Round steak .40
Wet wash 1.25
Soap .08
Daily News .02
Tomatoes .14
----
$1.89
Well, that wasn’t bad for a day’s expenses. Dot added the little
column of figures again to make sure it wasn’t a dollar ninety. Every
penny counted now. Two hundred dollars for Dr. Stewart had seemed an
Herculean undertaking, but now upon that task hardly well begun had
fallen another.
Dot had pictured herself lying pale but happy on the bird’s-eye maple
bed with her baby joyously partaking of his first breakfast.
Dr. Stewart had looked doubtful when she had revealed this vision.
“You see, Mrs. Collins,” he said, “practically everybody goes to a
sanitarium nowadays. Women have learned that it’s best that way.
You’d have to have a nurse, and while an ordinary maternity nurse is
sufficient for your purpose, that would be fifty dollars for the two
weeks you need her. You’d have to have a laundress in, and there’s a
great deal of drugs and sick-room things you’d need, and that would run
into money. You’re foolish not to go to a sanitarium.”
Dot had thought of Edna dropping in to fix broth, of Eddie giving her a
sponge bath. Nurses, laundresses, drugs! The bottom dropped out of her
simple calculations.
“But where could I go? Wouldn’t it cost a lot?”
Dr. Stewart shook his head. “Lots of places do charge a lot,” he said.
“But there’s one place on One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street that’s
reasonable. The food is good, and the care is all that you need. You
can get a small room there for a hundred and twenty-five dollars.”
“For how long?”
“Two weeks. We’ll get you home after that.”
Dot’s face betrayed her dismay. A hundred and twenty-five dollars for
the sanitarium and two hundred for the doctor. Could they manage? She
and Eddie with their food and gas and electricity and rent, and clothes
for the baby.
“It’s very nice,” said Dr. Stewart. “A lot of my patients have been
there. I’ll have them send you some pamphlets if you like, and you can
go down and take a look at the place.”
Dot told Eddie when he came home that night. He took the news coolly.
“Well,” he said, “I hope that you didn’t think that you could lie in
bed here all day with a new baby and nobody to do anything for either
of you.”
“No. I thought that Edna could help.”
“Gee, you’re a dumb-bell,” said Eddie. “Honest to God, I wonder why
they don’t lock you up.”
“I don’t see how we can manage, Eddie.”
“Well, I didn’t see how we were going to pull two hundred fish out for
Doc. If you can do that you’re smart enough to manage the rest.”
“But, Eddie, three hundred and twenty-five dollars! Almost enough to
buy a Ford car.”
“Sooner have the Ford, heh?”
“No, I didn’t mean that exactly, but it’s so much money. Golly!”
They hadn’t talked about the money since but Dot was keeping a budget,
walking to Two Hundred and Seventh Street to get things cheaper,
reading newspapers instead of magazines, and trying to cut her own hair.
It was February now. The days of sleet and cold, icy winds were
separated by vagrant, sweet-smelling hours that came mysteriously and
fled back to Never-Never Land. When they were gone you didn’t believe
that they had happened, but then again there was the strange breath of
dewy violets and woodlands, and you felt somehow happier even if you
had been fooled.
Dot was doing a lot of sewing. She had heard somewhere that it was bad
luck to prepare very lavishly for a baby. She worried a little but
could not resist the temptation of buying unbelievably narrow lace and
phantom-fragile muslin despite the extravagance.
Eddie watched her sew. What was she doing that for? She didn’t want the
kid. He was curious. “What are you doing that for?” he asked.
She looked up at him in amazement. “What am I doing it for? The kid
can’t go naked, can he? You can’t bring him home from the hospital
naked. And so long as he’s got to have clothes, this is the cheapest
way to do it. It don’t cost me over a dollar apiece to make the dresses
myself.”
