where birds sang under blue skies and the south breeze swept into +our top-floor windows, we set up our household goods and gods once more. +They were getting a bit shaky now, and bruised. The mirrors on sideboard +and dresser had never been put on twice the same, and the middle leg of +the dining-room table wobbled from having been removed so often. But we +oiled out the mark and memory of the moving-man, bought new matting, and +went into the month of June fresh, clean, and hopeful, with no regret +for past errors. + +And now at last we found really some degree of comfort. It is true our +neighbors were hardly congenial, but they were inoffensive and kindly +disposed. The piano on the floor beneath did not furnish pleasing +entertainment, but neither was it constant in its efforts to do so. The +stairs were long and difficult of ascent, but our distance from the +street was gratifying. The business center was far away, but I had +learned to improve the time consumed in transit, and our cool eyrie was +refreshing after the city heat. + +As for the janitor, or janitress, for I do not know in which side of the +family the office was existent, he, she, or both were merely lazy, +indifferent, and usually invisible. Between them they managed to keep +the place fairly clean, and willingly promised anything we asked. It is +true they never fulfilled these obligations, but they were always eager +to renew them with interest, and on the whole the place was not at all +bad. + +But the Precious Ones had, by this time, grown fond of change. We were +scarcely settled before they began to ask when we were going to move +again, and often requested as a favor that we take them out to look at +some flats. We overheard them playing "flat-hunting" almost every day, +in which game one of them would assume the part of janitor to "show +through" while the other would be a prospective tenant who surveyed +things critically and made characteristic remarks, such as, "How many +flights up?" "How much?" "Too small," "Oh, my, kitchen's too dark," +"What awful paper," "You don't call that closet a room, I hope," and the +like. It seemed a harmless game, and we did not suspect that in a more +serious form its fascinations were insidiously rooting themselves in our +own lives. It is true we often found ourselves pausing in front of new +apartments and wondering what they were like inside, and urged by the +Precious Ones entered, now and then, to see and inquire. In fact the +Precious Ones really embarrassed us sometimes when, on warm Sunday +afternoons, where people were sitting out on the shady steps, they would +pause eagerly in front of the sign "To Let" with: "Oh, papa, look! +Seven rooms and bath! Oh, mamma, let's go in and see them! Oh, please, +mamma! Please, papa!" + +At such times we hurried by, oblivious to their importunities, but when +the situation was less trying we only too frequently yielded, and each +time with less and less reluctance. + +It was in the early fall that we moved again,--into a sunny corner flat +on a second floor that we strayed into during one of these rambles, and +became ensnared by its clean, new attractions. We said that it would be +better for winter, and that we were tired of four long flight of stairs. +But, alas, by spring every thing was out of order from the electric bell +at the entrance to the clothes-lines on the roof, while janitors came +and went like Punch and Judy figures. Most of the time we had none, and +some that we had were better dead. So we moved when the birds came back, +but it was a mistake, and on the Fourth of July we celebrated by moving +again. + +We now called ourselves "van-dwellers," the term applied by landlord and +agent to those who move systematically and inhabit the moving-man's +great trundling house no less than four to six times a year. I am not +sure, however, that we ever really earned the title. The true +"van-dweller" makes money by moving and getting free rent, while I fear +the wear and tear on our chattels more than offset any advantage we ever +acquired in this particular direction. + +I can think of no reason now for having taken our next flat except that +it was different from any of those preceding. Still, it was better than +the summer board we selected from sixty answers to our advertisement, +and after eighteen minutes' experience with a sweltering room and an +aged and apoplectic dog whose quarters we seemed to have usurped, we +came back to it like returning exiles. + +It was a long time before we moved again--almost four months. Then the +Little Woman strayed into another new house, and was captivated by a +series of rooms that ran merrily around a little extension in a manner +that allowed the sun to shine into every window. + +We had become connoisseurs by this time. We could tell almost the exact +shape and price of an apartment from its outside appearance. After one +glance inside we could carry the plan mentally for months and reproduce +it minutely on paper at will. We had learned, too, that it is only by +living in many houses in rotation that you can know the varied charms of +apartment life. No one flat can provide them all. + +The new place had its attractions and we passed a merry Christmas there. +Altogether our stay in it was not unpleasant, in spite of the soiled and +soulless Teutonic lady below stairs. I think we might have remained +longer in this place but for the fact that when spring came once more we +were seized with the idea of becoming suburbanites. + +We said that a city apartment after all was no place for children, and +that a yard of our own, and green fields, must be found. With the +numerous quick train services about New York it was altogether possible +to get out and in as readily as from almost any point of the upper +metropolis, and that, after all, in the country was the only place to +live. + +We got nearly one hundred answers to our carefully-worded advertisement +for a house, or part of a house, within certain limits, and the one +selected was seemingly ideal. Green fields behind it, a railroad station +within easy walking distance, grasshoppers singing in the weeds across +the road. We strolled, hand in hand with the Precious Ones, over sweet +meadows, gathering dandelions and listening to the birds. We had a lawn, +too, and sunny windows, and we felt free to do as we chose in any part +of our domain, even in the basement, for here there was no janitor. + +We rejoiced in our newly-acquired freedom, and praised everything from +the warm sunlight that lay in a square on the matting of every room to +the rain that splashed against the windows and trailed across the +waving fields. It is true we had a servant now--Rosa, of whom I shall +speak later--but even the responsibility (and it _was_ that) of this +acquirement did not altogether destroy our happiness. Summer and autumn +slipped away. The Precious Ones grew tall and brown, and the old cares +and annoyances of apartment life troubled us no more. + +But with the rigors and gloom and wretchedness of winter the charms of +our suburban home were less apparent. The matter of heat became a +serious question, and the memory of steam radiators was a haunting one. +More than once the Little Woman was moved to refer to our "cosy little +apartment" of the winter before. Also, the railway station seemed +farther away through a dark night and a pouring rain, the fields were +gray and sodden, and the grasshoppers across the road were all dead. + +We did not admit that we were dissatisfied. In fact, we said so often +that we would not go back to the city to live that no one could possibly +suspect our even considering such a thing. + +However, we went in that direction one morning when we set out for a car +ride, and as we passed the new apartment houses of Washington Heights we +found ourselves regarding them with something of the old-time interest. +Of course there was nothing personal in this interest. It was purely +professional, so to speak, and we assured each other repeatedly that +even the best apartment (we had prospered somewhat in the world's goods +by this time and we no longer spoke of "flats")--that even the best +"apartment", then, was only an apartment after all, which is true, when +you come to think of it. + +Still, there certainly were attractive new houses, and among them +appeared to be some of a different pattern from any in our "collection." +One in particular attracted us, and a blockade of cars ahead just then +gave us time to observe it more closely. + +There were ornamental iron gates at the front entrance, and there was a +spot of shells and pebbles next the pavement--almost a touch of +seashore, and altogether different from the cheerless welcome of most +apartment houses. Then, of course, the street car passing right by the +door would be convenient---- + +The blockade ahead showed no sign of opening that we could see. By +silent but common consent we rose and left the car. Past the little +plot of sea beach, through the fancy iron gates, up to the scarcely +finished, daintily decorated, latest improved apartment we went, +conducted by a dignified, newly-uniformed colored janitor, who quoted +prices and inducements. + +I looked at the Little Woman--she looked at me. Each saw that the other +was thinking of the long, hard walk from the station on dark, wet +nights, the dead grasshoppers, and the gray, gloomy fields. We were both +silent all the way home, remembering the iron gates, the clean janitor, +the spot of shells, and a beautiful palm that stood in the vestibule. We +were both silent and we were thinking, but we did not move until nearly +a week later. + + + + +VII. + +_Owed to the Moving Man._ + + +WRITTEN TO GET EVEN. + + He pledged his solemn word for ten, + And lo, he cometh not till noon-- + So ready his excuses then, + We wonder why he came so soon. + He whistles while our goods and gods + He storeth in his mighty van-- + No lurking sting of conscience prods + The happy-hearted moving man. + + Upon the pavement in a row, + Beneath the cruel noonday glare, + The things we do not wish to show + He places, and he leaves them there. + There hour by hour will they remain + For all the gaping world to scan, + The while we coax and chide in vain + The careless-hearted moving man. + + When darkness finds our poor array + Like drift upon a barren shore, + Perchance we gaze on it and say + With vigor, "We will roam no more." + But when the year its course hath run, + And May completes the rhythmic span, + Again, I wot, we'll call upon + The happy-hearted moving man. + + + + +VIII. + +_Household Retainers._ + + +It is of Rosa that I would speak now, Rosa, the young and consuming; and +of Wilhelmine, the reformer. + +Rosa came first in our affections. It was during our first period of +suburban residence that she became a part of our domestic economy, +though on second thought economy seems hardly the word. She was tall, +and, while you could never have guessed it to look into her winsome, +gentle face, I am sure that she was hollow all the way down. + +When I first gazed upon her I wondered why one so young (she was barely +sixteen), and with such delicacy of feature, should have been given feet +so disproportionate in size. I know now that they were mere recesses, +and that it was my fate for the time being to fill, or to try to fill, +them. + +She came in the afternoon, and when, after a portion of the roast had +been devoted to the Precious Ones and their forbears, and an allotment +of the pudding had been issued and dallied over, Rosa came on and +literally demolished on a dead run every hope of to-morrow's stew, or +hash, or a "between-meal" for the Precious Ones--licked not only the +platter, but the vegetable dishes, the gravy tureen, the bread board, +and