make no difference whether you live in a palace or a cottage, just so
you're happy. Gimme one room and what I want, and you can have all your
swell marble-entrance apartments. Ain't that right?"
"You've hit it, Loo. Take this here red parlor set--when me and Charley
went down to pick it out I couldn't hardly wait till we got it up in the
flat; and now just look! I can't look red plush in the face no more."
"That's the way of the world," said Loo. She sucked in her breath and
cluck-clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
"I'll be over about eight, then--after he goes."
"All right. Bring what you need, and send for the other stuff. You
better put in a party dress; we might get a date for to-night, for all I
know. You know you always brought me luck when it come to dates. I ain't
had a chum since that could bring them round like you."
"Oh, Loo! I ain't thinkin' about such things."
"Sure you ain't; but it won't hurt you to know you're livin', will
it?--and to chaperon your friend?"
"No," admitted Lil.
"Well, so long! I'll see you later. Don't let on to Charley I was over.
He ain't got no truck for me."
They embraced.
"Good-by for a little while, Loo."
"Good-by, dearie."
Lilly watched her friend pass down the narrow hall, then she closed the
door. Left alone, she crossed to the window and leaned out well beyond
the casement--a _Demoiselle_ whose three lilies were despair, anger, and
fear. The stagnant air, savored with frying pork, weighted her down with
its humidity; her brow puckered into tiny lines.
Do not, reader, construe this setting too lightly. The most pungent
essay in all literature is devoted to the succulency of roast pig;
Sappho was most lyric after she had rubbed her wine goblet with
garlic-flavored ewe meat. But such kindly reflection was not
Lilly's--fleshpots and life alike were unsavory.
The Nottingham lace curtains hung limp and motionless round her, and
waves of heat deflected from the asphalt came up heavy as fog. Three
stories beneath, Third Avenue spluttered on the griddle of a merciless
August--an exhausted day was duskening into a scarcely less kind
twilight; she could feel the brick wall of the building exhaling like a
furnace.
It was characteristic of Lilly that, with the thermometer up in three
figures and her own mental mercury well toward the top of the tube, she
should strike the one note of relief in a Saharan aridness. She
suggested the drip of clear water in a grotto or the inmost petals of a
tight-closed rose. If her throat ached and strained to keep down the
tears, her neck, where the sheer white collar fell away, was cold and
chaste; if anger and resentment were pounding through her veins the
fresh firmness of her flesh did not betray it.
She leaned her head against the window-frame and looked down with a
certain remoteness upon the human caldron three stories removed. Lights
were beginning to prick out wanly; the bang and clang of humanity,
distant, but none the less insistent, came up to her in a medley of
street-car clangs, shouts, and hum-hum. Children cried.
Upon a fire-escape level with her own window a child, with bare feet
extended over the iron rail, slept on an improvised bed; from the
interior of that same apartment came the wail of a sick infant. A woman
nude to the waist passed to and fro before the open window, crooning to
the bundle she carried in the crook of her arm. Lilly's mouth hung at
the corners.
Came darkness, she passed out into the kitchen and covered the
slow-cooking chops with a tin lid, lighted the gas-jet, turning the
flame down into a mere bead, and resumed her watch at the front window.
Clear like a clarion a familiar whistle ripped through the din of the
street and came up to her sharp and undiverted--two clean calls and a
long, quavering ritornelle. At that signal, for the year and a half of
their married life, Lilly had unfailingly fluttered a white handkerchief
of greeting from the three flights up. Her arm contracted reflexly, but
she stayed it and stepped back into the frame of the window, leaning
straight and tense against the jamb. Her pulse leaped into the hundreds
as she stood there, her arms hugging her sides and her blouse rising and
falling with the heave of her bosom, her handkerchief a tight little wad
in the palm of her hand.
Again the call, tearing straight and true to its destination! She
remained taut as stretched elastic. There was a wondering interim--and a
third time the signal split the air, sharp-questioning, insistent. Then
a silence.
Lilly darted into the kitchen and stooped absorbed over the burbling
coffee. A key rattled the front-room lock, and she bent lower over the
stove. She heard her name called sharply; a door slammed, and her
husband bounded into the kitchen, his face streaming perspiration and
his collar like a rag about his neck.
"Hello, honey! Gee! You gimme a scare there fer a minute. I thought the
heat might 'a' got you."
He gathered her in his arms, pushed back her head, and looked into her
reluctant eyes.
"What's the matter, hon? You ain't sick, are you?"
She wriggled herself free of his arms and turned to the stove.
"No," she said, in a monotone, "I ain't sick."
