Jane Judd, in her old brown coat and a hat of many seasons flown, walked
slowly from Macdougal Alley toward the model tenement house where she
shared a flat with a family by the name of Biggs, and had what is known
as "light housekeeping privileges." The English of this elegant phrase
was, that, before or after the Biggs family had disposed of its meals,
Jane could slip into the kitchen and prepare her repast. She disliked
the arrangement intensely, but on the whole she preferred it to any
boarding-house which she could afford.
No matter how tired she was after her day's work in the various studios,
she always enjoyed this walk home, with the misty lights, the
far-distant vista of the sky at the street ends. She speculated about
the people she passed; sometimes she stopped to watch the children
shouting and playing in the streets. She never spoke to them but she
knew many of them by sight.
It was in some such way she watched the artist folk who gave her
employment. She wondered about them; sometimes behind her mask she
laughed at their childishness.
Jane Judd's history up to this point has no more dramatic interest than
the history of any drab woman of twenty-eight, picked out at random
from the army of workwomen which marches daily to and from the factories
and stores.
She had lived in Warburton, a small New Jersey town, until she was
twenty-two, keeping house for her father, who had a grocery store. He
was her only relation. When he died she sold the store and came to New
York to make a living. She was trained for nothing. She had had a High
School education, which left her with a taste for books and a consuming
ambition to write them. Being a dumb creature at best, she had never
spoken of this dream to a human soul, except her mother. The town paper
had published several of her stories, signed with a pen name, and she
secretly cherished the idea that she had talent.
So when her release came, she did as so many girls do these days, she
put her little all into her pocketbook and came to the big town to
grapple with success. She applied at newspaper offices, at first, with
her village paper clippings as justification. She admitted to such
editors as she saw that she had no nose for news, but she liked to write
stories, and thought maybe she could do special stuff. She was shy and
frightened. Nobody wanted her.
She found a cheap room and gave herself a month in which to write short
stories. With one new one, and two old ones worked over, she tried the
magazines. It was a weary round with rejection at every point, while the
reserves in her bank grew smaller and smaller. During the whole month
she never talked to any one, and she knew a loneliness as bitter as
pain.
Finally, one day an editor of a magazine let her come into his office.
He looked at her keenly.
"Miss Judd," he began, "I've read these stories of yours and I want to
give you a bit of advice. Are you trying to make a living out of this
kind of thing?"
"Yes, sir."
"Can you do anything else to support yourself?"
"I don't know."
"Where have you lived?"
Jane told him.
"You're alone in the world?"
"Yes."
"Unmarried?"
"Yes."
"May I tell you quite frankly how I feel about your case?"
"I wish you would."
"You make the common mistake of thinking that anybody can write. Now,
putting words together is not writing; making fine sentences is not
writing; elaborating striking plots is not writing. Of all the arts,
literature is the most exacting mistress. With some idea of the
technique of painting, or music, coupled with a surface brilliance, you
may paint or sing or play. With even less equipment, you may act; but to
write, you must have lived, you must have suffered and known joy; you
must be able to analyze people, to understand their motives, to love
them. To write, you must have ideas and emotions. It is only when the
sources of your own being run deep that you can bring up waters of
refreshment for others."
He stopped to look at the girl, whom he had almost forgotten. Her face
startled him with its eagerness. Her eyes were shining and he found
himself commenting, subconsciously: "Why, she isn't so plain."
"Yes, please go on," she begged.
"Well, granted that you have learned something of the motives, the
passions, the sorrows that rack us humans, then you must also have your
medium in control. Have you ever thought about words, how wonderful they
are, how precious?"
She shook her head.
"Most people fail to. We think of the hackneyed old phrases we use in
the mechanics of living, but words are like little creatures that march
and fight and sing. They are like extra hands, and brains. Think of the
power of them! All the passions wait on them; they bring despair, hope,
courage, love; they are the golden exchange granted to man. Until you
get this sense of the choiceness, the fragility, the power of words, you
are not ready to transcribe your thoughts."