the pudding pan, clean, so to speak. + +At first we merely smiled indulgently and said: "Poor thing, she is +half starved, and it is a pleasure to have her enjoy a good meal. She +can't keep it up, of course." + +[Illustration: Rosa.] + +But this was simply bad judgment. At daybreak I hastened out for a new +invoice of bread stuff and market supplies in order to provide for +immediate wants. Rosa had rested well and was equal to the occasion. +When I returned in the evening I found that our larder had been +replenished and wrecked twice during my absence. The Little Woman had a +driven, hunted look in her face, while Rosa was as winsome and +gentle-featured, as sweet and placid in her consciousness of well being +and doing, as a cathedral saint. In fact, it always seemed to me that +she never looked so like a madonna as she did immediately after +destroying the better part of a two-dollar roast and such other trifles +as chanced to be within reach in the hour of her strong requirements. + +And these things she could do seven days in the week and as many times +during each twenty-four hours as opportunity yielded to her purpose. We +were hopeful for days that it was only a temporary disaster, and that we +would eventually get her filled up, shoes and all. + +But days became weeks and weeks gathered themselves into months. Each +morning Rosa came up winsome and glad to be alive--fresh as the dew on +the currant bushes and ravenous as a Mohammedan at the end of Ramadan. + +It was no use. We gave it up at last, and merely concerned ourselves +with getting sufficient unto the day and moment. + +But there was another side to Rosa. She was willing to take counsel, in +the matter of her labors, and profit by it. Also she had no particular +aversion to work, and she was beloved of the Precious Ones. It is true +she had no special regard for the fragility of queensware, but care in +these matters is not expected even of old retainers; while Rosa, as I +have said, was in the flower of youth. + +It was not without regret, therefore, that we found she could not +accompany us to the city. Her people did not wish her to become a part +of the great metropolis in early youth, and were willing to do the best +they could with her appetite at home until another near-by source of +supplies could be found. So it was that Rosa passed out of our fortunes +when we gave up suburban life and became dwellers in the Monte Cristo +apartments. + +It was then that Wilhelmine came. The Little Woman's brother Tom was to +abide with us for a season, and it seemed necessary to have somebody. I +suggested that any employment bureau could doubtless supply us with just +what we needed, and the Little Woman went down to see. + +I have never known exactly what her experiences were there, though she +has done her best to tell me. Her account lacked lucidity and +connection, but from what I can gather piecemeal, she did not enjoy +herself. + +However, the experiment resulted in something--a very old German +individual in a short dress, stout of person, and no English worth +mentioning. She came on us like a cyclone, and her speech was as a +spring torrent in volume. I happened to know one or two German words, +and when incautiously I chanced to let her have a look at them she +seized my hand and did a skirt dance. Then presently she ran out into +the kitchen, took everything from every shelf, and rearranged the +articles in a manner adapted to the uses of nothing human. + +This was the beginning, and relentlessly she pursued her course, backed +up by a lifetime of experience, and the strong German traditions of +centuries. + +The entire household was reorganized under her regime. The Little Woman +and the Precious Ones were firmly directed, and I was daily called to +account in a mixture of high-geared German and splintered English that +was fairly amazing in its quantity. + +Nothing was so trivial as to escape Wilhelmine. Like all great +generals, she regarded even the minutest details as important, and I was +handled with no less severity for cutting an extra slice of bread than +for investing in a new rug for the front room. For, let it be said now, +Wilhelmine was economical and abhorred waste. Neither did she break the +crockery, and, unlike Rosa, she did not eat. She was no longer young and +growing, and the necessity of coaling-up every hour or two seemed to +have gone by. + +But, alas! we would have preferred beautiful, young, careless, +larder-wrecking Rosa to Wilhelmine, the reformer. We would have welcomed +her with joy, and surreptitiously in whispers we hatched plots to rid +ourselves of the tyrant. Once I even went so far as to rebel and battle +with her in the very sanctity of the kitchen itself. + +Not that Wilhelmine could not cook. In her own German cabbage-and-onion +way she was resourceful, and the house reeked with her combinations +until strong men shed tears, and even the janitor hurried by our door +with bowed head. I never questioned her ability to cook, but in the +matter of coffee she was hopeless. In the best German I could muster I +told her so. I told her so several times, so that it could sink in. I +said it over forward and backward and sideways, in order to get the +verbs right, and when she was through denouncing me I said that I would +give her an object lesson in making coffee in a French pot. + +I am sure now that this was a mistake--that German blood could stand +almost anything in the world better than a French coffee-pot, but at the +time I did not recall the affairs and animosities of nations. + +I had other things to think of. I was employed in the delicate operation +of extracting amber nectar by a tedious dripping process, and +simultaneously engaging with a rapid-fire German at short range. I +understood very little of what she said, and what I did gather was not +complimentary. I fired a volley or two at last myself, and then +retreated in good order bearing the coffee-pot. + +The coffee was a success, but it was obtained at too great a risk. That +night we wrote to Rosa and to her mother. We got no reply, and, after +days of anxious waiting, the Little Woman went out to discuss the +situation in person. But the family had moved, and there had been a very +heavy snow. The Little Woman waded about nearly all day in pursuit of +the new address. She learned it at last, but it was too late then to go +any farther, so she came home and wrote again, only to get no reply. +Then I tried my hand in the matter as follows:-- + +LINES TO ROSA IN ABSENCE. + + Lady Rosa Vere de Smith, + Leave your kin and leave your kith; + Life without you is a mockery; + Come once more and rend our crockery. + + Lady Rosa Vere de Smith, + Life for us has lost its pith; + You taught us how to prize you thus, + And now you will not bide with us. + + Lady Rosa Vere de Smith, + Have we no voice to reach you with? + Come once more and wreck our larder; + We will welcome you with ardor. + +I could have written more of this, perhaps, and I still believe it would +have proved effective, but when I read aloud as far as written, the +Little Woman announced that she would rather do without Rosa forever +than to let a thing like that go through the mails. So it was +suppressed, and Rosa was lost to us, I fear, for all time. + +But Providence had not entirely forgotten us, though its ways as usual +were inscrutable. Wilhelmine, it seems, locked herself nightly in her +room, and the locks being noiseless in the Monte Cristo apartments she +could not realize when the key turned that she was really safely barred +in. Hence it seems she continued to twist at the key which, being of a +slender pattern, was one night wrenched apart and Wilhelmine, alas! was +only too surely fortified in her stronghold. When she realized this she, +of course, became wildly vociferous. + +I heard the outburst and hastening back found her declaring that she was +lost without a doubt. That the house would certainly catch fire before +she was released and that she would be burned like a rat in a trap. + +I called to her reassuringly, but it did no good. Then I climbed up on a +chair set on top of a table, and observed her over the transom. She had +her wardrobe tied in a bundle all ready for the fire which she assured +me was certain to come, though how she hoped to get her wardrobe out +when she could not get herself out, or of what use it would be to her +afterwards was not clear. + +It was useless to persuade her to go to bed and let me get a locksmith +in the morning. I was convinced that she would carry-on all night like a +forgotten _dachshund_, unless she was released. It was too late to find +a locksmith and I did not wish to take the janitor into the situation. + +I got a screw-driver and handed it over to her telling her to unscrew +the lock. But by this time she had reached a state where she did not +know one end of the implement from another. She merely looked at it +helplessly and continued to leap about and bewail her fate loudly and in +mixed tongues. + +I saw at last that I must climb over the transom. It was small, and I am +a large man. I looked at the size of it and then considered my height +and shoulder measure. Then I made the effort. + +I could not go through feet first, and to go through a transom head +first is neither dignified or exhilarating. When I was something more +than half through I pawed about in the air head down in a vain effort +to reach a little chiffonier in Wilhelmine's room. + +She watched me with interest to see how near I could come to it, and by +some mental process it dawned upon her at last that she could help +matters by pushing it toward me. Having reached this conclusion the rest +was easy, for she was as strong as an ox and swung the furniture toward +me like a toy. + +Five minutes later I had unscrewed the lock and Wilhelmine was free. So +were we, for when I threw the lock into a drawer with a few choice +German remarks which I had been practising for just such an emergency, +Wilhelmine seized upon her bundles, already packed, and, vowing that she +would abide in no place where she could not lie down in the security of +strong and hard twisting keys, she disappeared, strewing the stairway +with German verbs and expletives in her departure. + +We saw her no more, and in two weeks, by constant airing, we had our +culinary memories of her reduced to such a degree that the flat on the +floor above found a tenant, and carbolic acid was no longer needed in +the halls. + + + + +IX. + +_Ann._ + + +And now came Ann, Ann, the Hibernian and the minstrel. During the first +week of her abode with us she entertained us at dinner by singing a +weird Irish love ballad and so won our hearts that the Little Woman +decided to take the Precious Ones for a brief visit to homes and +firesides in the Far West, leaving her Brother Tom and myself in Ann's +charge. + +When she went away she beamed upon Tom and me and said, reassuringly, +"Ann will take good care of you all right. We were fortunate to secure a +girl like Ann on such short notice. Get your lunches outside sometimes; +that will please her." Then she and the Precious Ones kissed us both, +the bell rang and they were gone. + +My brother-in-law and I were doing what we referred to as "our book" at +this time, and were interested to the point of absorption. Ann the +Hibernian therefore had the household--at least, the back of the +household--pretty much to herself. + +I do not know just when the falling off did begin. We were both very +much taken up with our work. But when, one morning, I happened to notice +that it was a quarter of twelve when we sat down to a breakfast of stale +bread and warmed-over coffee, it occurred to me that there was a hitch +somewhere in our system. + +That evening, when it got