JOSIE VISITS LOUISVILLE
Christmas morning in Louisville! Josie was still regretting the hours
spent in reading the detective story that should have been dedicated to
sleep, but she was happily constituted and could do with very little
sleep if the case she was on necessitated it. At other times she put in
eight hours at night--never more and never less.
“Humph! This place might be London, it is so foggy,” she mused as the
train crawled along the river bank. On one side the Ohio river, muddy
and trying to freeze, on the other side the slums of the city, smoky
and full of deep puddles that had succeeded in freezing.
Josie had been planning a campaign through the hours spent in her
berth. First she must find out things. What type of man she had to
deal with in Cheatham? What reason might he have for abducting Philip?
Where was Miss Fitchet at the present, and what was her reputation in
Louisville?
Experience had taught Josie that the way to find out things about
persons was to seek a boarding house, not too fine, but where those
who wanted to keep up appearances on limited incomes had their abode.
By diligent inquiry she had learned of such a place from the colored
Pullman porter.
“Yassum, I’s bawn an’ bred in Lou’ville,” he had said as he whisked
every imaginary speck of dust from Josie’s coat. “Th’ain’t nothin’ I
don’ know ’bout dat town. I kin ’member when mule cyars uster fotch th’
folks up ’n down Fo’th Street befo’ trolleys wuz ever hearn tell about.”
“Maybe you can tell me of a good boarding house then,” Josie had
ventured, “one not too expensive but respectable.”
“Sho I kin! Miss Lucy Leech air got a nice place for a lone young lady
ter go. Miss Lucy ain’t above puttin’ on some style but th’ swell part
er town am kinder moved off an’ lef’ Miss Lucy high an’ dry. But plenty
er good folks am still a-boa’din’ with Miss Lucy Leech. Mah wife she’s
de cook ter Miss Lucy an’ she been thar so long I reckon she’ll stay
thar till she er Miss Lucy goes ter jine the heavenly throng. Th’ain’t
no need fer mah Mandy ter wuck out no mo’ but she ’lows I’m off on the
road mo’n most er the time an’ she mought as well be wuckin’ as gaddin’
about.”
Josie was sure Miss Lucy Leech’s was exactly the place she wanted for a
temporary home. The porter gave her the address and when the train drew
into the station he put her in care of a negro driver, who proudly bore
her off to his ancient hack oblivious to the jeers of the taxi drivers
who were lined up waiting for passengers.
Christmas morning is not a very popular one for arriving in a city and
Josie might have had the pick of automobiles meeting the early train,
but the hack driver had got her first and she was determined to stay
with him and see the adventure through. Besides, she liked the looks of
the man.
The streets were flowing with slush, a mixture of mud and snow that had
melted the day before and was freezing again on that Christmas morning.
The ancient hackman cracked his whip over the backs of his bony team
and the shabby vehicle that was bearing Josie to Miss Lucy Leech’s
select boarding house creaked and groaned as though the young girl’s
weight was too much for it. Josie bounced helplessly up and down on
the back seat.
“Well, I should be thankful it isn’t an ox cart,” she thought. “Time
was when a hack was considered the height of luxury. At any rate I
can get some idea of the city, which is next to impossible when one
is whizzed in an automobile. This sea-going hack is a singularly
appropriate vessel in which to sail this turgid stream that no doubt
the Louisvillians call a street. Somehow I feel as though we ought to
blow a fog horn.”
The winter sun was up and trying to shine, but looked like a huge
orange, as seen through the veil of fog and smoke. Tall buildings made
the narrow streets of the down-town district seem like canyons. The
city seemed deserted, except for an occasional taxi and the inevitable
early bird of a newsboy crying his papers. Nothing is more forlorn than
a usually busy section of a city on a foggy Christmas morning. Josie
was relieved when her craft tacked down a side street that showed signs
of life, although the life of the shabby genteel.
There was no doubt about the neighborhood having at one time been
fashionable. The houses were built on a lavish scale, with high
ceilings and broad, hospitable steps and yards, front, back and side.
On that street boarding houses were the rule and private homes the
exception. Trade had begun to encroach on the one time residential
block and yards were disappearing in some places and small shops being
erected fronting on the street and backing on the handsome old houses.
