_Manhattan Isle_
The day we gets to New York is the day before yesterday and we has been
on the go so constant ever since and I has seen so much it seems like my
ideas is all mixed up together same as a mess of scrambled eggs. The way
it looks to me, the mainest difficulty with an author, especially if
he's kind of new at the authorizing business, is not so much to find
something to write up as 'tis to pick out the special things which
should be wrote up and just leave the rest be. So it is now my aim to
set forth the main points which sticks out in my mind.
Well, first off, soon as we gets in, we goes to the hotel. Beforehand,
Mr. Dallas he says to me it's a quiet hotel up-town; but when we arrives
at it I takes a look around and I says to myself that if this here is a
quiet hotel they shore must have to wear ear-mufflers at one of the
noisy ones if they hopes to hear themselves think. To begin with, she
don't look like no hotel I've ever been used to. She rears herself away
up in the air, same as a church steeple, only with windows all the way
up, and although the weather is pleasant there is not no white folks
setting in chairs under the front gallery. In the first place, there is
not nothing which looks like a gallery, excusing it's a little glass
to-do which sticks out over the pavement at the main entrance, and if
anybody was to try setting there the only way he could save his feet
from being mashed off by people trampling on 'em would be for him to
have both legs sawed off at the ankles. You'd think that, being up-town,
the neighborhood would be kind of quiet, with shade trees and maybe some
vacant lots here and there, but, no, sir; it's all built up solid and
the crowds is mighty near as thick as what they was down around the
depot and in just as much of a hurry to get to wherever it is they is
bound for.
Even with all the jamming and all the excitement going on they must
a-been expecting us. The way they fusses over Mr. Dallas is proof to my
mind that somebody must a-told 'em in advance that he belongs to the
real quality down where we comes from, and I certainly is puffed up with
pride to be along with him. Because if he had been the King of Europe
they could not have showed him no higher honors than what they does.
No sooner does we pull up at the curb-stone in front than a huge big
tall white man dressed up something like a Knights of Templar is opening
the taxihack door for us to get out; and two or three white boys in
militia suits comes a-running at his call and snatches the baggage away
from me; and another member of the Grand Lodge, in full uniform, is
standing just inside the front door to give us the low bow of welcome as
we walks into a place which it is all done up with marble posts and with
red wallpaper on the walls and gold chicken-coops on every side until it
puts me in mind of a country nigger's notion of Heaven. Over at the
clerk's enclosure three white men is waiting very eager to receive us,
which each and every one of 'em is wearing his dress-up clothes with a
standing collar and long-tailed coat the same as though he was fixing to
be best man at a wedding or pall-bearer at a funeral or something else
extra special and fancy. For all it's summer-time there is not nobody
loafing round there in his shirt sleeves--I bet you there ain't!
One of the pall-bearing gentlemen shoves the book round for Mr. Dallas
to write his name in it and the second one he reaches for the keys and
the third one he looks to see if there is not some mail or telegrams for
him. It takes no lessen a number than three of them white boys in the
soldier clothes to escort Mr. Dallas upstairs and a fourth one he grabs
up my valise and takes me on an elevator to the servants' annex. He
don't have to run the elevator himself, neither. There's another hand
just to do that alone and all my white boy is got to do is wrestle my
baggage. It's the first time in my life ever I has had a white person
toting my belongings for me and it makes me feel kind of abovish and
important. Also, I takes notice that when he gets to my room he keeps
hanging round fussing with the window shade and first one thing and then
another, same as if he was one of the bell-boys at the hotel down home
waiting on a traveling man. Course he's lingering round till he gets his
tip. For quite a spell I lets him linger on and suffer. I lets on like I
don't suspicion what he's hanging about that-a-way for. Then I slips him
two-bits and I don't begrudge it to him, neither, account of it giving
me such a satisfactory feeling to be high-toning a white boy.
I says to myself that if this here is the annex where they boards the
transom[2] help, what must the main part of the hotel where the regular
guests stays at be like? Because my room certainly is mighty
stylish-looking and full of general grandeur. But I ain't got no time to
be staying there and enjoying the furniture, because I knows Mr. Dallas
will be needing me for to come and wait on him. So I starts right out to
find him and it seems like I travels half a mile through
them hallways before I does so. He's got a big setting-room all to
himself and a fashionable bedroom and a special bath and a little
special hall and all.