too dark to work, I arose and drifted out to +the kitchen, perhaps with some idea of being hungry, and a mild +curiosity to know when dinner might be expected. There was an air of +desolation about the place that seemed strange, and an odor that seemed +familiar. Like a hound on the trail I followed the latter straight on +through the kitchen, to the servants' room at the back. The door was +ajar, and the mystery was solved. Our noble Ann had fallen prey to the +cup that yearly sweeps thousands into unhonored graves. + +We went out for dinner, and the next morning we got our own eggs and +coffee. When our minion regained consciousness we reviled her and cast +her out. + +We said we would get our own meals. We had camped out together and taken +turns at the cooking. We would camp out now in the flat. We were quite +elated with the idea, and out of the fulness of our freedom gave Ann a +dollar and a little bracer out of some "private stock." Ann declared we +were "pairfect gintlemen," and for the first time seemed sorry to go. + +Both being eager to get back to our work after breakfast, neither of us +referred to the dirty dishes, and I did not remember them again until +dinner time. Tom got into a tangle with our heroine about one o'clock, +and said he would get the lunch by way of relaxation. I presume he +relaxed sufficiently without attending to the plates. At least, I found +them untouched when I went out to look after the dinner. + +I discovered, also, that the lavish Tom had exhausted the commissary to +achieve the lunch. I was obliged, therefore, to go at once to the +grocery, and on the way made up a mental list of the things easiest to +prepare. I would get canned things, I said, as many of these were ready +for the table, and some of them could be eaten out of the can. This +would save dishes. I do not recall now just what I had planned as my +bill of fare, but I suppose I must have forgotten some of it when I +learned that our grocer was closing out his stock of wet goods very +cheap, for Tom looked at the stuff when it came and asked if I thought +of running a bar. I said I had bought with a view to saving dishes. Then +he hunted up the cork-screw and we dined. + +In spite of my superior management, however, the dish pile in the +kitchen sink grew steadily. + +On the morning of the third day the china closet was exhausted, and we +took down the Little Woman's Crown Derby and blue India plates from +their hangers in the parlor. + +On the evening of the fourth day Tom got our work into an inextricable +tangle, and took a reflective stroll out into the kitchen. He came back +looking hopelessly discouraged. On the fifth morning we followed Ann's +example. + +The atmosphere suddenly cleared now. We reached conclusions by amazingly +short cuts, and our troubles vanished like the dew of morning. The next +day would be Sunday. We would go into the country for recreation. +To-night we would put a line in the paper and on Monday morning we would +have another servant. It seemed hardly worth our while to attempt to +camp out permanently. + +I will pass over Sunday without further comment. The recollection is +weird and extravagant. I remember being surprised at finding certain +stretches of pavement perpendicular, and of trying to climb them. Still +we must have got a line in the paper on Saturday night, for on Monday +the bell began ringing violently before we were up. Tom either did not +hear it, or was wilfully unconscious. Finally I got up wretchedly and +dragged on some garments. There was no ice, so I pressed my head for a +few minutes to a marble-topped center table. + +I suppose it was because I did not feel very bright that the voices of +my guests were not restful to me. I was almost irritated by one +shrill-voiced creature who insisted on going through every room, even to +our study. Her tone was dictatorial and severe. Still I might have +retained her had she not commented disagreeably on the dishes in the +kitchen sink. + +One after another they followed her example. Every woman of them began +to make excuses and back away when she looked at that unwashed china. +Most of them perjured themselves with the statement that they had come +to see about a place for another girl. + +After the initial lot they scattered along through the forenoon. Tom had +got up, meantime, and was leaning on the front window-sill watching +hungrily for the ice-man. + +In the midst of this anguish the bell rang once more, timidly and with +evident hesitation, and a moment later I feebly opened the door to +admit--Ann! + +She was neatly dressed, as when she had first come to us, and there were +other gratifying indications of reform. + +"Sure an' I saw your advertisement," she began, humbly, "an' I thought +two such gintlemen as yerselves moight not be too hard on a daycent +woman who only takes a drop or two now an' then----" + +I led her back to the kitchen and pointed to the sink. As we passed +through the dining-room she noticed the empty bottles on the table and +crossed herself. When she looked at the kitchen sink she exclaimed, +"Holy Mary!" But she did not desert us. Her charity was greater than +ours. + +I went in to tell Tom of the renovation and general reform that was +about to begin. He had just succeeded in hailing the ice-man and was +feeling better. When I went back into the kitchen there was a +wash-boiler of water heating on the range. + +Just then the postman whistled and brought a letter from the Little +Woman. + +"I have decided to stay a week longer than I intended," she wrote. "It +is so pleasant here, and Ann, I am sure, is taking good care of you." + +We had a confidential understanding with Ann that night. She remained +with us a year afterward, and during that time the sacred trust formed +by the three of us was not betrayed. + + + + +X. + +_A "Flat" Failure._ + + +In the Monte Cristo apartments it would seem that we had found harbor at +last. Days ran into weeks, weeks to months, and these became a year, at +length--the first we had passed under any one roof. Then there came a +change. The house was not so well built as it had appeared, and with the +beginning of decay there came also a change of landlord and janitor. Our +spruce and not unworthy colored man was replaced by one Thomas, who was +no less spruce, indeed, but as much more severe in his discipline as his +good-natured employer was lax in the matter of needed repairs. + +Every evening, at length, when we gathered about the dinner table, the +Little Woman recited to me the story of her day's wrongs. They were many +and various, but they may be summed up in the two words--janitor and +landlord. The arrogance of one and the negligence of the other were +rapidly making life in the Monte Cristo apartments insupportable. Of +course there were minor annoyances--the children across the hall, for +instance, and the maid in the kitchen--but these faded into +insignificance when contrasted with the leaky plumbing, sagging doors, +rattling windows and the like on the part of Mr. Griffin, the landlord, +and new arbitrary rulings concerning the supply of steam for the parlor, +coal for the kitchen range, the taking away of refuse, and the austere +stairway restrictions imposed upon our Precious Ones on the part of +Thomas, the janitor. + +It is true the landlord was not over-exacting in the matter of rent, and +when he came about, which was not often, would promise anything and +everything with the greatest good-will in the world, while Thomas kept +the front steps and halls in a condition which was really better than we +had been used to, or than the rent schedule would ordinarily justify. +But the good-will of the landlord usually went no farther than his ready +promises, while the industry of Thomas was overshadowed by his gloomy +discipline and haughty severity, which presently made him, if not the +terror, certainly the awe, of Monte Cristo dwellers. We had not minded +this so much, however, until when one day the Precious Ones paused on +the stair a moment to rest, as was their wont, and were perhaps even +laughing in their childish and musical way, Thomas, who had now been +with us some three months or more, appeared suddenly from some concealed +lurking-place and ordered them to their own quarters, with a warning +against a repetition of the offense that seemed unduly somber. It +frightened the Precious Ones so thoroughly that they were almost afraid +to pass through the halls alone next day, and came and went quite on a +run, looking neither to the right nor to the left. + +It was then that we said we would go. Of course, moving was not +pleasant; we had enough memories in that line already, though time had +robbed them of their bitterness, I suppose, for we grew quite cheerful +over the idea of seeking a new abiding-place, and it being Sunday, +began looking over the advertisement columns immediately after +breakfast. I would make a list, I said, and stop in here and there to +investigate on the way to and from business. We would get nearer to +business, for one thing, also nearer the car-line. We would have a +lighter flat, too, and we would pay less for it. We agreed upon these +things almost instantly. Then we began putting down addresses. It was +surprising how many good, cheap places there seemed to be now. So many +new houses had been built since our last move. We regretted openly to +each other that we had not gone before. Then we rested a little to find +fault with our quarters. We dug over all the old things, and unearthed a +lot of new and hitherto concealed wretchedness that was altogether +disheartening. We would move at once, we said. Now! This week! + +Perhaps I seemed a trifle less cheerful when I returned next evening. +The Little Woman must have noticed it, I suppose, for she asked if I +wasn't well. I said that I was tired, which was true. I added that a +good many landlords were unscrupulous in the matter of advertising, +which I can take an oath is also true. I had left the office early and +investigated a number of the apartments on my list, at the expense of +some nerve-tissue and considerable car-fare. The advertisements had been +more or less misleading. The Little Woman said that in the morning she +would go. + +The Little Woman herself looked tired the next evening--more tired and +several years older than I had ever seen her look. She had walked a +good many miles--steep stair miles which are trying. In the end she had +arrived only at the conclusion that the best apartments were not +advertised. She said it would be better to select the locality we +preferred and walk leisurely about the good streets until we spied +something attractive. She wished we might do so together. + +I took a holiday and we pursued this programme. Like birds seeking a new +nesting-place we flitted hither and thither, alighting wheresoever the +perch seemed inviting. We alighted in many places, but in most of them +we tarried but briefly. It was not that the apartments were +inattractive--they were almost irresistible, some of them, but even +hasty reflection convinced me that it would be inadvisable to invest +ninety-five per cent of my salary each month in rent unless I could be +altogether certain that the Little Woman and the Precious Ones could +modify their appetites and remain quite well. + +Being enthusiastic at first, we examined some of these apartments and +the Little Woman acquired credit in my eyes as we proceeded. I did not +realize until now the progress she had made since the day of our arrival +in Gotham nearly four years previous. Her education was complete--she +was a graduate in the great school of flat-life, and was contemplating a +post-graduate course. Figures that made me gasp and sustain myself by +the silver-mounted plumbing left her