Miss Lucy Leech’s remained intact, however. One fancied her house
could no more put up a different front than Miss Lucy herself would.
The house, a huge mansion with columned portico, was guarded by two
peacefully inclined iron lions. Miss Lucy wore water waves, iron
grey. She had always worn them through changing fashions of bangs,
pompadours, and the marcel. The house had been originally painted grey,
the lions black. Once in a decade Miss Lucy managed a new coat of
paint. She would not have thought of changing the color of her house
and the faithful lions any more than of giving her own respectable
water waves a henna dip.
Miss Lucy’s back was straight and stiff; so was her upper lip. Her
back was stiff because of the dignity of the Leeches, which she felt
compelled to uphold. Her lip was stiff from necessity. Running a
boarding house for almost half a century gives one “a stiff upper lip.”
Running a boarding house had become second nature to Miss Lucy. It was
as much a part of her as the iron grey waves in her hair. To be sure if
it had not been for Mandy, the faithful cook, it would not have been
such an easy matter to keep going. Mandy was cook and housekeeper as
well. She it was who planned the meals and kept Miss Lucy from serving
unbalanced rations to her select boarders.
“Lawsamussy, Miss Lucy, don’t go a-habin’ cabbage an’ cauliflowers
de self-same meal. Deys one an’ de same ’cept cauliflowers am mo’
’ristocratic an’ eddicated like. An’ fergetti, even when it’s got
cheese on it, is kinder taterish in de way it sticks ter yo’ ribs,
so when you ’lows you air gonter order fergetti I wouldn’t be havin’
scalloped taters.”
Aunt Mandy had never heard of calories and vitamins but she had a
genius for food and Miss Lucy’s boarders appreciated the old cook’s
prowess in the art and stayed on in the dilapidated old house, putting
up with the old-fashioned plumbing and the one bath room with its
rusty tin tub and many other inconveniences for the sake of Mandy’s
culinary achievements.
“Sometimes I air fo’ced ter ’form miracles on de victuals,” Aunt Mandy
had said once. “Miss Lucy air oftentimes fergitful in her orderation. I
knows she gits in de market an’ gits ter talkin’ ’bout befo’ de wah an’
sech an’ boa’ders goes out’n her haid an’ mealtime comes ’round an’ I
gotter stir up soup mostly out’n water but, lawsamussy, if’n you season
up water right it’s tasty. Gumption air de maindes’ thing in cookin’.
Gumption air mo’ ’liable dan ’gredients.”
To this house came Josie on Christmas morning. Aunt Mandy was sweeping
the bottom step as the old hack lumbered up the street and came to a
halt in the slush-filled gutter. The old woman beat her broom on the
back of one of the peaceful black lions and called out to the grinning
hackman:
“Hi yer, Brer Si?”
“Hi yer se’f, Sis Mandy? Brer Peter done sent you an’ Miss Lucy a
Chris’mus gif’--a new boa’der. I hope you air got room.”
“Sho we air got room--an’ if’n we ain’t we kin make room,” responded
the old woman.
Aunt Mandy was dressed in a purple calico dress, with a voluminous
skirt that suggested the days of hoops. Her head was wrapped in a red
bandanna handkerchief. Her kind old face was wreathed in smiles as she
bobbed a curtsey to Josie, who scrambled from the depths of the hack.
“Come right in, miss! Fust breakfas’ air under way an’ I’ll hump it up
some. I knows how hongryfyin’ sleepin’ cyars is. Whe’fo’ you didn’t
brung Peter up from the depot alongst with yo’ fare, Brer Si?”
“He gotter bresh up some fust, but he’ll be long in three shakes.”
“Well, me’n Miss Lucy air ’bleeged ter you fer a boa’der an’ I wouldn’t
be ’stonished if a leetle later on Miss Lucy would be a passin’ out
some Chris’mus. You mought kinder stop in on us if you air a comin’
this a-way.”
“I’ll be! I’ll be!” bowed the hackman. Even the bony horses seemed
cheered up at the prospect of Miss Lucy’s passing out “some Christmas,”
and they pranced up the street with quite an air of gaiety.