The next time he had a few minutes to himself, Eddie looked in an
infants’ furnishing store. He saw dresses for forty-nine cents which
certainly must be good enough for some people’s babies or they wouldn’t
be selling them. Guess Dot didn’t know that kid’s dresses could be
bought so cheap. Eddie chuckled. He wouldn’t tell her. Why the devil
shouldn’t Dot make his clothes? Wasn’t he, Eddie, going to make the kid
a high chair all by hand? A good joke on Dot, that. He wouldn’t tell
her.
Funny how many things he was keeping to himself. He couldn’t tell her
this and he couldn’t tell her that, because she didn’t want the poor
kid, and it seemed heartless of him to be happy over it. Sometimes he
would get an idea that she was warming up to the little fellow, but
then she’d say something and he’d know she didn’t want it.
The vision of Dot dying to give life to the baby had receded to the
back of Eddie’s mind. He never thought of it any more. He was thinking
now how hard he would try to make her love the baby once it was here.
But probably that wouldn’t be much of a job. Kids are so damn cute.
Only it would tie them down. Dot liked to dance and go to parties.
Maybe she’d want to leave the kid alone and go running around with
Sue and Pat. Then maybe, if he ever caught her doing it, he’d have to
wallop her. You can’t leave kids alone. They pull the blankets up over
their faces sometimes and smother.
Eddie looked in the window of the infants’ furnishing shop a little
while longer. Then he went in. When he came out again he had a bundle.
Well, a fellow couldn’t act excited over a kid’s arriving when his wife
was pulling a long face over the idea. Besides, what kind of crazy
thoughts were these? When the hell was he the kind of fellow to ever
get excited over anything?
His dinner was on the table when he reached home. Dot was flushed and
tired. The wet wash had come that day, and she had been ironing. She
always ironed sheets, though Edna told her that she was crazy. You
ought to just see that they’re well dried, fold them up nice, and
put them away. When you take ’em out they look ironed. The same with
the towels and pillow cases. Tablecloths you had to iron. Dot ironed
everything. If she hadn’t, she would have felt that she was being
unfaithful to the little apartment.
Dot kissed him when he came in. He handed her the bundle.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you call it,” he said carelessly.
She opened it. A tiny crocheted sacque lay within carefully wrapped in
tissue paper. A large blue bow of very stiff, aggressive ribbon was at
the neck of it. Dot smiled. The ribbon was so ridiculous. The sacque
was so pleadingly tiny.
“Did you buy this?” she asked.
“Me? Can you picture me buying stuff like that?”
“No,” said Dot, honestly. “But where--”
“Mrs. Williams sent it.”
“Mrs. Williams! Did you tell them I’m going to have a baby?”
Eddie sat down at the table and reached for a piece of bread. “No, I
didn’t,” he said. “I go down there to fix radio sets every day, not to
gab. Besides, I’m not any more excited about this whole business than
you are. I don’t run up to people in the street and tell them about it.
Mrs. Williams looked you over that day last week, and she hasn’t got
bad eyes.”
Dot walked to the mirror in the bedroom. She stood before it for almost
five minutes examining the proportions of her figure from every angle.
She was convinced that Eddie was lying.
“I don’t show,” she said to him as she pulled out her chair and sat
down.
“I’ll bet every woman thinks that,” said Eddie.
Her convictions melted away. Perhaps he was right. Maybe this was one
of those things that other people knew and you didn’t. The thought
depressed her. She had so wanted to watch her body changing gradually
to accommodate its little occupant.
“Do I look bad, Eddie?” she asked.
“No, you look great.”
“I mean my figure.”
“No, that’s all right, only it shows that you’re going to have a baby.”
“Well, I guess I’d better stop going to dance halls and places then.
People are probably making fun of me.”
Eddie hadn’t bargained for this. He swallowed a very hot piece of
potato hastily.
“Don’t be crazy,” he said. “You’re all right. I guess Mrs. Williams has
been watching for it, and that’s why she saw it. If a person didn’t
know--”
But Dot didn’t answer. She was thinking of something else now.
Something that she’d have to ask Dr. Stewart about. She’d been dancing
quite a lot. So far there had been no sign of life in her baby. Were
the two facts connected? Icy fingers of terror clutched at her heart.