He regarded her with a worried pucker between his eyes.
"Aw, come on, Lil--tell a fellow what's the matter, can't you? It ain't
like you to be like this."
"Nothin'!" she insisted.
"You gimme a swell turn there fer a minute. They're droppin' like flies
to-day--hottest day in five summers."
Silence.
"Whew!" He peeled off his coat and hung it, with his imitation Panama
hat, behind the door; his pink shirt showed dark streaks of
perspiration; and he tugged at the rear button of his limp collar.
"Be-e-lieve me, the pianner business ain't what it's cracked up to be!
There ain't a picture house in town got the Gem beat when it comes to
heat. Had to take off the Flyin' Papinta act to-day and run in an extry
picture because two of the kids give out with the heat. I've played to
over ten thousand feet o' films to-day; and be-e-lieve me, it was some
stunt!"
He sluiced his face with cold water at the sink, and slush-slushed his
head in a roller-towel, talking the while.
"I never seen the--extry picture--they--run in to cover the--Papinta
act; and before I--could keep up--with the film--I was givin' ragtime
fer a funeral. You oughta heard Joe squeal!" He laughed and threw his
arms affectionately across his wife's shoulder. "Eh--ragtime fer a
funeral! Fine pianner-player you got fer a husband, honey!"
Given a checked suit, a slender bamboo cane, and a straw Katy slightly
askew, Charley might have epitomized vaudeville. He had once won a
silver watch-fob for pre-eminent buck-dancing at a Coney Island
informal, and could sing "Oh, You Great Big Beautiful Doll!" with nasal
perfection.
"Yes, sirree, Lil; you got a fine pianner-player fer a husband!"
She squirmed away from his touch and carried the coffee-pot to the
little set-for-two table. The chops steamed from a blue-and-white plate.
Her husband, unburdened with subtleties, straddled his chair and
scraped up to the table; his collapsed collar, with two protruding ends
of red necktie, lay on the window-sill; the sleeves of his pink shirt
were rolled back to the elbow.
The meal opened in a silence broken only by the clat-clat of dishes and
the wail of suffering babies.
"Poor kiddies, they ain't got a chance in a hundred. Gee! If I had the
coin, wouldn't I give them a handout of fresh air and milk? I'd give
every one of the durn little things a Delmonico banquet. I'd jest as
soon get hit in the head as hear them kids bawl."
Suddenly he glanced up from his plate and pushed himself from the table;
his wife was making bread-crumbs out of her bread.
"Say, Lil, I ain't never seen you like this before! Ain't you feeling
good? Come on--tell a feller what's the matter with you."
He rose and came round to her chair, leaning over its back and taking
her cheeks between thumb and forefinger.
"Come on, Lil; what's the matter? You ain't sore at me, are you?"
"Can't a girl get tired once in a while?" she said.
"Poor little pussy!" He patted her hair and returned to his place.
"Guess what I got!" groping significantly in the direction of his
hip-pocket. "Something you been havin' your heart set on fer a long
time. Guess!"
"I dunno," she said.
"Aw, gwan, kiddo! Give a guess."
"I can't guess, Charley."
"Well, then, I'll give you three guesses."
"I dunno."
"Look--now can you?"
He showed her the top of a small, square box tied with blue cord. It
bore a jeweler's mark.
"Can you guess now, Lil? It's something you been aching fer."
"Lemme alone!" she said.
He looked at her in frank surprise, slowly replacing the box in his
hip-pocket.
"Durned if I know what's got you!" he muttered.
"Nothing ain't got me," she insisted.
He brightened.
"Poor little girl! Never mind; next summer I'm goin' to grab that
Atlantic City job I been tellin' you about. The old man said again
yesterday that, jest as sure as he opens his sheet-music bazar down
there next season, it's me fer the keyboard."
"His schemes don't ever turn out. I know his talk," his wife objected.
"Sure they will this time, Lil; he's got a feller to back it. He dropped
in special to hear me play the 'Louisanner Rusticanner Rag' to-day; an'
honest, Lil, he couldn't keep his feet still! I sprung that new one on
him, too--the 'Giddy Glide'--an' I had to laugh; the old man nearly
jumped over the pianner--couldn't sit quiet! Just you wait, Lil. I got
that job cinched--no more picture-show stuff fer me! It'll be us fer the
board-walk next summer!"
"That's jest what you said about grabbin' that Coney Island job this
season."
"I couldn't help it that they cut out the pianner at the Concession,
could I? The films ain't no more fun fer me than fer you, honey."
"It's pretty lonesome for a girl sitting here alone every night. It was
bad enough before you took the twelve-to-two job; but I never have no
evenin's nohow."