quite undisturbed. From her manner +you would suppose that it was only the desirability of the apartment +itself that was worth consideration. She criticised the arrangement of +the rooms and the various appointments with an air of real consequence, +while the janitor and I followed her about, humble and unimportant, +wondering how we could ever have imagined the place suitable to her +requirements. + +In one place where the rent was twenty-four hundred it seemed almost +impossible to find fault. I began to be frightened for the Little Woman, +in the thought that now, after all, she really would be obliged to +confess that the little trifle of eighteen hundred dollars a year more +than we could possibly pay rendered the place undesirable. But a moment +later I realized how little I knew her. When we got to the kitchen she +remarked, passively, there was no morning sun in the windows. As the +apartment faced east, and there was morning sun in the parlor, this +condition seemed more or less normal, as the janitor meekly pointed out. +But the Little Woman declared she would never live in another place +where the kitchen was dark mornings, and turned away, leaving the +janitor scratching his head over the problem of making the sun shine +from two directions at once and remaining in that position all day long. + +Still it was a narrow escape, and we were consuming time. So we +contented ourselves after that with merely inquiring the size and price +of the apartment of the hall-boy, and passing on. Even this grew +monotonous at length, and we gradually drifted into the outer edges of +the chosen district, and from the outer edges into that Section wherein +we had made our first beginning nearly four years before, the great +wilderness lying north of One Hundred and Sixteenth Street. Then we +began work in earnest. We looked at light apartments and dark +apartments--apartments on every floor, even to the basement. Though many +changes had taken place it carried us back to the day of our first +experience, and set us to wondering if we really had learned anything +after all. + +We saw apartments that we would not have, and apartments which, because +of our Precious Ones, would not have us. Apartments that ran straight +through the house, apartments that, running down one side of the house +and back on the other, solved in a manner the Little Woman's problem of +having sunlight in both ends of the house at one time. + +It was one of these last that we took. The building, which was +comparatively new, was located in the middle of the block, on a little +square bit of ground, and had on each floor a cozy octagonal hall with +one apartment running entirely around it. The entrance steps and halls +were not as unsullied as those of our present habitat, but the janitor +was a good-natured soul who won us at first glance, and who seemed on +terms of the greatest amity with a small boy who lived on the first +landing and accompanied us through. We saw also that the plumbing was in +praiseworthy condition, and the doors swung easily on their hinges. + +To be sure, the price was a trifle more than we were paying in our +present apartment, and the location was somewhat farther from business; +but we said that a few blocks more or less were really nothing when one +was once on the car, which was almost as near as at the old place, and +we figured that the slight difference in rent we could save in the +gas-bill, though I had a lingering suspicion that to strike a general +average of light in the two places would be to cast but slight +reflection on either. + +The janitor was the main thing--the good-natured janitor and the +landlord. We could even put up with slight drawbacks for the sake of an +apartment in good condition and the companionable soul down-stairs. +Then, too, we were foot-sore in flesh and spirit, and after the day's +experiences welcomed this haven as a genuine discovery. We went home +really gratified, though I confess our old nest had never seemed more +inviting. + +I will touch but lightly upon the next few days. I would rather forget +the atmosphere of squalor and destitution that pervaded our household +when the carpets had been stripped up and we were stumbling about among +half-packed barrels upon bare, resounding floors. I do not seek to +retrace in detail the process of packing, which began with some buoyancy +and system, to degenerate at last in its endlessness into dropping +things mechanically and hopelessly into whatever receptacle came first +to hand. I do not wish to renew the moments of vehemence and +exasperation when our Precious Ones, who really seemed to enjoy it all, +clattered about among the debris, or the vague appreciation of suicide +that was born within me when, in the midst of my despair, the Little +Woman suggested that after all she was afraid we were making a mistake +in leaving our little home where we had been happy so long; also that we +moved too often, an unusual statement considering the fact that we had +been there for more than a year. I told her that she reminded me of my +mother, who daily rated my father for keeping them poor, moving, they +having moved twice in thirty-eight years. I added that I had seen my +mother publicly denounce my father for having left out a broken stew-pot +when they moved the last time, some twenty years before. + +I will not review these things fully, nor will I recall, except in the +briefest manner, the usual perfidiousness of the moving-man, who, as +heretofore, came two hours late, and then arranged upon the pavement all +the unbeauteous articles of our household, leaving them bare and +wretched in the broad light of day while he thrust into the van the +pieces of which we were justly proud. + +I will also skim but lightly over the days devoted to getting settled. I +sent word to the office that I was ill--a fact which I could have sworn +to if necessary, though for a sick man my activity was quite remarkable. +The Little Woman was active, too, while the Precious Ones displayed a +degree of enterprise and talent for getting directly in my chosen path, +which was unusual even for them. + +We were installed at last, however, and the jolly janitor had given us a +lift now and then which completely won our hearts and more than made up +for some minor shortcomings which we discovered here and there as the +days passed. We named our new home the "Sunshine" apartment and assured +each other that we were very well pleased, and when one morning as I set +out for the office I noticed that the lower halls and stairway had +suddenly taken on an air of spruce tidiness--had been magically +transformed over night, as it were--I was so elated that I returned to +point these things out to the Little Woman. She came down to the door +with me and agreed that it was quite wonderful, and added the final +touch to our satisfaction. She added that it looked almost as if Thomas +had been at work there. I went away altogether happy. + +Owing to the accumulation of work at the office it was rather later than +usual when I returned that evening. As I entered I observed on the face +of the Little Woman a peculiar look which did not seem altogether due to +the delayed dinner. The Precious Ones also regarded me strangely, and I +grew vaguely uneasy without knowing why. It was our elder hope who first +addressed me. + +"On, pop! you can't guess who's here!" + +"No," chimed in the echo, "you never could! Guess, papa; just guess!" + +As for the Little Woman, she leaned back in her chair and began laughing +hysterically. This was alarming. I knew it could not be her brother who +had just sailed for Japan, and I glanced about nervously, having in mind +a composite vision of my Aunt Jane, who had once invaded our home with +disastrous results, and an old college chum, who only visited me when in +financial distress. + +"Wh--where are--they?" I half whispered, regarding anxiously the +portieres. + +"Here--up-stairs, down-stairs, everywhere!" gasped the Little Woman, +while the Precious Ones continued to insist that I guess and keep on +guessing without rest or sustenance till the crack of doom. + +Then suddenly I grew quite stern. + +"Tell me," I commanded, "what is the matter with you people, and stop +this nonsense! Who is it that's here?" + +The Little Woman became calm for a brief instant, and emitted a single +word. "Thomas!" + +I sank weakly into a chair. "Thomas?" + +"Yes, Thomas! Thomas!" shrieked the Precious Ones, and then they, too, +went off into a fit of ridiculous mirth, while recalling now the sudden +transfiguration of the halls I knew they had spoken truly. The Little +Woman was wiping her eyes. + +"And Mr. Griffin, too," she said, calmly, as if that was quite a matter +of course. + +"And Mr. Griffin, too!" chorused the Precious Ones. + +"Mr. Griffin?" + +"Why, yes," said the Little Woman. "He bought this house yesterday, and +put Thomas over here in charge. He will occupy the top floor himself." + +"Oh!" + +"And you never saw anybody so glad of anything as Thomas was to see us +here. It was the first time I ever saw him laugh!" + +"Oh, he laughed, did he?" + +"Yes; and he gave us each some candy!" chanted the Precious Ones. "He +said it was like meeting home folks." + +"Oh, he did?" + +"Mine was chocolate," declared our elder joy. + +"Mine was marshmallows!" piped the echo. + +"Little Woman," I said, "our dinner is getting cold; suppose we eat +it." + + + + +XI. + +_Inheritance and Mania._ + + +And now came one of these episodes which sometimes disturb the +sequestered quiet of even the best regulated and most conventional of +households. We were notified one day that my Aunt Jane, whom I believe I +have once before mentioned having properly arranged her affairs had +passed serenely out of life at an age and in a manner that left nothing +to be desired. + +I was sorry, of course,--as sorry as it was possible to be, considering +the fact that she had left me a Sum which though not large was absurdly +welcome. I did not sleep very well until it came, fearing there might +be some hitch in administrating the will, but there was no hitch (my +Aunt Jane, heaven rest her spirit, had been too thoroughly business for +that) and the Sum came along in due season. + +We would keep this Sum, we decided, as a sinking fund; something to have +in the savings bank, to be added to, from time to time, as a provision +for the future and our Precious Ones. This seemed a good idea at the +time, and it seems so yet, for that matter. I have never been able to +discover that there is anything wrong with having money in a good +savings bank. + +I _put_ the Sum in a good savings bank, and we were briefly satisfied +with our prudence. It gave us a sort of safe feeling to know that it was +there, to be had almost instantly, in case of need. + +It was this latter knowledge that destroyed us. When the novelty of +feeling safe had worn off we began to need the Sum. Casually at first, +coming as a mere suggestion, in fact, from one or the other of us, of +what we could buy with it. It is wonderful how many things we were +constantly seeing that the Sum would pay for. + +Our furniture, for instance, had grown old without becoming antique, and +was costly only when you reckon what we had paid for moving it. We had +gradually acquired a taste (or it may have been only the need of a +taste) for the real thing. Whatever it was it seemed expensive--too +expensive to be gratified heretofore, but now that we had the Sum---- + +The shops along Fourth Avenue were literally bulging with things that we +coveted and that the Sum would pay for. I looked at them wistfully in +passing, still passing strong in my resolution to let the Sum lie +untouched. Then I began to linger and go in, and to imagine that I knew +a good piece