Why hadn’t she told the doctor sooner about the many excursions to the
Poppyland Dance Hall? Had she thought to put something over on him?
Funny how all of a sudden a fear can come at you out of the darkness
and shake you till you’re cold and limp. She hadn’t thought of it
before, and now she was panicky and ill with the awfulness of it.
Darkness came over the room. The arc light in the street streamed wanly
through the window. Voices of neighbors calling to each other. A baby
crying. Somebody’s dishes being hastily despatched with many protesting
rattles and clinks. In the purple-gray twilight the little sacque with
its absurd blue bow was a narrow white streak, a shooting star. Was
anybody ever going to have that silly little bow under his chin? In
that minute, Dot knew that she couldn’t bear it if her baby ... if
anything went wrong.
Eddie got up and lit the light. He looked at her carelessly. She was
crying, but he preferred to say nothing about it. She cried a lot
recently. It was because she didn’t like what was going to happen,
he thought. Yeh, it was best not to notice her. Maybe he’d get mad
sometime and tell her what he thought of her for not wanting a kid. But
he knew that he couldn’t. After all, it was her pain. No wonder she
cried and didn’t want the baby.
Dot looked up at him as he carried the butter to the ice box. Suppose
she had danced her baby to death. Could she ever forgive Eddie for not
taking the news as hard as she would? He wouldn’t mind. He’d be able to
say that everything happens for the best.
She dried her eyes and rushed to help clear the table.
“Sit down,” he said.
“No, I’ll help.”
“Go on. Sit down.”
She went and sat down. He was good to her. He loved her. If only he
would love the baby. Oh, well, a person can’t have everything, and
maybe after it was here and he saw it, he would get to care about it.
She wondered if he knew that there’d be no more dancing and parties
then. Better not tell him for a while.
Dr. Stewart came two days later. His coat was not yet off when Dot
asked her question timidly, quaveringly. “I have danced an awful lot
recently. Do you think that it will hurt--hurt the baby? I haven’t felt
any life yet.”
He looked at her seriously. He was one to laugh only at what he knew a
patient knew in her heart to be foolish. When she had a deadly fear, he
read it in her eyes, in her voice, and he respected her fear.
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “We’ll have a look. Just what do you
call an awful lot of dancing?”
The sheet was produced, the examination made.
“You’re quite all right,” he said. “But I wouldn’t overdo anything if
I were you. On the whole I think a daily walk would be much better
exercise than dancing. And don’t hang curtains. I’ve found a lot of
women who hang curtains at the wrong time.”
“But you think it’s all right?”
“Yes, I should say so. You’ll feel life soon now, I think.”
“How soon?”
Dr. Stewart smiled. “Couldn’t say exactly, but don’t be surprised if
your baby gives you a kick all of a sudden.”
Dot looked rapt and ecstatic. Fancy her baby giving her a kick!
“Dancing in poorly-aired, crowded rooms isn’t going to do you any real
harm for another few weeks,” he went on, “but it won’t help any. Get
your walk, and you’ll feel much better.”
It was that very night that Sue and Pat dropped in. Sue and Pat were
now known as the Macys. They had been living with Sue’s mother since
the marriage but were busily searching for an apartment that would meet
their needs. Nobody was quite certain what their needs were, but Dot
suspected that it was an apartment close enough to Sue’s maiden home
for the Macys to eat there.
There was quite a smug, satisfied air about Sue lately. You felt that
she would never again make jokes about women being unfaithful to their
husbands. Marriage was something very sacred now. One felt that she
would, without a moment’s hesitation, cast the first stone. Dot wasn’t
quite certain that she liked her any more.
Sue wore a large straw hat with a rhinestone dagger stuck through it
with careless grace. Her coat had a huge imitation fur collar. The
coat fitted closely at the waist and flared generously at the bottom.