He looked at her with wide-open eyes.
"I didn't know you were sore, Lil--on the real, I didn't! I jest took
that cafe job fer a few weeks to help along the surprise." His hand went
to his hip-pocket.
"Oh," she said, her lips curling, "I'm sick of that line of talk."
"Lil!"
There was a count-five pause; and then the old cheeriness came back into
his voice.
"I'm going to cut out the cafe job, anyway, now that--"
"Oh, never mind," she said, indifferently. "What's it matter whether you
are home at twelve or two? I ain't had no evenin's for a good long time,
anyhow."
"I guess you're right. Don't I wish I had some steady clerkin' job, like
Bill! But it don't seem like I am cut out fer anything but pounding
ragtime--you knew that, honey, before we was--" He stopped, reddening.
"No, I didn't! If I'd known before we was married what I know now,
things might be different. How was I to know that you was goin' to be
changed from matinee work to all-night shows? How was I to know you was
goin' to make me put up with a life like this? When I see other girls
that's married out of the department, and me, I jest wanna die! Look at
Sally Lee and Jimmy--they go to vaudyville every week and to Coney
Saturdays. You even kick if I wanna go over to Loo's to spend a
evening!"
"I don't kick, Lil; I jest don't like to have you running round with
that live wire. She ain't your style."
"That's right--run down my friends that I worked next to in the gloves
fer four years! She was good enough fer me then. Me and her is old
friends, and jest 'cause I'm married don't make me better'n her."
"I'm sorry I kicked up about it, honey. Maybe I was wrong."
"She can tell you that I had swell times when I was in the gloves--even
when I was in the notions, too. There wasn't a night I didn't have a bid
for some dance or something."
"Well, if this ain't a darn sight better'n pushing gloves at six per
I'll--I'll--"
"I'll give you to understand, Charley Harkins, that I was making eight
dollars when I married you, and everybody said that I'd 'a' been
promoted to the jewelry in another year."
She rose, gathered a pyramid of dishes, and clattered them into the
dish-pan as he talked. He followed after her.
"Aw, quit your foolin', Lil, can't you? Don't treat a feller like this
when he comes home at night. I'll get Shorty to take the piano next
Saturday, and we'll do Coney from one end to the other. We only live
once, anyway. Come on, Lil; be nice and see what I got fer you, too."
"Don't treat me like I was a kid! When I was in the gloves I didn't
think nothin' of goin' to Coney every other night, and you know it, all
right."
The red surged back into his face.
"Yes, you had a swell time shooting gloves! You used to tell me yourself
you was ready to drop at night."
"Ain't I ready to drop here?" she flashed back at him. "Am I any better
off here doin' my work in the hottest flat on Third Avenue?"
"Things'll come out all right, honey. Come on and kiss me before I go."
She submitted to his embrace passively enough, and at his request retied
his necktie round a fresh collar for him.
"Good night, pussy! I'll come in soft so as not to wake you--there ain't
goin' to be no more of this two-o'clock business. I'm goin' to cut out
the cafe. Put a glass of milk out fer me, honey. I'm near dead when I
get in."
He struggled into his coat before the little dressing-table mirror of
their bedroom and with a sly smile slipped the blue-corded box into a
top drawer.
"I got a surprise fer you, Lil--only you ain't in no mood fer it right
now."
"I ain't in no humor for nothin'," she said.
"It's going to be a scorcher. You take it easy and get rid of these
blues you been gettin' here lately. You ain't got no better friend than
your old man or any one who wants to do more of the right thing by you."
"I'll take a car-ride over to Loo's to cool off," she said,
apathetically.
He opened his lips to speak; instead he nodded and kissed her twice.
Then he hurried out.
After he left her she sank down on the little divan of highly magnetized
red plush and stared into space. Face to face with her weeks-old
resolve, her courage fainted, and a shudder like ague passed over her.
She could hear herself wheeze in her throat; and her petal-like skin,
unrelieved by moisture, was alternately hot and cold.
The low-ceiled room, dark except for a reflected slant of yellow
gas-light coming in from the kitchen, closed down like an inverted bowl.
She went to the window.
On the fire-escape opposite, the child still slept, one little ghost of
a bare foot extending over the rail. As she watched, a woman's voice
from within the apartment cried out sharply--a panicky cry filled with
terror; then a silence--more pregnant than the call itself. Lily knew,
with a dull tugging at her heartstrings, that the babe had died. Only a
week before she and Charley had seen a little life snuffed out in the
apartment above, and she knew the mother-cry. Charley had dressed the
child and cried hot, unashamed tears; then, as now, her own eyes were
dry, but her throat ached.
