PHOEBE'S DIARY
_September 15._
I'M in Philadelphia--really, truly! Phoebe Metz, late of a gray
farmhouse in Lancaster County, is sitting in a beautiful room of the Lee
residence, Philadelphia.
What a lot of things I have to write in you, diary! I can scarcely find
the beginning. Before I left home I thought about keeping a diary, how
entertaining it would be to sit down when I'm old and gray and read the
accounts of my first winter in the city. So I went to Greenwald and
bought the fattest note-book I could find and I'm going to write in you
all of my joys--let's hope there won't be any sorrows--and all of my
pleasures and all about my impressions of places and people in this
great, wonderful City of Brotherly Love. Of course, I'll write letters
home and to David and Mother Bab and some of the girls, but there are so
many things one can't tell others yet likes to remember. So you'll have
to be my safety valve, confidant and confessor.
When I left the train at Philadelphia I was bewildered and confused.
Such crowds I never saw, not even in Lancaster. Seemed like everybody in
the city was coming from a train or running to one. I was glad to see
Miss Lee. She's the dearest person! I love her as much as I did when I
went to her school on the hill. I'm as tall as she is now. She dresses
beautifully. I thought my blue serge suit was lovely but her clothes
are--well, I suppose you'd call them creations. I'm so glad I'm going to
be near her all winter and can copy from her.
As I came through the gates at the depot she caught me and kissed me. I
thought she was alone, but a moment later she turned to a tall man and
introduced him, her cousin, Royal Lee, the musician. If Aunt Maria could
see him she'd warn me again, as she did repeatedly, not to "leave that
fiddlin' man get too friendly." He's handsome. I never before met a man
like him. His magnetic smile, his low voice attracted me right away.
After he piloted us through the crowded depot and into a taxicab Miss
Lee began to ask me questions about Greenwald and the people she knows
there. I felt rather timid, for I was conscious of the appraising eyes
of her cousin. He didn't stare at me, yet every time I glanced at him
his eyes were searching my face. Does he think me very countrified, I
wonder? I do have the red cheeks country girls are always credited with,
but I'm glad I'm not "buxom." I'd hate to be fat!
I wish I could describe Royal Lee. He's just as I pictured him, only
more so. He has the lean, æsthetic face of the musician, the sensitive
nostrils and thin lips denoting acute temperament. His eyes are gray.
As we rode through the streets of the city Miss Lee told me her mother
would have me stay with them until we can find a suitable boarding
place. To-morrow we're going in search of one.
Taxicabs travel pretty fast. We skirted past curbs so that I almost held
my breath and shot past trucks and other cars till I thought we'd surely
land in the street. But we escaped safely and soon stopped at the Lee
residence, a big, imposing brownstone house. It looks bare outside, no
yard, no flowers. But inside it's a lovely place, so inviting and
attractive that I'd like to settle down for life in it.
Mrs. Lee is as charming as her daughter. She has been a semi-invalid for
years, but even in her wheelchair she has the poise and manner of one
well born. Her greeting was so cordial and gracious, but all I could
answer was an inane, "Thank you, you are very kind." Will I ever learn
to express my thoughts as charmingly as these people do, I wonder!
When Miss Lee took me up-stairs it was up a bare, polished stairway upon
which I was half afraid to tread. And the room she took me to! I've
heard about such rooms and read about them. Delft blue paper and rugs,
white woodwork and furniture, blue hangings, white curtains--it's a
magazine-room turned to real!
When I tried to express my gratitude for her goodness Miss Lee hushed me
with a kiss and said she anticipated as much joy from my presence in the
city as I did, that I was so genuine and refreshing that it would be a
pleasure to have me around. I don't know just what she means. I'm just
Phoebe Metz, nothing wonderful about me, unless it's my voice, and I
hope that is. She said, too, that I would make her very happy if I'd let
her be a real friend to me, and if I'd call her Virginia. Why, that's
just what I've been wishing for! I told her so. She is just twelve years
older than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like a friend
who is older. She seems just the same Miss Lee, no older than she was
when I walked down the street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and
checked sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David gave me. How
lucky that little country girl is! I'm here in Philadelphia, in a
beautiful house, with Virginia Lee for my friend, and glorious visions
of music and good times flashing before my eyes. I put my hands to my
head to keep it from going dizzy!
There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy right now, though.
I'm afraid I've blundered already. Miss Lee--Virginia, I mean--said as
she turned to leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd have
plenty of time to get ready for it. I had to tell her that I couldn't
change my dress, that I hadn't thought to bring any light dress in my
bag but had packed them all in the trunk. She hurried to assure me that
my dark skirt and white blouse would do very well, that she would not
dress for dinner to-night. But I feel sure that she seldom appears at
the dinner table in a blouse and tailored skirt. Guess Aunt Maria'd say
I'm in a place too tony for me, but I know I can learn how to do here. I
might have remembered that some people make of their evening meal a
formal one. I've read about "dressing for dinner" and when my first
opportunity comes to do so it finds me with all my dress-up dresses
packed in a trunk in the express office! Perhaps it serves me right for
wanting to "put on style," but I remember an old saying about "doing as
the Romans do." At any rate, I'm going to make the best of it and quit
worrying about it, or I'll be so fussed I'll eat with my knife or pour
my coffee into my saucer!