There was more fur at the bottom and fur at the cuffs. Her slippers
were black satin with large, bright tin buckles. The stockings above
were very sheer. Dot fancied that she might photograph very well in her
finery but when seen right smack up close in the hard, white light of
a seventy-five-watt bulb--well, after all, the fur was imitation, the
buckles were tin, and the stockings weren’t four-dollar sheer, they
were seventy-nine-cent sheer.
Pat was quiet and unobtrusive. There was about him, since his marriage,
the air of a menial who has delivered an important message and is
undecided whether or not to wait.
He engaged Eddie in conversation. He wanted to buy a radio set for his
father-in-law. What would Eddie advise?
Dot took Sue’s things, and they sat down together on the sofa.
“We were looking around this section for an apartment,” Sue said. “We
didn’t see anything we liked, though. I got hungry and we stopped in at
that what-do-you-call-it place where they roast chickens.”
Sue settled the folds of her champagne-colored dress importantly. Dot
had seen that dress on Maude and had heard what Maude had said about
passing it on. Silly, the way Sue was trying to show off the embroidery
on it. Dot felt a little sorry for her.
“You didn’t like any of the apartments around here?”
“No, we’ll be having a lot of parties most likely, and the rooms are so
small.”
“This is quite a big room,” said Dot.
“Well, you two don’t have much company,” said Sue.
Dot thought this was a bit pointed. “I’m pregnant,” she said, “and I
wouldn’t have a party now for Gloria Swanson. It’s too much trouble.”
“You’re quite right,” said Sue. “That one I gave Christmas Eve was
certainly a bother, and you have no idea what it cost.”
Dot had a fairly good idea what it had cost. Christmas morning Mrs.
Cudahy had told Eddie how the liquor which had been consumed had been
given to Mr. Cudahy bottle by bottle from people who had expected
tickets and hadn’t got them.
Funny the way a girl will put on airs after her marriage, particularly
if she has been the pursuer and has finally felled her prey.
Both conversations perished. Eddie had told Pat all that the layman
could understand about neutrodynes. Dot was sulking quietly at Sue’s
attitude.
Presently Sue said: “It’s about as lively as a funeral here. What’s the
matter with you two?”
“Nothing,” said Dot.
“What do you say we all go to Poppyland?” Sue jumped to her feet and
looked at Eddie.
“No,” said Dot.
Eddie was ready to follow her lead, but her emphatic refusal stirred
his curiosity. “Why not?” he asked.
Dot hadn’t considered that there would be questions. “Oh,” she said, “I
don’t know.”
“Come on.” Sue was now impatient of delay.
“What’s the matter, Kid?” Eddie’s conscience was troubling him. He felt
that he knew what had caused her refusal. Had he dished the poor kid
out of her fun?
“I don’t want to go, Eddie. If you want to go, go ahead. Sue will dance
with you.”
“Is it because I said that the other night about how you look?”
Dot might have consoled him, but Sue spoke before she had the chance.
“Oh, come on, Dot. Nobody would know you were pregnant. You look fine.
Come on.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, let me alone, the two of you,” cried Dot. “I’m
pregnant, and I’m nervous, and I’m cranky, and it costs money to dance,
and I’m saving for my baby, and shut up!”
“Well,” said Sue, sweetly, “don’t you mind, honey, this is Pat’s treat.
It won’t cost you a nickel. Come on.”
Dot got quickly from her chair and ran to the bedroom. She carried
with her the memory of the expression on Pat Macy’s face. He had been
looking at Sue, and there had been embarrassment and shock in his gaze.
She threw herself on the bed and cried. Nobody cared about her baby.
Eddie had wanted to go. Had she told him that it was bad for the baby,
he would probably still have wanted to go. Nobody cared. It don’t pay
to go against what your husband wants. He didn’t want the baby.
Dot cried until she heard the door close behind Sue and Pat. Then she
dried her eyes and returned to the living-room. Eddie had turned on the
radio set.
“Gee, you were nasty to them,” he said.
“I don’t care. She makes me sick.”