I says to him, I says:
"Mr. Dallas, they shore must be monstrous set-up over havin' you pick
out they hotel fur us to stop at. Look how the reception committee
turned out fur you downstairs in full regalia? Look how they mouty nigh
broke they necks fur to usher you in in due state? And now ef they ain't
done gone an' 'sign you to the bridal chamber an' give you the upstairs
parlor fur yore own use, mo' over! It p'intedly indicates to me 'at they
sets a heap of store by you."
He sort of laughs at that.
"Why, Jeff," he says, "if you think this is a fine lay-out you should
see some of the other _suites_ they have here."
I says:
"I ain't cravin' to see 'em. I done seen sweetness 'nuff ez 'tis. They
su'ttinly is usin' us noble."
He says they should ought to use us noble seeing what the price is they
charges us. He says:
"Do you know what I'm paying here for the accommodations for the two of
us? I'm paying twenty-seven dollars and a half."
I says to him if that's the case he better let me clear out of there
right brisk and skirmish round and find me a respectable colored
boarding house somewheres handy by, so's to cut down the expenses,
because, I don't care what anybody says, twenty-seven dollars and a half
is a sight of money to be paying out every week.
He says:
"Twenty-seven and a half a week--huh! Remember, Jeff, we are in New York
now where everything runs high. This stands me twenty-seven and a half a
day."
I says to him, I says:
"_Who-ee!_" I says. "No wonder they kin purvide fancy garments fur all
the hands an' buy solid gold bars fur the cage whar they keeps them
clerks penned up. Mr. Dallas," I says, "it shore is behoovin' on us to
eat hearty th'ee times a day in awder fur to git our money's worth
whilst we's boardin' yere."
He says, though, for me not to overtax my appetite just on that account
because the eating is besides; he says we pays twenty-seven dollars and
a half a day just for our rooms.
I says to him, I says:
"Mr. Dallas, let's git out of yere befo' they begins chargin' us up fur
the air we breathes!"
He says:
"You're too late with your suggestion; they do charge us for that. The
air is all cleaned and cooled before it comes into these rooms."
Then I knows for sure he is burlesqueing me. Who's going to hold the air
whilst they cleans it? And the Good Lord Himself can't chill air to
order in the middle of a August hot spell, let alone a lot of folks
running a hotel--can He? I asks Mr. Dallas them questions.
But he just laughs and say to me that there's not no need to worry,
because he won't be staying there only just a day or so. He says Mr. H.
C. Raynor, which is his principalest friend in New York and the one
which he's thinking about maybe going into business with, has done
devised for us to hire some ready-furnished quarters still higher
up-town. He says something about 'em being Sublette quarters in a
department-house; leastwise that's what I makes out of what he says.
That's news to me in more ways than one because, in the first place, I
didn't know any of the Sublettes, which is a very plentiful white
connection in our county, had done moved up here to live, and in the
second place it seemed like to me there just naturally couldn't be no
more up-town to New York City than what I already had done observed
coming from the train.
He goes on to say he is expecting to hear from the gentleman almost any
minute now and then he'll know better what the program is. Almost before
he gets the words out of his mouth the telephone bell rings and sure
enough, it is this here Mr. Raynor which is on the wire, and it turns
out that the place where we're going is ready for us now on account of
the folks which owns it having gone away sooner than what they expected,
and the further tidings is that we can move up there that same day,
which we does--along about an hour before supper-time. I notices they
don't make near as much fuss over us going thence from there as they did
whilst ushering of us in. I judges the man what owns the hotel must be
feeling kind of put-out about losing of all that there money which we'd
be paying him had we a-stayed on.
We gets into a taxihack and we rides for what seems like to me it's
several miles and still are not nowheres near the outskirts as far as I
can judge, and when finally we gets to the new location I has another
astonishment. For here all day I've been expecting we'd land at a
private residence but this place to which we've come at don't look like
no private residence to me. It's more like the hotel we just left only
more bigger and mighty near as tall. In all other respects additional it
certainly is a grand establishment.