_Later in the evening._
What a whirl my brain is in! Things happen so fast that I scarcely know
where to begin again to write about them. But it began with the dinner.
That was the grandest dinner I ever tasted but I don't remember a single
thing I ate, though I do know there was no bread or jelly. What would
Aunt Maria think of that! The delicate china, fine linen and silver were
the loveliest I have ever seen. There were electric lights with
soft-colored shades and there was a colored waiter who seemed to move
without effort. The forks and spoons for the different courses bothered
me. I had to glance at Virginia to see which one to use. Once during the
dinner I thought of the time Mollie Brubaker told Aunt Maria about a
dinner she had in the home of a city relative. I remember how Aunt Maria
sniffed, "Humph, if abody's right hungry you can eat without such dumb
style put on. I say when you cook and carry things to the table for
people you don't need to feed them yet, they can help themselves. Just
so it's clean and cooked good and enough to go round, that's all I try
for when I get company to eat." I felt like a fish out of water at the
Lee dinner table, but Mrs. Lee and the others were so kind and tactful
that I could not be embarrassed, not enough to show it. However, I
thought to myself as we rose from the table, "Thank Heaven!"
Mrs. Lee asked me whether I like music. We were in the sitting-room and
Mr. Lee stood by the piano, his hand on his violin case.
"Yes, indeed!" I told her, for I was anxious to hear him play. I have
never heard any great violinist but the sound of a violin sets me
thrilling. I could listen to it for hours.
Mr. Lee smiled at my enthusiasm, lifted the instrument to his shoulder
and began to play. If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget that
music! Like the soothing winds of summer, the subtle fragrance of a wild
rose, the elusive phantoms of our dreams, it stirred my soul. I sat as
one dazed when he ended.
"You say nothing. Don't you like my music?" he asked me.
"Like your music? Like is too poor a word!" And I tried to tell him how
I loved it. He smiled again, that calling, hypnotizing smile, that made
me want to rush to him and ask him to be my friend. But I restrained
myself and turned to listen to Virginia. The music haunted me. It
sounded like the voice of a soul searching for something it could never
find. I was still dreaming about it when I heard Mr. Lee say, "Now,
Aunt, shall we have some cribbage?" I watched him uncomprehendingly as
he arranged a small table and brought out cards and boards for a game.
The full significance of his actions dawned upon me--they were going to
play cards! I had never seen a game of cards, but Aunt Maria taught me
long ago that cards are the instrument of the Evil One. My first impulse
was to run from the room, away from the cards, but I hated to be so
rude.
"Do you play cards?" Royal Lee asked me.
"No, oh, no!" I gasped.
"You should learn. I'm sure you would enjoy playing."
I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment and went on,
"We'll teach you to play, Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game.
Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat near her. She asked me
questions about Greenwald. Goodness only knows what I answered her. My
attention was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed me. In Aunt
Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank
side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried
to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of
my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I
could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed.
What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even
tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a
game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could
write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had
to get out of that room! I don't know if she saw through my ruse but
she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs.
"There's a desk in your room, Phoebe. You can be undisturbed there. Tell
your aunt we are going to help you find a comfortable home and that we
are going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to visit with you."
When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those cards actually scared me.
I shrank from being so near the evil things. But after a while as I came
to think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt me if I didn't
play them. I promised myself to keep from being contaminated with the
wickedness of the city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The
first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me sobered. I wrote a
long letter to Aunt Maria and then turned off the lights and looked down
into the city street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many lights
stretched off until some of them were mere specks. There was a wedding
across the street. I saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride,
dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came up to my room and I
asked her about it she didn't know a thing about the wedding. Why, at
home, if there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know about it or
are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But Virginia says a city is
different, that you don't really have neighbors like in Greenwald.
Virginia told me, too, how she came to teach in our school on the hill.
When she finished college she wanted to earn money, just to prove that
she could. Her father wanted her to stay home and live the life of a
butterfly, she says. One day he said, more in jest than earnest, that if
she insisted upon earning money he'd give his consent to her being a
teacher in a rural school. She accepted the challenge and through her
cousin she secured the place on the hill and became my teacher. When her
father died and her mother became a semi-invalid she gave up her work
and took up the old life again. She said that as if it were not really a
desirable life, this going to teas, dances, plays, musicals, lectures,
and having no cares or worries. Of course I know many of her pleasures
are forbidden fruit for me, but if I ever can wear pretty clothes like
hers and go off to an evening musical or concert I know I'll be as
excited as a Jenny Wren.