THE TURN OF THE LANE
Jessamy and Barbara were ready for their expedition in search of
peace by nine o'clock the next morning. Phyllis had solemnly promised
to prepare for herself and her aunt alternate cups of beef-tea and
malted milk for every two hours of their absence, a task to which she
protested she was quite equal, especially as she would be sustained by
the remembrance of the errand on which they were bound. If they were
detained over lunch-hour, the willing but overworked maid was engaged
to serve them, a provision for possibilities suggested by Phyllis,
who realized that Harlem was a long distance away and flat-seeking
consuming of time.
"Phyllis is rather like the centurion in the gospel: she tells one to
go, and she goeth, and another to do this, and she doeth it. That isn't
irreverent, because the centurion was only a Roman soldier, not even
a prophet," said Bab, as she and Jessamy toiled up the elevated-road
steps at Thirty-third Street. "I wonder what it is about Phyl that we
all yield to?"
"She is very decided, with all her quiet manner, for one thing," said
Jessamy; "and we have learned that she is generally right, and pulls us
out of difficulties for another. Wait till I get up, Bab; I think I've
two tickets."
"What does it matter? Keep them; we shall need them when we've moved up
town," said Bab, airily, as she dashed ahead and deposited ten cents at
the ticket-seller's window.
They had a list of apartments to rent, cut from the paper, and they
decided, after consulting it, to make One Hundred and Fourth Street
what Bab called "their distributing-point," whence they would scatter
themselves impartially over the neighborhood.
It is not wholly an attractive section of the city; Jessamy and
Bab felt their ardor somewhat dampened after they had rung several
janitors' bells, in uniformly small vestibules decorated with
stencil-work on the ceilings and walls, and with little brass
speaking-tubes, and electric bells, and, in many cases, with several
small children munching cookies and staring, round-eyed, at the
strangers. The apartments they were shown were not what they had
dreamed of the previous night. They were tiny, with chambers "just
about large enough to iron a pocket handkerchief on the floor," said
Jessamy, forlornly.
But Barbara said, "Where there's scope there's hope, and New York is
large," and kept on cheerfully. At last they discovered a house further
up, but still below the bend of the elevated road, around which, the
girls felt sure, they would never be able to persuade their mother to
travel. It looked very neatly kept; the janitor's wife, a ruddy German,
showed them the rooms, up two flights, with no elevator, it was true,
but the stairs were not steep ones. There were seven rooms in the
little place, not large, but not as small as the others they had seen;
the outlook was on a quiet street, the chambers were not all dark and
aired from a well, and the upper entrance to Central Park was but two
blocks away. The rent of the apartment, they were told, was forty-five
dollars a month; but, since it was February, the janitor thought it
could be had for forty. Jessamy and Barbara were unversed in the ways
of landlords, and did not know that this was a method frequently
resorted to in trying to enhance the attractiveness of unrented
property; it had its desired effect in their case, and they quite
trembled lest some one else should secure their bargain before they had
time to report it to their mother.
"We will go to see the landlord," said Jessamy, making a note of his
address, and hoping she did not seem too eager.
They got home, tired but triumphant, to be greeted by two faces so much
brighter than the ones they had left that they were amazed, until Mrs.
Wyndham and Phyllis told them in a breath that Mrs. Van Alyn had come
home, and had been to see them.
[Illustration: THE EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF PEACE.]
"And, oh, girls!" cried Phyllis, giving them each a rapturous squeeze.
"I got her in this room all alone and told her our plan, and where
you had gone, and she thought it the wisest move we could make.
And--and--oh, Jess--oh, Bab, I'm half crazy! She's had some of our
dearest things stored away for us, and we never knew it! Uncle's big
chair, Bab's piano, our desks, tables--oh, I don't know what they
are--and photographs and casts out of our own dear, lovely old rooms;
and now they will be all ready for this little home!"