and a bargain when I saw it. This last may be set down as a +fatal symptom. It led me into vile second-hand stores in the hope of +finding some hitherto undiscovered treasure. In these I hauled over the +wretched jetsam of a thousand cheap apartments and came out dusty and +contaminated but not discouraged. + +I suggested to the Little Woman one day that it would be in the nature +of an investment to buy now, in something old and good, the desk I had +needed so long. I assured her that antiques were becoming scarcer each +year, and that pieces bought to-day were quite as good as money in the +savings bank, besides having the use of them. The Little Woman agreed +readily. For a long time she had wanted me to have a desk, and my +argument in favor of an antique piece seemed sound. + +I did not immediately find a desk that suited me. There were a great +many of them, and most of them seemed sufficiently antique, but being +still somewhat modern in my ideas I did not altogether agree with their +internal arrangements, while such as did appeal would have made too +large an incursion into the Sum. What I did find at length was a +table--a mahogany veneered table which the dealer said was of a period +before the war. I could readily believe it. If he had said that it had +been _through_ the war I could have believed that, too. It looked it. +But I saw in it possibilities, and reflected that it would give me an +opportunity to develop a certain mechanical turn which had lain dormant +hitherto. The Little Woman had been generous in the matter of the desk. +I would buy the table for the Little Woman. + +She was pleased, of course, but seemed to me she regarded it a trifle +doubtfully when it came in. Still, the price had not been great, and it +was astonishing to see how much better it looked when I was through with +it, and it was in a dim corner, with its more unfortunate portions next +the wall. Indeed, it had about it quite an air of genuine +respectability, and made the rest of our things seem poor and trifling. +It was the beginning of the end. + +Some Colonial chairs came next. + +The Little Woman and I discovered their battered skeletons one day as +we were hurrying to catch a car. They were piled in front of a place +that under ordinary conditions we would have shunned as a pest-house. +Still the chairs were really beautiful and it was a genuine "find"! I +did not restore these myself--they needed too much. I had them delivered +to a cabinet-maker who in turn delivered them to us in a condition that +made the rest of our belongings look even shabbier, and at a cost that +made another incursion into the Sum. + +I renovated and upholstered the next lot of chairs myself, and was proud +of the result, though the work was attended by certain unpleasant +features, and required time. On the whole, I concluded to let the +cabinet-maker undertake the heavy lounge that came next, and was in +pieces, as if a cyclone had struck it somewhere back in the forties and +it had been lying in a heap, ever since. It was wonderful what he did +with it. It came to us a thing of beauty and an everlasting joy, and his +bill made a definite perforation in the Sum. + +We did not mind so much now. It was merely altering the form of our +investment, we said, and we had determined to become respectable at any +cost. The fact that we had been offered more for the restored lounge +than it cost us reassured us in our position. Most of our old traps we +huddled together one day, and disposed of them to a second-hand man for +almost enough to pay for one decent piece--a chiffonier this time--and +voted a good riddance to bad rubbish. + +Reflecting upon this now, it seems to me we were a bit hasty and +unkind. Poor though they were, the old things had served us well and +gone with us through the ups and downs of many apartments. In some of +them we had rocked the Precious Ones, and on most of them the precious +Ones had tried the strength and resistance of their toys. They were +racked and battered, it is true and not always to be trusted as to +stability, but we knew them and their shortcomings, and they knew us and +ours. We knew just how to get them up winding stairs and through narrow +doors. They knew about the length of time between each migration, and +just about what to expect with each stage of our Progress. They must +have long foreseen the end. Let us hope they will one day become +"antiques" and fall into fonder and more faithful hands. + +But again I am digressing--it is my usual fault. We invested presently +in a Chippendale sideboard, and a tall clock which gave me no peace +night or day until I heard its mellow tick and strike in our own dim +little hall. The aperture in the Sum was now plainly visible, and by the +time we had added the desk, which I had felt unable to afford at the +start, and a chair to match, it had become an orifice that widened to a +gap, with the still further addition of a small but not inexpensive +Chippendale cabinet and something to put within it. + +The Little Woman called a halt now. She said she thought we had enough +invested in this particular direction, that it was not wise to put all +one's eggs into one basket. Besides, we had all the things our place +would hold comfortably: rather more, in fact, except in the matter of +rugs. The floors of the Sunshine apartment were hard finished and +shellacked. Such rugs as we had were rare only as to numbers, and we +were no longer proud of them. I quite agreed with the Little Woman on +the question of furniture, but I said that now we had such good things +in that line, I would invest in one really good rug. + +I did. I drifted one day into an Armenian place on Broadway into which +the looms of the Orient had poured a lavish store. Small black-haired +men issued from among the heaped-up wares like mice in a granary. I was +surrounded--I was beseeched and entreated--I was made to sit down while +piece after piece of antiquity and art were unrolled at my feet. At each +unrolling the tallest of the black men would spread his hands and look +at me. + +"A painting, a painting, a masterpiece. I never have such fine piece +since I begin business;" and each of the other small black men would +spread their hands and look at me and murmur low, reverent exclamations. + +I did not buy the first time. You must know that even when one has +become inured to the tariff on antique furniture, and has still the +remains of a Sum to draw upon, there is something about the prices of +oriental rugs that is discouraging when one has ever given the matter +much previous thought. + +But the memory of those unrolled masterpieces haunted me. There was +something fascinating and Eastern and fine about sitting in state as it +were, and having the treasures of the Orient spread before you by those +little dark men. + +So I went again, and this time I made the first downward step. It was a +Cashmere--a thick, mellow antique piece with a purple bloom pervading +it, and a narrow faded strip at one end that betokened exposure and age. +The Little Woman gasped when she saw it, and the Precious Ones approved +it in chorus. It took me more than a week to confess the full price. It +had to be done by stages; for of course the Little Woman had not sat as +I had sat and had the "paintings of the East" unrolled at her feet and +thus grown accustomed to magnificence. To tell her all at once that our +one new possession had cost about five times as much as all the rest of +our rugs put together would have been an unnecessary rashness on my +part. As it was, she came to it by degrees, and by degrees also she +realized that our other floor coverings were poor, base, and spurious. + +Still I was prudent in my next selections. I bought two smaller pieces, +a Kazak strip, and a Beloochistan mat. This was really all we needed, +but a few days later a small piece of antique Bokhara overpowered me, +and I fell. I said it would be nice on the wall, and the Little Woman +confessed that it was, but again insisted that we would better stop now. +She little realized my condition. The small dark men in their dim-lit +Broadway cave had woven a spell about me that made the seductions of +antique furniture as a forgotten tale. + +I bought a book on rug collecting, and I could not pass their +treasure-house without turning in. They had learned to know me from +afar, and the sound of my step was the signal for a horde of them to +come tumbling out from among the rugs. + +It was the old story of Eastern magic. The spell of the Orient was upon +me, and in the language of my friends I went plunging down the _rug_ged +path to ruin. I added an Anatolian to my collections--a small one that I +could slip into the house without the Little Woman seeing it until it +was placed and in position to help me in my defense. It was the same +with a Bergama and a Coula, but by this time the Precious Ones would +come tearing out into the hall when I came home and then rush back, +calling as they ran: "Oh, mamma, he's got one and he's holding it behind +him! He's got another rug, mamma!" + +So when I got the big Khiva I felt that some new tactics must be +adopted. In the first place, it would take two strong men to carry it, +and in the next place it would cover the parlor floor completely, and +meant the transferring to the walls of several former purchases. + +Further than this, its addition would make the hole in the Sum big +enough to drive a wagon through--a band-wagon at that with a whole +circus procession behind it. Indeed, the remains of the Sum would be +merely fragmentary, so to speak, and only the glad Christmas season +could make it possible for me to confess and justify to the Little Woman +the fulness of the situation. + +Luckily, Christmas was not far distant. The dark men agreed to hold the +big Khiva until the day before, and then deliver it to the janitor. +With the janitor's help I could get it up and into the apartment after +the Little Woman had gone to bed. I could spread it down at my leisure +and decorate the walls with some of those now on the floor. When on the +glad Christmas morning this would burst upon the Little Woman in sudden +splendor, I felt that she would not be too severe in her judgment. + +It was a good plan, and it worked as well as most plans do. There were +some hitches, of course. The Little Woman, for instance, was not yet in +bed when the janitor was ready to help me, and I was in mortal terror +lest she should hear us getting the big roll into the hallway, or coming +out later should stumble over it in the dark. But she did not seem to +hear, and she did not venture out into the hall. Neither did she seem +to notice anything unusual when by and by I stumbled over it myself and +plunged through a large pasteboard box in which there was something else +for the Little Woman--something likely to make her still more lenient in +the matter of the rug. I made enough noise to arouse the people in the +next flat, but the Little Woman can be very discreet on Christmas eve. + +She slept well the next morning, too,--a morning I shall long remember. +If you have never attempted to lay a ten-by-twelve Khiva rug in a small +flat-parlor, under couches and tables and things, and with an extra +supply of steam going, you do not understand what one can undergo for +the sake of art. It's a fairly interesting job for three people--two to +lift the furniture and one to spread the rug, and even then it isn't +easy to find a place to stand on. It was about four o clock I think when +I began, and the memory of the next three hours is weird, and lacking in +Christmas spirit. I know now just how every piece of furniture we +possess looks from the under side. I suppose this isn't a bad sort of +knowledge to have, but I would rather not