East Side tradition has it that every tenth year exacts the largest
share of human toil--this might have been Death's Oberammergau!
Trembling, Lilly turned and groped her way into the little bedroom;
drawers slid open and slammed shut, tissue-paper rattled, the hasps of a
trunk snapped; then came the harsh sing of water pouring from a faucet.
Presently she reappeared in the doorway in a fresh white blouse and a
dark-blue skirt; there were pink cotton rosebuds on her hat and a long
pair of white silk gloves dangling from one hand. In the other she
carried a light wicker hand-satchel.
By the shaft of light she reread the small square of yellow paper and
impaled it carefully, face up, on the pincushion of their little
dressing-table. It poised like a conspicuous butterfly. Then she went
out into the kitchen, poured a glass of milk, placed it beside a small
cake of ice in a correspondingly small refrigerator, turned off the
gas-light, and went out of the apartment without once glancing behind
her.
* * * * *
Miss Lulu Tracy lived in a lower West Side rooming-house. Lily had once
dwelt in that same dingy-fronted building, in a room which, like her
friend's, was reduced to its lowest terms. The familiar cryptic
atmosphere met her as she crossed the threshold. Loo greeted her
effusively.
"Lordy, Lil, I was afraid you was gettin' cold feet! Sit right down
there on the trunk till I get some of this cold-cream off. I'm ready to
drop in my tracks, I am. Three of the lace-girls fainted to-day and had
to be took home. Ain't this room awful?"
Lilly sank in a little heap on the trunk.
"It _is_ hot," she admitted.
"Hot? You look like a cucumber. Wait'll I get this cold-cream off, and
tell me all about it. I'm here to tell you that you're all right, you
are. Give me a game one every time! But wait till I tell you what's up."
Miss Tracy laved her face with layers of cold-cream, which she presently
removed with a towel.
"Don't I wish I had your skin, Lil!"
Lilly brightened.
"Quit your kiddin', Loo," she said. "I ain't used to jollying no more."
"You know yourself you was the best looker we ever had at the counter.
Skinny calls you The Lily to this day."
"I ain't got the looks I once had, Loo." But her fair face flushed.
"Wait till you get round a little--you'll look five years younger."
Lilly giggled. "On the real, Lil, there wasn't a girl in the department
didn't expect you to marry some swell instead of Charley Harkins. If I'd
'a' had your looks I wouldn't been satisfied with nothin' but the real
thing. Look at Tootsie grabbin' old man Rickman! She can't hold a candle
to you."
"Just the samey, she'd 'a' rather had Charley if she could 'a' got him.
I know a thing or two about that."
Cold-cream removed, Miss Tracy enveloped her friend in an embrace.
"So you're goin' to bunk with me to-night! Seems like old times, don't
it?"
"Just like old times," said Lilly.
"Now tell me how you got away. He didn't get wise, did he?"
"No; I just left the note, Loo."
"That'll hold him for a while. You're the real thing, you are! Not that
I want to make any trouble, but a blind man could see that you're a fool
to spend your time that way. Huh! Sellin' gloves ain't no cinch, but if
it ain't got being buried alive beat by a long shot I'll eat my hat!"
Impressed by her friend's gastronomic heroism, Lilly acquiesced. "You're
right. I'll try to get my job back to-morrow. Maybe it won't be so
easy."
"Easy?" cried Loo. "Why, the easiest thing you ever tried! The gloves
haven't forgot you."
"I hope not," sighed Lilly.
"You're game, all right! I like to see a girl stand up for her
rights--there ain't no man livin' could boss me! I'd like to see the
King of Germany hisself coop me up seven nights in the week an' me stand
for it. Not muchy! I got as much fight in me as any man. That's the kind
of a hair-pin I am!"
"I'm like you, Loo. I got to thinking over what you told me the other
day, and you're right: there ain't no girl would stand for it. Girls
gotta have life."
"Of course they do! And you're going to have some to-night--that's what
I got up my sleeve. Mr. Polly, in the laces, is comin' to take me to the
Shippin' Clerks' dance up at the One Hundred and Fifteenth Street
Hall--and you're coming right along with us."
Lilly lowered her eyes like a debutante.
"Oh, Loo, I--I can't go to no dances. I--Charley--I didn't mean--"
"I'd like to know what harm there is goin' to a dance with me and my
gentleman friend? Didn't Aggie go with us all the time Bill was doin'
night-work? Before she got her divorce there wasn't a week she wasn't
somewhere with us. Besides, Polly is a perfect gentleman."