Bab turned white, then took a header into the pillows to smother the
cry of joy which she could not keep back, but which her mother must not
hear, while Jessamy, who had silently mourned her lost treasures as
neither of the others had, dropped into the rocking-chair, crying for
joy.
Mrs. Van Alyn had advised the girls to settle the matter without
consulting their mother. She was so weak, so dead to all interest
around her, that her friend thought it would be better to take her into
the little apartment when it was ready to receive her, without giving
her a chance to worry over the difficulties in their path--difficulties
which, in her condition, would impress her more than the advantages of
the plan.
Jessamy took Mrs. Van Alyn to see their discovery, and she approved;
that made it somewhat better if matters went wrong later, for Jessamy
did not like to assume all responsibility for such a radical change of
which her mother was to be ignorant.
So the flat was taken, and then arose the question of "Only
necessities, dear girls, at first, if you are guided by my advice,"
said Mrs. Van Alyn; "but buy good things, and select wisely. The
articles I have saved for you out of your old home are rather of the
nature of luxuries, so you will have almost as much as your little nest
will hold of pretty things, which is fortunate."
The new apartment was repapered from front to back, and the girls had
the pleasure of selecting the colors. A soft gray-green in the parlor,
a rich red, olive, and brown tapestry in the dining-room, light, cheery
papers in the darker bedrooms were their choice, and entirely changed
the effect given by the ugly papers which had preceded them. The floors
were stained in the parlor and dining-room, and for the floors of the
little chambers Jessamy bought tasteful denims, which were not only
pretty, but would save labor in sweeping. The three-feet-wide hall
running through the apartment was stained also, and black goatskin rugs
bought to lay at intervals; they were real of their kind, and Jessamy
abhorred imitations. The parlor had a pretty Wilton rug to cover
it, and the dining-room likewise. Curtains were not among the first
necessities, though the girls thought longingly of their softening
effect against the woodwork, which was not of the best quality.
However, there must be many things left for time to supply; the outlay
for dining-room and chamber furniture was all their first quarter's
income could spare.
Ruth was called into consultation for the kitchen; she and Barbara
had a delightful morning in a hardware shop, buying bright tins and
fascinating japanned boxes, and all the other homely articles--homely
in the English sense, for they looked beautiful to the homesick
girls--which go to furnish the most important room in the house.
Jessamy, Phyllis, and Bab were wild with delight during these last
days; they hardly knew how to get through them, so impatient were
they for the day to come when they should take possession of their
kingdom. Tom was not less excited than they. Not a day passed without
his bringing home some wonderful contribution to the coöperative
housekeeping, in which he claimed his full share of coöperation. And
at last, on the day before the Wyndhams were to move up town, Mrs. Van
Alyn carried Tom off with her to the apartment, forbidding the girls
entrance to their own precincts, and with his help set in place the
priceless treasures of old association which her kindness had kept for
them from a past more splendid, but which the present promised to equal
in happiness.
And so the great day came. Mrs. Wyndham had been told only two days
before of the home awaiting her, and received the news with rather more
apprehension than pleasure.
Aunt Henrietta had been to see them, and had scolded the girls roundly
for their madness, prophesying utter failure and expense far beyond
their calculations, and telling them that it was quite evident they
meant to kill their poor mother, putting a burden upon her she was so
unequal to bearing, for of course it was ridiculous to consider them,
inexperienced, spoiled children, as either housekeepers or cooks.
But though there was a little time after this interview that Jessamy
especially, having been the one who was inclined to doubt, felt her
ardor somewhat dampened, it passed quickly, for Tom came, bringing in
a patent washboard which did everything but iron the clothes laid in
a tub in which it stood; and in the nonsense talked over it, and the
lecture Tom gave on its merits, Aunt Henrietta was forgotten.
Phyllis had given up her position with Mrs. Haines. They hoped to
save as much as she had earned there under the new arrangements, and
her services were needed at home to do this. "Besides, you couldn't
possibly be a nursery governess, Phyllis Wyndham," said Bab. "Won't it
be blissful if we can earn money by saving it, and by making a home for
ourselves into the bargain?"