acquire it while I am pulling +the wrinkles out of a two-hundred-pound rug. But when the Little Woman +looked at the result and at me she was even more kind than I had +expected. She did not denounce me. She couldn't. Looking me over +carefully she realized dimly what the effort had cost, and pitied me. It +was a happy Christmas, altogether, and in the afternoon, looking at our +possessions, the Little Woman remarked that we needed a house now to +display them properly. It was a chance remark but it bore fruit. + + + + +XII. + +_Gilded Affluence._ + + +Yet not immediately. We had still to make the final step of our Progress +in apartment life, and to acquire other valuable experience. It happened +in this wise. + +Of the Sum there still remained a fragment--unimportant and fragile, it +would seem--but quite sufficient, as it proved, to make our lives +reasonably exciting for several months. + +A friend on the Stock Exchange whispered to me one morning that there +was to be a big jump in Calfskin Common--something phenomenal, he said, +and that a hundred shares would pay a profit directly that would +resemble money picked up in the highway. + +I had never dealt in stocks, or discovered any currency in the public +thoroughfares, but my recent inheritance of the Sum and its benefits had +developed a taste in the right direction. Calfskin Common was low then, +almost as low as it has been since, and an option on a hundred shares +could be secured with a ridiculously small amount--even the fragment of +the Sum would be sufficient. + +I mentioned the matter that night to the Little Woman. We agreed almost +instantly that there was no reason why we should not make something on +Calfskin Common, though I could see that the Little Woman did not know +what Calfskin Common was. I have hinted before that she was not then +conversant with the life and lingo of the Stock Exchange, and on the +whole my advantage in this direction was less than it seemed at the +time. I think we both imagined that Calfskin Common had something to do +with a low grade of hides, and the Little Woman said she supposed there +must be a prospective demand from some foreign country that would +advance the price of cheap shoes. Of course it would be nice to have our +investments profitable, but on the whole perhaps I'd better lay in an +extra pair or so of everyday footwear for the Precious Ones. + +I acquired some information along with my option on the stock next day, +so that both the Little Woman and myself could converse quite +technically by bed-time. We knew that we had "put up a ten per cent. +margin" and had an "option" at twelve dollars a share on a hundred +shares of the common stock in leather corporation--said stock being +certain to go to fifty and perhaps a hundred dollars a share within the +next sixty days. The fragment of the Sum and a trifle more had been +exchanged for the Stock, and we were "in on a deal." Then too we had a +"stop-loss" on the Stock so that we were safe, whatever happened. + +The Little Woman didn't understand the "stop-loss" at first, and when I +explained to her that it worked automatically, as it were, she became +even more mystified. I gathered from her remarks that she thought it +meant something like an automatic water shut-off such as we had in the +bath-room to prevent waste. Of course, that was altogether wrong, and I +knew it at the time, but it did not seem worth while to explain in +detail. I merely said that it was something we could keep setting higher +as the stock advanced, so that in event of a downward turn we would save +our original sum, with the accrued profits. + +Then we talked about what we would do with the money. We said that now +we had such a lot of good things and were going to make money out of the +Stock we ought to try one really high-class apartment--something with an +elevator, and an air of refinement and gentility. It would cost a good +deal, of course, but the surroundings would be so much more congenial, +so much better for the Precious Ones, and now that I was really doing +fairly well, and that we had the Stock--still we would be prudent and +not move hastily. + +We allowed the Stock to advance five points before we really began to +look for a place. Five points advance meant five hundred dollars' profit +on our investment, and my friend on the exchange laughed and +congratulated me and said it was only the beginning. So we put up the +stop-loss, almost as far as it would go, and began to look about for a +place that was quite suitable for people with refined taste, some very +good things in the way of rugs and furniture, and a Stock. + +We were not proud as yet. We merely felt prosperous and were willing to +let fortune smile on us amid the proper surroundings. We said it was +easy enough to make money, now that we knew how, and that it was no +wonder there were so many rich people in the metropolis. We had fought +the hard fight, and were willing now to take it somewhat easier. We +selected an apartment with these things in view. + +It was some difficulty to find a place that suited both us and the +Precious Ones. Not that they were hard to please--they welcomed anything +in the nature of change--but at most of the fine places children were +rigorously barred, a rule, it seemed to us, that might result in rather +trying complications between landlord and tenant in the course of time +and nature, though we did not pursue investigations in this line. We +found lodgment and welcome at length in the Apollo, a newly constructed +apartment of the latest pattern and in what seemed a most desirable +neighborhood. + +The Apollo was really a very imposing and towering affair, with onyx and +gilded halls. The elevator that fairly shot us skyward when we ascended +to our eerie nest ten stories above the street, and was a boundless joy +to the Precious Ones, who would gladly have made their playhouse in the +gaudy little car with the brown boy in blue and brass. Our fine +belongings looked grand in the new suite, and our rugs on the inlaid and +polished floor were luxurious and elegant. Compared with this, much of +our past seemed squalid and a period to be forgotten. Ann, who was still +with us, put on a white cap and apron at meal-times, and to answer the +bell, though the cap had a habit of getting over one ear, while the +apron remained white with difficulty. + +The janitor of the Apollo was quite as imposing as the house itself,--a +fallen nobleman, in fact, though by no means fallen so far as most of +those whose possibilities of decline had been immeasurably less. He was +stately and uplifting in his demeanor. So much so that I found myself +unconsciously imitating his high-born manner and mode of speech. I had a +feeling that he was altogether more at home in the place than we were, +but I hoped this would pass. Whatever the cost, we were determined to +live up to the Apollo and its titled _Charge d'Affaires_. + +And now came exciting days. The Stock continued to advance, as our +friend had prophesied. Some days it went up one point, some days two. +Every point meant a hundred dollars' clear profit. One day it advanced +five full points. We only counted full points. Fractional advances we +threw into the next day's good measure, and set the stop-loss higher, +and yet ever higher. + +We acquired credit with ourselves. We began to think that perhaps after +all we hadn't taken quite so good an apartment as we deserved. What was +a matter of a thousand dollars more or less on a year's rent when the +Stock was yielding a profit of a hundred or two dollars a day. We +repeated that it was easy enough now to understand how New Yorkers got +rich, and could afford the luxuries heretofore regarded by us with a +wonderment that was akin to awe. I began to have a vague notion of +abandoning other pursuits and going into stocks, altogether. We even +talked of owning our own home on Fifth Avenue. Still we were quite +prudent, as was our custom. I did not go definitely into stocks, and we +remained with the fallen nobleman in the Apollo. Neither did we +actually negotiate for Fifth Avenue property. + +The Little Woman bought many papers during the day. In some of them +early stock quotations were printed in red, so it might be truly said +that these were red-letter days for the Little Woman. When she heard +"_Extra!_" being shouted in the street far below she could not +dispossess herself of the idea that it had been issued to announce a +sensational advance of the Stock. Even as late as ten o'clock one night +she insisted on my going down for one, though I explained that the Stock +Exchange had closed some seven hours before. The Precious Ones fairly +kept the elevator busy during the afternoon, going for extras, and when +the final Wall Street edition was secured they would come shouting in, + +"Here it is. Look at the Stock, quick, Mamma, and see how much we've +made to-day!" + +Truly this was a gilded age; though I confess that it did not seem quite +real, and looking back now the memory of it seems less pleasant than +that of some of the very hard epochs that had gone before. Still, it +occupies a place all its own and is not without value in life's +completed scheme. + +The Stock did not go to fifty. It limped before it got to forty, and we +began to be harassed by paltry fractional advances, with even an +occasional fractional decline. We did not approve of this. It was +annoying to look in the Wall Street edition and find that we had made +only twelve dollars and a half, instead of a hundred or two, as had been +the case in the beginning. We even thought of selling Calfskin Common +and buying a stock that would not act that way; but my friend of the +exchange advised against it. He said this was merely a temporary thing, +and that fifty and a hundred would come along in good time. He adjusted +the stop-loss for us so that there was no danger of the Stock being sold +on a temporary decline, and we sat down to wait and watch the papers +while the Stock gathered strength for a new upward rush that was sure to +come, and would place us in a position to gratify a good many of the +ambitions lately formed. + +A feverish and nerve-destroying ten days followed. The Stock had become +to us as a personal Presence that we watched as it stumbled and +struggled and panted, and dug its common Calfskin toes into things in a +frantic effort to scale the market. I know now that the men who had +organized the deal were boasting and shouting, and beating the air in +their wild encouragement, while those who opposed it were hammering, and +throttling and flinging mud, in as wild an effort to check and +demoralize and destroy. At the time, however, we caught only the echo of +these things, and believed as did our friend on the exchange, that a +great capitalist was in control of Calfskin Common and would send it to +par. + +Only we wished he would send it faster. We did not like to fool along +this way, an eighth up and an eighth, or a quarter down, and all +uncertainty and tension. Besides, we needed our accruing profits to meet +our heavily increased expenses which were by no means easy to dispose of +with our normal income, improved though it was with time and tireless +effort. + +Indeed, most of the eighths and quarters presently seemed to be in the +wrong direction. It was no fun to lose even twelve dollars and a half a +day and keep it up. The Presence in the household was in delicate +health. It needed to be coddled and pampered, and the strain of it told +on us. The Little Woman developed an anxious look, and grew nervous and +feverish at the clamor of an "extra." Sometimes I heard her talking +"plus" and "minus" and "points" in her sleep and knew that she had taken +the Stock to bed with her. + +The memory of our