"But I ain't got nothin' to wear, Loo."
"Didn't you bring what I told you?"
"Yes; but--"
"Well, then, you're goin'. If Charley Harkins don't like it he should
have taken you to dances hisself."
"I ain't been to a dance since the Ladies' Mask me and Charley went to
when he was still playing matinees. I've almost forgot how."
Her eyes were like stars.
"Swell dancers like you used to be don't forget so easy."
"My dress is old, but it is low-neck."
"It's all right; and you can wear my forget-me-not wreath in your
hair--it'll just match your dress."
They took the frock from the wicker bag and held it up.
"That's just fine, Lil; and you can carry my old fan--I got a new one
from a gentleman friend for Christmas."
"Loo!"
Lulu piled her hair into an impressive coiffure.
"Oh, Loo, you look just like that picture that's on cigar-boxes!"
"You got the littlest waist I ever seen," reciprocated Lulu, regarding
Lilly's sylphid figure with admiring eyes.
"You ought to have seen me the first year I was working, Loo. I ain't
got such a little waist any more, but I did have some figure then."
They dressed in relays, taking turns about before the splotched mirror.
"Here, Lil, let me pin up them sleeves a little. Mame says all the swell
waists up in the ready-to-wears have short sleeves."
"I've had my eye on a swell silver bracelet in Shank's window, Loo, for
a long time; they are so pretty with elbow-sleeves."
They pecked at each other like preening birds. At seven Lulu's suitor
arrived. They took final dabs at themselves.
"He ain't such a nifty looker, Lil, but he sure knows how to treat a
girl swell. He ain't none of your piker kind that runs past a drug store
like the soda-fountain was after him. Why, I've known him to treat to as
many as three sodas in an evenin'! And say, kid, he is some classy
dresser--latest jewelry and black-and-white initials worked on his
shirt-sleeves. I met him at a mask, and he give me his card."
"Does he know you work?"
"Yes; but he said he'd rather have a girl tell him she's workin' like I
did than to have her stuff him."
"That's what I used to say; they find out, anyway."
"Sure they do; the only time I told a guy I didn't work was that time
with you."
"That time you told Mr. Evans you was goin' to school?"
"Yes; and he up and said: 'Yes; you go to school! You wrestle with pots,
you do, sis.'"
They laughed reminiscently.
"We sure used to have swell times together, Lulu."
"Swell times--well, I guess yes! I never did have the same good times
with no chum of the department since you left."
They descended to meet Mr. Polly in the lower hall. That gentleman rose
from the hat-tree. Four fingers of a tan glove protruded with studied
intent from the breast-pocket of his coat; his trousers and sleeves were
creased as definitely as paper. Mr. Polly's features were strictly
utilitarian--it was his boast that by a peculiar muscular contraction he
could waggle his ears with fidelity to asinine effect.
His mouth was of such proportions that the slightest smile revealed his
teeth back to the molars. He smiled as he rose from the hat-tree.
"Howdy-do, Mr. Polly? Is it warm enough for you? I want to make you
acquainted with my friend, Lilly Harkins."
"Pleased to meet you," said Mr. Polly.
"I didn't think you'd mind my bringin' a lady friend along to-night. I
thought maybe you could find her a friend up at the hall, Mr. Polly."
He bowed with alacrity.
"Always ready to do the ladies a favor," he said, extending both arms
akimbo and stepping between them.
Lilly hung back with becoming reticence.
"I'm afraid I'm butting in--two's company an' three's a crowd."
They hastened to reassure her.
"You just make yourself right at home. I'm always ready to do the ladies
a favor, Miss Harkins."
A startled expression flashed across Lilly's face. Her friend sprang
into the breach like a life-saver off a pier.
"_Miss_ Harkins ain't the kind of a girl to sponge on nobody. Mr. Polly
knows if she's my friend she's all right."
"That's the idea," agreed Mr. Polly. "I like to see girls good friends."
The trio swung down the street.
"That's what I always say. Why, before Lil was mar--Why, me and Lil
never are stingy with our gentlemen friends. I was always the first one
to introduce you--wasn't I, Lil?"
"Yes; and me the same way," amended Lilly. "I think it's the right way
to be."
"I got a friend comin' up to the dance to-night, just about your style
of a fellow, Miss Harkins. One nice chap--he's been in the stock-room at
Tracy's for years; some little sport, too."
"Ain't that grand!" beamed Lulu. "Two couple of us!"
Lilly hummed a little air as they walked along, both girls receiving the
slightest of Mr. Polly's sallies with effusion.