Mrs. Van Alyn sent her carriage once more for her old friend's service.
Mrs. Black "assembled," Tom said, to see them off; this time it was
Phyllis who accompanied her aunt, and the two invalids were furnished
with refreshments for the drive, and the coachman was ordered to take
them up through the park at an easy pace. And so, in the carriage which
had borne her away from her first home, poor Mrs. Wyndham, full of the
recollection, too ill and too sad to share the girls' enthusiasm, rode
away to her new one.
The trunks and all Tom's mad contributions to the apartment had gone
away early, and as soon as the door had closed on their mother and
Phyllis, Jessamy and Barbara tore up the long flights to get their hats
and jackets and hasten after them.
Bab seized Jessamy around the waist and waltzed her all over both
empty rooms, singing at the top of her voice. The chambermaid
pushed her reddish bang out of her eyes to see better, and grinned
sympathetically; she liked the Wyndhams, who had been considerate of
her, and she would have been glad to escape bondage herself.
"Oh, Nellie, here is our parting gift to you," said Jessamy. "We're
much obliged to you for what you have done for us since we came here."
"Sure, 'twa'n't anything to thank me for, miss, thanks to you; an'
it's sorry I am to see you goin'," said Nellie, wiping her forehead
with her apron, for she knew from long experience that it was dusty
without looking to see.
"Don't say it, Nellie, don't say it," cried Bab, wriggling into her
jacket, both arms at a time. "I'm so glad I think I shall die before
I get home--home, Nellie, home! Only think of that--_home_, and we
have been boarding here since September! Come on, Jess! Don't stop for
gloves; put them on in the train! Got everything? Oh, hurry! We must
be there to look after Madrina and Phyl, and I'm wild to see what Mrs.
Van Alyn and that boy did up there yesterday. Don't stop for gloves;
I'm going crazy."
"You're crazy now," said Jessamy, but she tucked her gloves into her
coat pocket, and her voice shook, and her cheeks were crimson. "Come,
then. Good-by, Nellie; I hope you will be well and happy. Good-by, old
room; we might have left you sorrowful instead of rejoicing, and I
thank you for that."
Barbara was already half way down-stairs; Jessamy ran after her, and
they reached the front door breathless, to find Mrs. Black and Mrs.
Hardy waiting to say farewell.
"I wish you luck," said Mrs. Black, with an air that seemed to imply it
was a hopeless desire for any one mad enough to leave her sheltering
roof. "You'll find housekeeping very different from having no cares
and being free to enjoy yourself. I hope you may be happy, and your ma
won't break down under the strain; she can't stand much."
"Good-by, Miss Wyndham and Miss Barbara," said Mrs. Hardy. "I thought,
maybe, the young medical student might board with you. I hope you won't
forget to send us cards to your wedding, my dear. I think you make a
mistake to leave here, but I hope you know best."
"Did you ever dream of such a horrible old woman?" said Bab, walking
indignantly down the street to Sixth Avenue. But these last shafts from
the quiver which had pricked them so often in the past months could not
annoy Jessamy and Barbara long, because they were the last; were they
not going home, home, and is not home a word to conjure evils away?
The ride seemed endless to the two girls, feverish with impatience;
the train dragged around the curve at Fifty-third Street, and loitered
as it had never done before at each station. But at last--at last the
tedious journey ended, and once they had turned east out of crowded
Columbus Avenue, Jessamy and Bab fairly ran down the street where their
apartment waited them.
They let themselves into the house with their own latch-key; the
janitor's wife was cleaning brasses, and said good morning pleasantly,
but with no notion of what a great event was happening before her
Swabian eyes. How could she have, poor soul, since people move in and
out of apartments every day, and few of them are young exiles, hungry
for a home, come to take possession of their Land of Promise?
Jessamy's heart beat so she could hardly get up the stairs, but Bab
honorably waited for her, and would not put the key in the lock--not
the general, common lock of the outer door, solemn as that ceremony had
been, but the sacred, blessed lock of their own private-hall door.