old quiet life in the Sunshine and Monte Cristo began +to grow in sweetness beside this sordid and gilded existence in the +Apollo. The massive portals and towering masonry which at first had been +as a solid foundation for genuine respectability began to seem gloomy +and overpowering, and lacking in the true home spirit we had found +elsewhere. The smartly dressed and mannered people who rode up and down +with us on the elevator did not seem quite genuine, and their +complexions were not always real. It may have been the condition of the +Stock that disheartened us and made their lives as well as ours seem +artificial. I don't know. I only know that I began to have a dim feeling +that we would have been happier if we had been satisfied with our +oriental rugs and antique furniture, and the remnant of the Sum, without +the acquaintance of the Stock and the fallen nobleman below stairs. But, +as I have said, all things have their place and value, I suppose, and +our regrets, if they were that, have long since been dissipated, with +the things that made them possible. + +Quickly, as they had come, they passed, and were not. I was working +busily one morning in my south front study when the Little Woman entered +hurriedly. It was late April and our windows were open, but being much +engaged I had not noticed the cries of "extra!" that floated up from the +street below. It was these that had brought the Little Woman, however, +and she leaned out to look and listen. + +"They are calling out something about stocks and Wall Street," she said, +"I am sure of it. Go down and see, quick! Calfskin Common must have gone +to a hundred!" + +"Oh, pshaw!" I laughed, "it's only the assassination of a king, or +something. You're excited and don't hear right." + +Still, I did go down, and I fumed at the elevator-boy for being so slow +to answer, though I suppose he was prompt enough. The "extra" callers +had passed by the time I got to the street, but I chased and caught +them. Then I ran all the way back to the Apollo, and plunged into the +elevator that was just starting heavenward. + +I suppose I looked pretty white when I rushed in where the Little Woman +was waiting. But the type that told the dreadful tale was red enough, in +all conscience. There it was, in daubed vermilion, for the whole world +and the Little Woman to see. + +"PANIC ON WALL STREET. + + "Break in Leather stocks causes general decline. Calfskin Common + falls twenty points in ten minutes. Three failures and more to + come!" + +Following this was a brief list of the most sensational drops and the +names of the failing firms. For a moment we stared at each other, +speechless. Then the Little Woman recovered voice. + +"Oh," she gasped, "we've caused a panic!" + +"No," I panted, "but we're in one!" + +"And we'll lose everything! People always do in panics, don't they?" + +I nodded gloomily. + +"A good many do. That is, unless----" + +"But the stop-loss!" she remembered joyfully, "we've got a stop-loss!" + +"That's so!" I assented, "the stop-loss! Our stock is already +sold--that is if the stop-loss worked." + +"But you know you said it worked automatically." + +"So it does--automatically, if--if it holds! It must have worked! I'll +telephone at once, and see." + +There was a telephone in the Apollo and I hurried to it. Five women and +three men were waiting ahead of me, and every one tried to telephone +about stocks. Some got replies and became hysterical. One elderly woman +with a juvenile make-up and a great many rings fainted and was borne +away unconscious. A good many got nothing whatever. + +I was one of the latter. The line to my brokers was busy. It was busy +all that day, during which we bought extras and suffered. By night-fall +we would have rejoiced to know that even the original fragment of the +Sum had been saved out of the general wreck of things on the Street. + +It was. Even a little more, for the stop-loss that had failed to hold +against the first sudden and overwhelming pressure, had caught somewhere +about twenty, and our brokers next morning advised us of the sale. + +It was a quiet breakfast that we had. We were rather mixed as to our +feelings, but I know now that a sense of relief was what we felt most. +It was all over--the tension of anxious days, and the restless nights. +Many had been ruined utterly. We had saved something out of the +wreck--enough to pay the difference in our rent. Then, too, we were +alive and well, and we had our Precious Ones. Also our furniture, which +was both satisfactory and paid for. Through the open windows the sweet +spring air was blowing in, bringing a breath and memory of country +lanes. Even before breakfast was over I reminded the Little Woman of +what she had once said about needing a home of our own, now that we had +things to put in it. I said that the memory of our one brief suburban +experience was like a dream of sunlit and perfumed fields. That we had +run the whole gamut of apartment life and the Apollo had been the +post-graduate course. In some ways it was better than the others, and if +we chose to pinch and economize in other ways, as many did, we still +might manage to pay for its luxury, but after all it was not, and never +had been a home to me, while the ground and the Precious Ones were too +far apart for health. + +And the Little Woman, God bless her, agreed instantly and heartily, and +declared that we would go. Onyx and gilded elegance she said were +obtained at too great a price for people with simple tastes and moderate +incomes. As for stocks, we agreed that they were altogether in keeping +with our present surroundings--with the onyx and the gilt--with the +fallen nobleman below stairs and those who were fallen and not noble, +the artificial aristocrats, who rode up and down with us on the +elevator. We had had quite enough of it all. We had taken our apartment +for a year, but as the place was already full, with tenants waiting, +there would be no trouble to sublet to some one of the many who are ever +willing to spend most of their income in rent and live the best way they +can. Peace be with them. They are welcome to do so, but for people like +ourselves the Apollo was not built, and _Vanitas Vanitatum_ is written +upon its walls. + + + + +XIII. + +_A Home at Last._ + + +We began reading advertisements at once and took jaunts to "see +property." The various investment companies supplied free transportation +on these occasions. It was a pleasant variation from the old days of +flat hunting. The Precious Ones, who remembered with joy our former +brief suburban experiment, appreciated it, and raced shouting through +rows of new "instalment houses" with nice lawns, all within the +commutation limits. We settled on one, at last, through an agency which +the trolley-man referred to as the "Reality Trust." + +The cash-payment was small and the instalments, if long continued, were +at least not discouraging as to size. We had a nice wide lawn with green +grass, a big, dry cellar with a furnace, a high, light garret, and eight +beautiful light rooms, all our own. At the back there were clothes-poles +and room for a garden. In front there was a long porch with a place for +a hammock. There was room in the yard for the Precious Ones to romp, as +well as space to spread out our rugs. We closed the bargain at once, and +engaged a moving man. Our Flat days were over. + +And now fortune seemed all at once to smile. The day of our last move +was perfect. The moving man came exactly on time and delivered our +possessions at the new home on the moment of our arrival there. The +Little Woman superintended matters inside, while I spread out my rugs on +the grass in the sun and shook them and swept them and scolded the +Precious Ones, who were inclined to sit on the one I was handling, to my +heart's content. Within an hour the butcher, the baker, and the merry +milk-maker had called and established relations. By night-fall we were +fairly settled--our furniture, so crowded in a little city apartment, +airily scattered through our eight big, beautiful rooms, and our rugs, +all fresh and clean, reaching as far as they would go, suggesting new +additions to our collection whenever the spell of the dark-faced +Armenians in their dim oriental Broadway recess should assert itself +during the years to come. + +[Illustration: OUR GARDEN FLOURISHED.] + +Sweet spring days followed. We fairly reveled in seed catalogues, and +our garden flourished. Our neighbors, instead of borrowing our loose +property, as we had been led to expect by the comic papers, literally +overwhelmed us with garden tools and good advice. We needed both, +certainly, and were duly thankful. + +As for the Precious Ones, they grew fat and brown, refused to wear hats +and shoes when summer came, and it required some argument to convince +them that even a fragmentary amount of clothes was necessary. All day +now they run, and shout, and fall down and cry, and get up again and +laugh, sit in the hammock and swing their disreputable dolls, and eat +and quarrel and make up and have a beautiful time. At night they sleep +in a big airy room where screens let the breeze in and keep out the few +friendly mosquitoes that are a part of all suburban life. We are +commuters, and we are glad of it, let the comic papers say what they +will. The fellows who write those things are bitten with something worse +than mosquitoes, _i. e._, envy--I know, because I have written some of +them myself, in the old days. Perhaps it _is_ hard to get to and from +the train sometimes--perhaps the snow _may_ blow into the garret and the +lawn be hard to mow on a hot day. But the joy of the healthy Precious +Ones and of coming out of the smelly, clattering city at the end of a +hot summer day to a cool, sweet quiet, more than makes up for all the +rest; while as one falls asleep, in a restful room that lets the breeze +in from three different directions, the memories of flat-life, +flat-hunting, and janitors--of sweltering, disordered nights, of +crashing cobble and clanging trolleys, of evil-smelling halls and +stairways, of these and of every other phase of the yardless, +constricted apartment existence, blend into a sigh of relief that is +lost in dreamless, refreshing suburban sleep. + + + + +XIV. + +_Closing Remarks._ + + +To those who of necessity are still living in city apartments, and +especially to those who are contemplating flat life I would in all +seriousness say a few closing words. + +It requires education to get the best out of flat life. Not such +education as is acquired at Harvard, or Vassar, or even at the +Industrial or Cooking schools, but education in the greater school of +Humanity. In fact, flat living may be said to amount almost to a +profession. The choice of an apartment is an art in itself, and, as no +apartment is without drawbacks, the most vital should be considered as +all-important, and an agreeable willingness to put up with the minor +shortcomings of equal value. Sunlight, rental, locality, accessibility, +janitor-service, size, and convenience are all important, and about in +the order named. A dark apartment means doctor's bills, and by dark I +mean any apartment into which the broad sun does not shine at least a +portion of the day. Sunlight is the great microbe-killer, and as moss +grows on the north side of a tree, so do minute poison fungi grow in the +dim apartment. As to locality, a clean street, as far as possible from +the business center is to be preferred, and away from the crash of the +elevated railway. People are killed, morally and physically, by noise. +For this reason an apartment several flights up is desirable, though +the top floor is said by physicians to be somewhat less healthy than the +one just below. + +It is hard to