It's got a kind of a private road so's carriages can drive in under
shelter off the sidewalk and 'way back inside is a round piece of ground
all fixed up with solid marble benches and little cedar trees and
flowerbeds, like a cemetery. I thinks to myself that maybe this here is
the private burying-plot for the owner's family; but still there ain't
no tombstones in sight excepting one over the front door with words cut
on it, and since I figures I has done showed ignorance enough for one
day, I don't ask no fool questions about it. The help here also wears
fancy clothes, but is my own color. I'm glad of that because I counts
now on having some black folks to get acquainted with and to talk to;
but just as soon as one of 'em opens his mouth and speaks I knows they
is not my kind even if they is my complexion. Because he don't talk like
no white folks ever I knowed and yet he don't talk like none of the
black folks does at home. Still, just from his conversation I can place
him. There was two just like him which was brought along once by a
Northern family staying in our town but they didn't linger long amongst
us. They didn't like the place and no more the place didn't like them.
They claimed they was genuine West Indians, whatever that is, and they
made their brags constant that they also was British subjects. But Aunt
Dilsey Turner she always said they looked more like objects to her. Aunt
Dilsey, which she was Judge Priest's cook for going on twenty years, is
mighty plain-spoken about folks and things which she don't fancy. And
she did not fancy these two none whatsomever.
When we gets upstairs to our section I'm sort of disappointed in it. The
furniture ain't new and shiny like what I naturally expected 'twould be.
Most of it is kind of old and dingy and hacked-up-looking. The curtains
at the setting-room windows is all frayed-like and mighty near wore
through in spots. And the Sublette family must a-run out of money before
they got round to buying the carpets because they is not no carpets at
all but only a passel of old faded rugs scattered about the floor here
and there. Some of the chairs--the best company chairs, too--is so old
they is actually decrepit. I'd say that by rights they belonged in a
second-hand store, or leastways up in the attic. Moreover, they ain't no
upstairs to our department nor yet there is not no downstairs nor no
cellar, but instead, everything, kitchen, pantry, and the rooms for the
help and all, runs on one floor. But Mr. Dallas he deports himself like
he is satisfied and it ain't for me to be finding fault if he sees
fitten not to find any.
Anyway, I is so busy for a little while flying round and getting things
unpacked that I has no time to utter complaints. Pretty soon, though, I
has to knock off hanging up Mr. Dallas' suits to mix a batch of
cocktails from the private stock he has brought along with him in one of
his trunks, because this here Mr. Raynor he telephones he's bringing
some of his friends for a round of drinks with Mr. Dallas and then Mr.
Raynor says they'll ride out in his motor-car to a road-house to get 'em
some dinner. I takes his message off the telephone and I knows that's
what he says, surprising though it do sound.
That's a couple of new ones on me--eating dinner when it's already
mighty near past supper-time and eating it at a road-house, too! I says
to myself that New York City is getting to act more curiouser to me
every minute I stays in it. Because the only road-house ever I knowed of
by that name used to stand alongside the toll-gate just outside the
corporation limits on the Mayfield road and the old white man which
collected the tolls lived in it, his name being Mr. Gip Bayless. But the
gate is done torn down since the public government taken over the gravel
roads, and anyhow, even in its most palmiest days, none of the quality
wouldn't never think of stopping there at that little old rusty house
for their vittles. They'd mighty near as soon think of having a picnic
at the pest-house.
Still and notwithstanding, Mr. Dallas ain't indicating no surprise when
I conveys to him what Mr. Raynor says, so I reflects to myself that if
toll-gate houses up here is in proportion to everything else this one
which they're aiming to go to, must probably be about the size of a
county courthouse, with a slate roof on it and doubtless a cupola. So I
just gets busy and mingles up a batch of powerful tasty cocktails in
the shaker. I knows they is tasty from a couple of private samples which
I pours off for myself out in the pantry. My experience has been that
the only way you can tell is a cocktail just right is to taste it from
time to time as you goes along.
Immediately soon here comes Mr. Raynor with his friends which there is
four of them, besides himself--one other gentleman named Bellows and
three ladies. One of the ladies is older than the other two, but
decorated more younger, if anything, than what they is. Introducing her
to Mr. Dallas, Mr. Raynor says her name is Mrs. Gaylord but they all
calls her Jerry. She's pretty near entirely out of eyebrows, but she has
got more than a bushel of hair which is all kind of frozen-looking and
curled up tight on her head. It don't look natural to me and I knows it
ain't natural a little bit later when Mr. Raynor sets down on the arm of
her chair and throws his arm around her sort of offhand and
sociable-like, and she up and tells him for Heaven's sake to be careful
and not muss her up because she says she's only just that day spent
forty dollars and four hours getting a permanent wave put in.