“Well,” said Eddie, “I don’t care either. Only soon you won’t have any
friends.”
“I’ll have my baby,” said Dot.
Eddie turned abruptly from the radio set. “Will he take the place of
your friends and the Poppyland?” he asked.
Hm, here he was worrying about the damn old dance hall. No use fighting
with him. Give him the answer he wants, and have peace in the family.
“I only meant,” she replied, “that he’ll sop up so darn much of my time
that I won’t have many nights for people anyhow.”
“Oh,” said Eddie.
Nothing more was said about the Macys, nor of the time when Dot
would be held captive in the little three-room home. The days passed
uneventfully. Dot sewed--dresses, diapers, petticoats, bellybands.
Eddie worked. The weeks slipped by.
One day she went down to see the sanitarium of which the doctor had
spoken. She took twenty-five dollars with her for a deposit. Dr.
Stewart had told her that this was the correct mode of procedure.
It was April now, and to Dot’s young, slim figure there had come a
change, a sudden impressive maturity, a simple, sweet promise that soon
she too would be ready to give. A tree in blossom. A bush in bloom.
She wore a cape drawn tightly about her. If there’s a fur collar lying
around, all one has to do is get two yards of material and sew it at
the neck, line it with some bright shade of silk, put the fur collar
on, and there’s a cape.
The sanitarium was on One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street, as Dr.
Stewart had said. It was in a row of brick houses. Two of them had been
used in the creating of the sanitarium. Ivy covered the front of the
house, and a nurse in stiff white linen sat on the stoop, anxiously
assuring herself that it was spring.
Behind, in front, and to one side was New York’s Congo. The rows of
houses with their signs “For Colored Tenants” drew Dot’s attention. She
was pregnant. She was going to buy a bed upon which she might lie for
the duration of her pain.
“Gee,” thought Dot. “Niggers. But I guess you don’t care who your
neighbors are once the pain starts.”
Inside the sanitarium it was hard to remember the ivy which climbed
so green and inviting outside. There was a strong odor of ether and
disinfectant. Dot felt small and frightened, defenseless. But what
could she do? She had to have a place to have her baby. She felt that
she would die with her pain in the strange, unfriendly, chemical
atmosphere.
The nurse who had sat so idly on the stoop became a brisk, swift-footed
messenger. In the time that it took Dot to be waved into a small,
rather dingy office and to find a chair, the nurse had summoned the
proprietor.
He was not a doctor. He was merely a man who for some strange unknown
reason had decided on a sanitarium for his career. Had he not decided
on a sanitarium, he might have been a bond salesman or a confidence
man. He was over six feet tall and of great bulk. He had a red, jolly
face and a quick, convincing smile. He put Dot at her ease. He wore
his personality as a woman wears an orchid. He told amusing stories
of women who had been his guests. He made Dot feel that of course her
confinement would be a bit more important than any he had ever housed
before. She had an idea that he would be running in and out of her room
to admire her baby, to raise her spirits, to ask if there were anything
else he might do. He stated his prices in a careless, offhand manner,
as though if she didn’t have the money it wouldn’t make a particle of
difference.
Dot liked him at once. She felt now that she had a friend in the place,
some one who’d sort of look after her. Of course, she couldn’t possibly
know that never again after receiving her receipt for twenty-five
dollars (balance to be paid upon admission of patient) would she see
the jolly, big-brotherly sanitarium barker.
A nurse showed her over the place. It was an old house. There was no
elevator. Women were brought from the delivery room on stretchers by
nurse-power. One flight up was the delivery room. Too bad Mrs. Collins
couldn’t take a look at it, but there was a patient on the table just
now. Yes, they had another delivery room, but the men were cleaning it.
Now here was a nice front room Mrs. Collins could have. Two hundred and
twenty-five dollars. Well, it was a very large room. They had others.
For instance, behind this door was a lovely, comfortable room for only
a hundred and seventy-five. Unfortunately there was a patient in it at
the present time, and Mrs. Collins wouldn’t be able to see it. Over
here was a room that got the sun all day long. Only a hundred and fifty.