instruct the novice in these matters. He must learn by +experience. But there is one word that contains so much of the secret of +successful apartment life that I must not omit it here. That word is +Charity. I do not mean by this the giving of money or old clothes to +those who slip in whenever the hall door is left unlocked. I mean that +_larger_ Charity which comes of a wider understanding of the natures and +conditions of men. + +You cannot expect, for instance, that a man or a woman, who serves for +rent only, and wretched basement rent at that, or for a few dollars +monthly additional at most, can be a very intelligent, capable person, +of serene temper and with qualities that one would most desire in the +ideal janitor. In the ordinary New York flat house janitors are engaged +on terms that attract only people who can find no other means of +obtaining shelter and support. Those who would fulfill your idea of what +a janitor should do have been engaged for the more expensive apartments, +or they have gone into other professions. The flat-house janitor's work +is laborious, unclean, and never ending. It is not conducive to a neat +appearance or a joyous disposition. If your janitor is only fairly +prompt in the matter of garbage and ashes, and even approximately +liberal as to heat and hot water, be glad to say a kind word to him now +and then without expecting that he will be humble or even obliging. If +you hear him knocking things about and condemning childhood in a +general way, remember that _your_ children are _only_ children, like all +the rest, and that a great many children under one roof can stretch even +a strong, wise person's endurance to the snapping point. + +Then there are the neighbors. Because the woman across the hall is +boiling onions and cabbage to-day, do not forget that your cabbage and +onion day will come on Wednesday, and she will probably enjoy it just as +little as you are appreciating her efforts now. And because the children +overhead run up and down and sound like a herd of buffaloes, don't +imagine that your own Precious Ones are any more fairy-footed to the +people who live just below. It's all in the day's endurance, and the +wider your understanding and the greater your charity, the more +patiently you will live and let live. It was an old saying that no two +families could live under one roof; but in flat life ten and sometimes +twenty families must live under one roof, and while you do not need to +know them all, or perhaps any of them, you will find that they do, in +some measure, become a part of your lives, and that your own part of the +whole is just about what you make it. + +Also, there are the servant girls. We cannot hope that a highly +efficient, intelligent young girl will perform menial labor some sixteen +hours a day for a few dollars a week and board, with the privilege of +eating off the tubs and sleeping in a five-by-seven closet off the +kitchen, when she can obtain a clerkship in one of the department stores +where she has light, clean employment, shorter hours, and sees +something of the passing show; or when, by attending night school for a +short time, she can learn stenography and command even better salary for +still shorter hours. It requires quite as much intelligence to be a +capable house servant as to be a good clerk; and as for education, there +is no lack of that in these days, whatever the rank of life. Even when a +girl prefers household service, if she be bright and capable it is but a +question of time when she will find employment with those to whom the +question of wages is considered as secondary to that of the quality of +service obtained in return. + +So you see we must not expect too much of our "girl for general +housework," unless we are prepared to pay her for her longer hours and +harder work something approximating the sum we pay to the other girl +who comes down in a sailor hat and pretty shirt waist at nine or ten to +take a few letters and typewrite them, and read a nice new novel between +times until say five o'clock, and who gets four weeks' vacation in hot +weather, and five if she asks for it prettily, with no discontinuance of +salary. All this may be different, some day, but while we are waiting, +let us not forget that there are many things in the world that it would +be well to remember, and that "_the greatest of these_" and the one that +embraces all the rest, "_is Charity!_" + + + + * * * * * + + + +LORDS OF THE NORTH + +By A. C. LAUT + +A Strong Historical Novel + + * * * * * + +_LORDS OF THE NORTH_ is a thrilling romance dealing with the rivalries +and intrigues of _The Ancient and Honorable Hudson's Bay_ and the +_North-West Companies_ for the supremacy of the fur trade in the Great +North. It is a story of life in the open; of pioneers and trappers. The +life of the fur traders in Canada is graphically depicted. The struggles +of the Selkirk settlers and the intrigues which made the life of the two +great fur trading companies so full of romantic interest, are here laid +bare. _Francis Parkman_ and other historians have written of the +discovery and colonization of this part of our great North American +continent, but no novel has appeared so full of life and vivid interest +as _Lords of the North_. Much valuable information has been obtained +from old documents and the records of the rival companies which wielded +unlimited power over a vast extent of our country. The style is +admirable, and the descriptions of an untamed continent, of vast forest +wastes, rivers, lakes and prairies, will place this book among the +foremost historical novels of the present day. The struggles of the +English for supremacy, the capturing of frontier posts and forts, and +the life of trader and trapper are pictured with a master's hand. +Besides being vastly interesting, _Lords of the North_ is a book of +historical value. + +_Cloth, 8vo, $1.50_ + + * * * * * + +_A Drone_ + +and + +_A Dreamer_ + +_A LOVE STORY_ + +_Illustrated, Cloth, 8vo, $1.50_ + +By NELSON LLOYD + +_Author of "The Chronic Loafer"_ + + * * * * * + +A critic in reviewing THE CHRONIC LOAFER said: + + "Pennsylvania fiction has never been listed as a standard stock but + Mr. Lloyd has only to continue to write and Pennsylvania will be + lifted, I venture to add, into the list of preferred securities." + + "A Drone and a Dreamer" is a rich fulfillment of this prophecy. + Brimming over with genial humor and wholesome fun, the book is an + exquisite love story and charming idyl of life among the mountains + and valleys of the Keystone State. + +DROCH in _LIFE_: + + "One of the most fertile yet unploughed regions in the United + States for local fiction is Pennsylvania. It is old, and vast and + picturesque. Bayard Taylor and Weir Mitchell have given the + Philadelphia end of the State some importance in fiction. John + Luther Long has written several effective tales in the Dutch + dialect, and the Moravians of Bethlehem have inspired a novel or + two. These writers, however, have hardly scratched around the + corners of the great state. Mr. Lloyd does not try to palm off a + weak imitation of a Miss Wilkins Yankee as a rustic Pennsylvanian. + His humor comes spontaneously from the soil." + +_BOOK BUYER_: + + "Mr. Lloyd is an excellent workman. He makes us see the quiet of + the hills and the allurements of the trout-stream, yet he refrains + as scrupulously as Mr. Howells himself from obtruding his own + personality. His characters themselves apparently produce the + effects due to his skill. His subject-matter is remarkably fresh. + Pervading it all is a delightful humor." + + * * * * * + +_PARLOUS TIMES_ + +DAVID DWIGHT WELLS + +A Novel of Modern Diplomacy + +BY THE AUTHOR OF + +_"Her Ladyship's Elephant."_ + + * * * * * + +Parlous Times is a society novel of to-day. The scene is laid in London +in diplomatic circles. The romance was suggested by experiences of the +author while Second Secretary of the United States Embassy at the Court +of St. James. It is a charming love story, with a theme both fresh and +attractive. The plot is strong, and the action of the book goes with a +rush. Political conspiracy and the secrets of an old tower of a castle +in Sussex play an important part in the novel. The story is a bright +comedy, full of humor, flashes of keen wit and clever epigram. It will +hold the reader's attention from beginning to end. Altogether it is a +good story exceedingly well told, and promises to be Mr. Wells' most +successful novel. + +_Cloth, 8vo, $1.50_ + + * * * * * + + NORTH + WEST _But One Verdict_ EAST + SOUTH + +_THE CHRONIC LOAFER_ + +_BY NELSON LLOYD_ + +8vo, Cloth, $1.25 + + * * * * * + +Outlook, New York + + "A new American humorist. The stones have the point and dry force + found in those told by the late lamented _David Harum_." + +San Francisco Argonaut + + "Will bring a smile when it is read a second or third time." + +New Orleans Picayune + + "Racy with wisdom and humor." + +Chicago Inter-Ocean + + "A book full of good laughs, and will be found a sure specific for + the blues." + +Omaha World Herald + + "The reader will love him." + +North American, Philadelphia + + "Great natural humor and charm. In this story alone Mr. Lloyd is + deserving of rank up-front among the American humorists." + +Portland Transcript + + "A cheerful companion. The reviewer has enjoyed it in a month when + books to be read have been many and the time precious." + +Denver Republican + + "Nelson Lloyd is to be hailed as a Columbus. There isn't a story in + the book that isn't first-class fun, and there's no reason why _The + Chronic Loafer_ should not be placed in the gallery of American + celebrities beside the popular and philosophical _Mr. Dooley_." + + * * * * * + +CHARLES KINGSLEY + +NOVELS, POEMS AND LIFE + + * * * * * + +CHESTER EDITION + + * * * * * + +Illustrated with 42 photogravure plates printed on Japanese paper, from +paintings by _Zeigler_, and from portraits by _Reich_ and others, +photographs, etc. Introductions by _Maurice Kingsley_. Printed from new, +large type, on choice laid paper. + + * * * * * + +_14 volumes, 8vo, cloth, gilt top, $20.00._ + +_One Half crushed morocco, gilt top, $41.00._ + + * * * * * + +Supplied separately in cloth, as follows: + + HEREWARD THE WAKE 2 Vols. $3.00 + ALTON LOCKE 2 " 3.00 + WESTWARD HO! 2 " 3.00 + YEAST 1 " 1.50 + TWO YEARS AGO 2 " 3.00 + HYPATIA 2 " 3.00 + POEMS 1 " 1.50 + LETTERS AND MEMORIES 2 " 3.00 + +_This is the only illustrated edition of this author's works ever +issued._ The introductions by Charles Kingsley's son are particularly +interesting and timely. + + * * * * * + +_Little Leather_ + +_Breeches_ + +_AND OTHER SOUTHERN RHYMES_ + +COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY + +FRANCIS P. WIGHTMAN + +_Forty-eight full-page colored illustrations and cover by the author_ + +Quarto, $1.50 + + * * * * * + +PETER NEWELL + + "_Little Leather Breeches_ is a permanent contribution to the + literature of the day. Not only is it highly amusing, but also of + genuine value as a collection and presentation of folk-lore of a + peculiar and interesting people. _I do not hesitate to set the + stamp of approval on your book._" + +A. B. FROST + + "The book is very well done, very bright and clever in its + treatment of the subject. The material you have gathered together + is excellent, very interesting, and should be preserved." + + "The most unique gift-book of the season."--_St. Louis + Glove-Democrat._ + + "A bit of rollicking fun."--_The Book-Buyer._ + + "Refreshingly original. Lavishly illustrated."--_Brooklyn Daily + Eagle._ + + "Since the days of Lear's Nonsense Book nothing has appeared so + full of genuine humor."--_Savannah Press._ + + * * * * * + +J. F. 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