She threw the door open, clutched Jessamy's hand, who returned the
pressure with interest, and together they entered their home.
How beautiful, peaceful, homelike everything looked! There stood Bab's
piano, Jessamy's desk, and the pictures they had loved welcomed them
from the walls like living things.
They ran from room to room, calling to each other, sobbing and
laughing and kissing the inanimate things like crazy girls. Phyllis's
desk stood in her room, and the little rocking-chair Bab loved best
held out its arms to her beside her bed. In the dining-room they found
silver they had thought never to see again, and dishes which, empty or
full, they knew would be equal to food to their mother.
They made their excited way back to the parlor finally, and Jessamy
dropped exhausted in the window, which was mysteriously draped with
white lace, though they had made up their minds to self-denial in the
matter of curtains. Her eyes rested on her father's chair, and her
lips trembled with joy and gratitude. "Oh, God bless that dear, dear
Mrs. Van Alyn!" she said, though she usually found such expression
impossible.
Barbara opened the piano, and laid her hands on the keys. She struck
two or three chords of "Home, Sweet Home," and then laid her head down
on the pretty case to cry the happiest tears she had ever shed.
It was fortunate that Jessamy and Barbara had more than half an hour to
await the arrival of the invalids, for neither Phyllis nor their mother
was strong enough to encounter them while their excitement was at its
height. When they arrived the girls had calmed down enough to open the
door quietly and say, with only a little tremor in each voice: "Welcome
home, mama and Phyllis!"
Phyllis looked white after her drive, but the color rushed from her
throat to her short hair at the sight that met her eyes. She did not
attempt to go further than the parlor sofa, where Bab led her, and
let her cousin take off her wraps without an effort to help herself.
She lay still in a trance of delight, looking from one dear picture
to another, letting the soothing green tone of the room sink into her
brain and rest her as if a quiet hand had been laid upon her nerves.
Mrs. Wyndham got no further than her husband's chair. She sank into
it, laid her tired head against its cool leather, and burst into quiet
tears. But even the girls, inexperienced as they were, recognized
that they were tears which would restore her, that they stood for the
breaking up of the apathy which had been the worst phase of their
mother's illness, over which Doctor Jerome had looked gravest. And they
felt certain that they had done well in taking matters into their own
hands, and giving the frail little mother a home once more.
Bab, getting to herself again, saw that the taking possession must be
keyed lower, and that they must get into the commonplace as quickly as
possible if they wanted their mother and Phyllis to feel no ill effect
of the drive.
"We shall now proceed, Miss Wyndham and I, to prove to you that we can
build a fire and cook," she said. "We are going into our kitchen, and
shall turn on our gas, which is the way we always build a fire, and
light it with a safety match, and we shall take our new saucepan and
heat for both of you ladies a fresh glass of milk. You will perceive,
without my mentioning it, that everything we propose to do is new and
up-to-date. You shall be served within fifteen minutes, Mrs. Wyndham,
ma'am, with crisp, fresh crackers, hot milk, and a thimbleful of
brandy, then you and your niece will be mildly but firmly compelled to
lie down on your beds until luncheon." A program which was carried out
to the letter.
Oh, the joy of preparing that luncheon, when for the first time Jessamy
deposited the carefully measured tea--measured by the old rule of
a teaspoonful to each cup and one for the pot--into the fat little
Japanese teapot, and the unutterable bliss of peeping in afterward,
with an air of experience, to see if it had "drawn" sufficiently! And
the happiness of broiling the chops on the broiler of the gas-range,
new and lovely to behold, if it was black! And the greater happiness of
making cocoa for the invalids in the alluring agate saucepan, brought
forth from the under part of the kitchen closet, to be useful for the
first time in its gray, satin-finish life!