“Have you got anything for a hundred and twenty-five?” asked Dot,
timidly.
“Yes, we have a couple,” said the nurse. “But they’re very small, and
you have to remember that you’re going to be here in the middle of
summer. For twenty-five dollars more you might as well be comfortable.”
“May I see the ones that are a hundred and twenty-five?” asked Dot.
“Certainly.”
They walked up another flight of steps. On the way they passed a
pretty, brown-eyed nurse carrying a tray. She looked at Dot and smiled
faintly. Dot smiled back at her.
“Has Mrs. King gone yet?” asked Dot’s guide.
“No,” said the brown-eyed nurse. “Her doctor’s making her stay another
day.”
Dot’s guide shook her head as though Mrs. King’s doctor were a person
of inexplicable actions.
“We can only see one of the rooms,” she said. “We only have two at that
price, and one of them is taken.”
Dot saw the room. It was Number Nine. It was as wide as Dot’s bathroom
and but a trifle longer. A snow-white bed, a less snow-white bureau,
and a little stiff-backed chair had been squeezed in somehow. A table
stood by the bed, a small table. There was a telephone on the shelf
above the bed.
“This is a hundred and twenty-five,” the nurse announced in the tone of
one who says: “That’s what you get for being cheap.”
“Oh,” said Dot. “It’s so tiny.”
The nurse read in her voice the hopelessness of one who cannot spend
another cent, and a feeling of pity prompted her to make a suggestion.
“You could go in the ward,” she said, brightly.
“The ward,” echoed Dot.
“Yes. Of course, it isn’t the kind of ward that perhaps you’re
thinking of. There’s only four beds in it--and it’s only a hundred
dollars.”
As she spoke she led the way next door. A large room jumped at Dot out
of the dim hallway. It was the largest room Dot had ever seen. Two
beds stood at the east wall and two at the west. The southern end of
the room was all windows. Air and light were here in abundance. Two of
the beds were vacant at the moment. The other two held women that were
nursing their infants and were not at all concerned with the sightseer.
Dot realized that it was because these women had paid the sanitarium’s
lowest price that intrusion upon them was permissible.
A hundred dollars and the same care that you got for more money, the
nurse assured her. Of course, you didn’t have the privacy, but some
people preferred the ward because you never got lonely. There was one
other difference. The blankets in the private rooms were blue-striped
and pink-striped, while the ward blankets were all gray. Dot felt that
she could bear up under this.
She decided in favor of the ward. Then she was shown the nursery and
the bathroom and was permitted to depart.
“We’ll mail you a list of the things you’ll need while you’re here,”
promised the nurse.
Dot went home. She was not in a remarkably pleasant frame of mind, but
she was pleased that she had cheated the tiny room and that she had
gained twenty-five dollars by so doing. She consulted the card from her
Postal Savings account which told how close she was to her goal. She
had done well. She had managed to save thirty-five dollars a month. She
had a hundred and fifty now that the twenty-five had been paid to the
sanitarium.
The twenty-five saved on the room was not a bit of casual luck but
actually a godsend, she realized in looking over her account. For,
though he had said nothing about it, Dot had observed that the suit
which Eddie wore for “good” was rapidly going from bad to worse. He
would probably visit her every evening at the sanitarium, and she would
feel so bad for him if he didn’t look as decent as the other women’s
husbands. Yes, he could get a suit with that twenty-five.
Dot stretched herself out on the bed. She was tired. She had walked a
great deal. Her idea of reaching the sanitarium had been wrong. She had
had to walk all over the City College grounds to find the place. Hills,
steps. Why wasn’t a city perfectly flat? Why wasn’t--
Suddenly Dot sat bolt upright on the bed and her expression suggested
that she was listening to something. One of her hands moved tenderly
and rested on her abdomen. She closed her eyes, and two tears, hot and
glistening, appeared on her lashes. Grateful tears.
The baby had moved.