"But how can I learn about words?"
"Read the best books, get the feel of them. Study style, add words to
your possession as a miser adds coins. Have you ever studied
composition?"
"A little in High School."
"Frankly, I doubt if you can ever write. I see no gleam of a gift in
these things you have brought me. They are sentimental and silly. But if
you should want to learn something about this great art----"
"Oh, I do," said Jane earnestly.
"Very well, I will give you a list of books to begin with. You must get
a position so that you can support yourself, then study when you can.
Write all the time; get facility with words, then tear it up. Don't try
to sell things. Begin to watch people; get abreast of events. Read the
papers and the magazines in the library. Read Shakespeare, Fielding,
Dickens, Thackeray, Bunyan, Meredith, Barrie, and Galsworthy. You might
even try Shaw."
"Oh, I will!" cried Jane.
He laughed.
"I don't often inflict an hour's lecture upon unprotected young women,
Miss Judd."
"I can't tell you how grateful I am. This is just what I needed."
"You get to work. When you are absolutely confident that you have got
something good, come and see me again."
"Thank you, I will."
She went out in a daze. This talk was to change the whole course of her
life, and she knew it. It was characteristic of her that she began at
once. She answered an advertisement in the paper, inserted by a man
named Jerome Paxton, who wanted a reliable woman to mend his clothes and
do light work about the studio. She applied and he engaged her.
That was six years ago. From that small beginning she had worked up a
clientele among the artists of the district, which kept her busy every
day. She mended their clothes, cleaned their studios, cooked a meal if
necessary, became, in short, an institution in the colony. As Jerry
Paxton said; "Jane Judd can mend anything from a leak in a pipe to a
broken heart."
This was her life by day. Her real life began when the day ended. On
this particular night, as on a thousand previous nights, she bought her
supper at the butcher's and the grocer's, and climbed the many stairs to
her home. As she struck a match to light the gas, there was a light thud
on the floor and a purring.
"That you, Milly?" she asked.
The big cat purred loudly and rubbed against her skirt. She took her up
and petted her a bit before she so much as laid off her things.
"I've got a piece of fish for you," she added as she put her coat and
hat away. Milly, whose full name was Militant, constituted her entire
family, and it was Jane's habit to talk to her continually.
"We'll hurry into the kitchen before Mrs. Biggs gets home to-night and
get our supper out of the way," she said presently, and led the way down
the narrow hall, the cat at her heels. She made her preparations quickly
and deftly. Billy Biggs, aged eight, appeared as she was cooking.
"Hello, Miss Judd."
"Hello, Billy."
He was a very dirty and a very dull little boy, who wore his mouth open,
and was mentally developed as far as his adenoids would permit. Jane
tried to be interested in him, but failed.
"Wisht I had a piece of bread an' butter."
"All right, here it is. Your mother will be in, presently."
"Our supper ain't as good as yours."
This conversation took place almost every night. As soon as she could
she carried everything into her room. Then she and Milly sat down to the
function of dinner. Milly sat on a high chair at one side of the sewing
table, Jane at the other.
"Milly, you're a good, steady friend, but I just ache to have somebody
talk back to me to-night. I wonder how it would feel to go to Buffanti's
with people you liked, to talk, and eat good food and listen to music."
Milly had no comments to make on the subject, except to claw her plate.
Jane put a morsel of food there, which disappeared.
"I'll pretend I went with them, and put it into the story to-night. I
know how they talk, Milly, and how they think, and how they act, but I
want them to know how I think and talk and act. I'm sick of being alone,
I want somebody----"
She broke off and hid her face in her hands. Milly scratched her plate
significantly. It is the routine of life which helps us through the
tragedy, always. At Milly's practical reminder, Jane replenished her
plate with the scrapings from her own, rose, carried her dishes to the
sink, washed them, and put them away.
Then she locked her door, got out her pen and her blank book, lit the
student lamp, and sat down at her table. Milly sprang into her favourite
chair and the pleasure time of the day came to both of them. The purr
and the scratch of the pen lasted far into the night.