At that I says to myself, I says:
"Well, betwixt w'ites an' blacks we su'ttinly is mekin' the world safe
fur them beauty doctors. Niggers down South spendin' all the money they
kin rake an' scrape togither gittin' the kinkiness tuck out of they
haids an' fashionable ladies up yere spendin' their'n gittin' it put in!
It's a compliment to one race or the other, but jest w'ich I ain't
purpared to say."
The other ladies is named Miss O'Brien and Miss DeWitt but it's kind of
hard for me at first to remember which from which seeing that the rest
of the party scarcely ever calls 'em anything except Pat and Bill-Lee.
They is both mighty nice and friendly but they is exclusively different
one from the other. Miss Pat she's got her hair chopped off short like a
little boy's and she acts kind of like a boy does, too--free and easy
and laughing a lot and smoking a cigarette so natural that it's like as
if she must a-been born with one in her mouth and it lighted. And yet
for all that, I seems to get the impression that way down underneath
she's kind of tired of herself and everything around her.
But this here Miss DeWitt she is tall and slender and kind of quiet. She
must a-been feeling poorly lately because her face is just dead-white
and her lips is still bright red from the fever and when she sets down
in a chair she just seems to kind of fall back into it, all limp-like.
She ain't saying much with her mouth but she does a sight of talking
with her eyes which is big and black and sort of lazy-like most of the
time. She sure is decked up with jewelry like the Queen of Sheba, too.
She's got big heavy necklaces round her neck and great long ear-rings in
her ears and many bracelets on both her arms. She's even got two big
bracelets clamped round one of her ankles, which I judges she didn't
have room for 'em nowheres else and so put 'em there to keep from losing
'em; and when she moves the jewelry all jingles freely and advertises
her. She walks with a kind of a limber swimming gait, soft and glideful;
of course it ain't exactly like swimming and yet that's the only way I
can designate what her walking puts me in mind of. She wears dead black
clothes and that makes her paleness seem all the more so.
Right from the first jump I can see that Mr. Dallas is drawed to her
powerful, and I thinks to myself that if he's fixing to favor this here
languid lady with his attentions it proves he's got a changeable taste
because she ain't nothing at all similar to Miss Henrietta Farrell,
which she is the one that he's been courting these past few months down
in Kentucky. In fact, she's most teetotally unsimilar.
This Mr. Bellows which came with Mr. Raynor he don't detain my attention
much. If he wasn't there you wouldn't scarcely miss him; and when he is
there you don't scarcely observe him. He makes me think of a neat
haircut and nothing else. You just appreciate him being present and
that's all. But I studies Mr. Raynor every chance I gets, the more
especially because he's the one which is more or less responsible for us
having come North. He's very cheering in his ways; laughing and
whooping out loud at everything and poking fun and telling Mr. Dallas
that he must be good friends with Mr. Bellows and the three ladies
because they is all four of 'em his friends. But I takes note that when
he laughs he don't laugh with his eyes but only with his mouth, and when
he sort of smiles to himself, quiet-like, it puts me in mind of a man
drawing a knife. I can't keep from having a kind of a feeling when I
looks at him!
Well, they imbibes up all the cocktails that I has waiting for them and
a batch more which I makes by request and then they packs up a couple of
bottles--one Scotch and one Bourbon--to take along with 'em for to
refresh themselves with at the road-house and off they puts. And the
last thing I hears as they goes down the hall is Mr. Raynor still
laughing from off the top of his palates and the sickly one, Miss
DeWitt's necklaces and things all jingling like a road-gang. Mr. Dallas
he calls back to me from the elevator that I needn't wait up for him
because it is liable to be pretty late when he gets in. But it's a good
thing I does wait up, dozing off and on between times, because when he
arrives back, along about half past three in the morning, he certainly
does need my assistance getting his clothes off of him. Not since Dryness
come in has I seen a young white gentleman more thoroughly overtaken than
what he is. And we got a-plenty vigorous drinkers down our way, too! And
always did have!
So then I goes to bed myself and that's the end of our first day. And
the following day, which it was yesterday, is the day I gets lost.
Which I will tell about that, next.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Note.--It is believed that Jeff meant "transient."