Bab was delirious, cut a slice of bread, and flew off to turn the
chops; cut two more slices, and ran away to hug her mother. She set
the cold water running, and Jessamy just stopped her afterward from
filling the water-pitcher from the hot-water faucet. She set the table
in a whirl, darting here and there with rapturous squeals at the
discovery of some treasure she had not yet seen; on the whole, did
all a mad child could do to prove that Aunt Henrietta was right, and
that she was "flighty" and unreliable.
Jessamy took her happiness in another way. She went about with an
uplifted look on her lovely face, touched everything with a kind of
reverence, brooding over the teacups and lifting the butter-jar as if
they were little babies. She forgot nothing, left nothing undone, and
when she went in to say, with an assumption of what she intended for
a commonplace manner, though her voice would quiver: "Lunch is ready,
mama; come, Phyllis," she called them to a meal perfect, so far as it
went, thanks to her and in spite of Bab's temporary insanity.
Tom and Ruth came to that first dinner. Tom had camped out, and
insisted on cooking the steak. Ruth showed the girls how to boil
potatoes so that they would neither crumble to bits nor emerge
water-soaked from the hot water. Ruth also taught them to prepare the
canned peas so that the flavor of the tin would be taken from them;
and more than this they did not attempt, beyond cutting oranges into
flower shapes for dessert, and making black coffee, which the girls had
supposed a simple accomplishment until Ruth explained to them the many
ways in which they could spoil it.
Nixie had a brilliant red bow, which he despised, on his collar for the
occasion, and was fed in turn by every one till he could eat no more
and retired to the front of the radiator to meditate on the advantages
of housekeeping.
Mrs. Wyndham made an effort, and took her place at the head of her
table to please the girls, and really showed such an improved appetite
that Jessamy and Barbara forgot theirs in the joy of watching her. And
Phyllis did her duty by the tender steak as only fever and half a year
of "Blackboard" steaks could make her. Jessamy and Bab made a dinner
chiefly of rapture; it was all so wonderful, so blissful, that they did
not crave ordinary food, but beamed on their family in satisfaction
that was as nourishing--for once--as steak.
Tom donned one of the new plaid gingham aprons provided for the young
housekeepers and helped with the dishes. It was only a game, new and
fascinating, this first time to wash even the greasy broiler; but Ruth
had shown them the charm of ammonia and a patent preparation of potash,
and even dainty Jessamy faced the prospect of future pans fearlessly.
"Now, I've one more contribution to this mansion," said Tom. "I wanted
to show it to you when I came, but I feared for my dinner. Your mother
has it in the parlor. It's for you, Phyllis."
"Is it--" began Phyllis, but Tom interrupted her. "Don't guess; come
and see, all of you."
Phyllis fairly jumped from the rocking-chair, where she had been
installed in range of the kitchen door to watch the dish-washing, and
ran, as if she had never been ill, into the parlor. There sat her aunt,
and in her lap, curled up like a powder-puff, the tiniest, whitest
kitten ever seen. Phyllis had it in her hands and cuddled in her neck
in a moment. "Oh, Tom, it's lovely! Oh, if you only knew how I've
been wanting a kitten! How did you get such a white one?" she cried
rapturously.
"I've had it engaged for you for ten days; we've been waiting for it
to learn to eat; it's only a month old," said Tom, looking very happy
at Phyllis's pleasure. "His mother is a white lady of most honorable
reputation and perfect manners; they say all her kittens are models in
every way. Hope he'll do you credit."
"He shall be called Truce," cried Phyllis; "because he's all white and
we're at peace."
"Truce is not peace; however, it's a jolly name," said Tom. "I called
him Antiseptic Cotton, but I don't mind if you change the name. He
looks precisely like the little packages of cotton we use in the
hospital."
"Horrid!" said Bab, decidedly. "Truce is pretty. I think you might let
some one else see just the tip of his tail, Phyl. We like kittens, too."
"He adds the very last touch to the hominess of everything," said
Phyllis, generously handing the kitten over to Bab. "Bless you, Tom,
for getting him!"