Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 17

"Yes, indeed," a.s.sented Susan. "I wonder where I could leave my bundle for a while. I'm a stranger and I want to look for a boarding house."

"You might leave it here with me," said the young man. "That's about our biggest line of trade--that and postage stamps and telephone--_and_ the directory. "He laughed heartily. Susan did not see why; she did not like the sound, either, for the young man's deformity of lower jaw deformed his laughter as well as his speech. However, she smiled politely and ate and drank her soda slowly.

"I'll be glad to take care of your bundle," the young man said presently. "Ever been here before?"

"No," said Susan. "That is, not since I was about four years old."

"I was four," said the young man, "when a horse stepped on my mouth in the street."

"My, how dreadful!" exclaimed Susan.

"You can see some of the scar yet," the young man a.s.sured her, and he pointed to his curiously sunken mouth. "The doctors said it was the most remarkable case of the kind on record,"

continued he proudly. "That was what led me into the medical line. You don't seem to have your boarding house picked."

"I was going to look in the papers."

"That's dangerous--especially for a young lady. Some of them boarding houses--well, they're no better'n they ought to be."

"I don't suppose you know of any?"

"My aunt keeps one. And she's got a vacancy, it being summer."

"I'm afraid it'd be too expensive for me," said Susan, to feel her way.

The young man was much flattered. But he said, "Oh, it ain't so toppy. I think you could make a deal with her for five per."

Susan looked inquiring.

"Five a week--room and board."

"I might stand that," said Susan reflectively. Then, deciding for complete confidence, "I'm looking for work, too."

"What line?"

"Oh, I never tried anything. I thought maybe dressmaking or millinery."

"Mighty poor season for jobs. The times are bad, anyhow." He was looking at her with kindly curiosity. "If I was you, I'd go back home--and wait."

Susan shrank within herself. "I can't do that," she said.

The young man thought awhile, then said: "If you should go to my aunt's, you can say Mr. Ellison sent you. No, that ain't me.

It's the boss. You see, a respectable boarding house asks for references."

Susan colored deeply and her gaze slowly sank. "I didn't know that," she murmured.

"Don't be afraid. Aunt Kate ain't so particular--leastways, not in summer when things is slow. And I know you're quiet."

By the time the soda was finished, the young man--who said his name was Robert Wylie--had written on the back of Ellison's business card in a Spencerian hand: "Mrs. Kate Wylie, 347 West Sixth Street." He explained that Susan was to walk up two squares and take the car going west; the conductor would let her off at the right place. "You'd better leave your things here,"

said Mr. Wylie, holding up the card so that they could admire his penmans.h.i.+p together. "You may not hit it off with Aunt Kate.

Don't think you've got to stay there just because of me."

"I'm sure I'll like it," Susan declared confidently. Her spirits were high; she felt that she was in a strong run of luck.

Wylie lifted her package over the counter and went to the door with her to point out the direction. "This is Fourth. The next up is Fifth. The next wide one is Sixth--and you can read it on the lamp-post, too."

"Isn't that convenient!" exclaimed Susan. "What a lovely city this is!"

"There's worse," said Mr. Wylie, not to seem vain of his native town.

They shook hands most friendly and she set out in the direction he had indicated. She was much upset by the many vehicles and the confusion, but she did her best to seem at ease and at home.

She watched a girl walking ahead of her--a shopgirl who seemed well-dressed and stylish, especially about the hat and hair.

Susan tried to walk like her. "I suppose I look and act greener than I really am," thought she. "But I'll keep my eyes open and catch on." And in this, as in all her thoughts and actions since leaving, she showed confidence not because she was conceited, but because she had not the remotest notion what she was actually attempting. How many of us get credit for courage as we walk unconcerned through perils, or essay and conquer great obstacles, when in truth we are not courageous but simply unaware! As a rule knowledge is power or, rather, a source of power, but there are times when ignorance is a power and knowledge a weakness. If Susan had known, she might perhaps have stayed at home and submitted and, with crushed spirit, might have sunk under the sense of shame and degradation. But she did not know; so Columbus before his sailors or Caesar at the Rubicon among his soldiers did not seem more tranquil than she really was. Wylie, who suspected in the direction of the truth, wondered at her. "She's game, she is," he muttered again and again that morning. "What a nerve for a kid--and a lady, too!"

She found the right corner and the right car without further adventure; and the conductor a.s.sured her that he would set her down before the very door of the address on the card. It was an open car with few pa.s.sengers. She took the middle of the long seat nearest the rear platform and looked about her like one in a happy dream. On and on and yet on they went. With every square they pa.s.sed more people, so it seemed to her, than there were in all Sutherland. And what huge stores! And what wonderful displays of things to wear! Where would the people be found to buy such quant.i.ties, and where would they get the money to pay?

How many restaurants and saloons! Why, everybody must be eating and drinking all the time. And at each corner she looked up and down the cross streets, and there were more and ever more magnificent buildings, throngs upon throngs of people. Was there no end to it? This was Sixth Street, still Sixth Street, as she saw at the corner lamp-posts. Then there must be five more such streets between this and the river; and she could see, up the cross streets, that the city was even vaster in the direction of the hills. And there were all these cross streets! It was stupefying--overwhelming--incredible.

She began to be nervous, they were going so far. She glanced anxiously at the conductor. He was watching her interestedly, understood her glance, answered it with a rea.s.suring nod. He called out:

"I'm looking out for you, miss. I've got you on my mind. Don't you fret."

She gave him a bright smile of relief. They were pa.s.sing through a double row of what seemed to her stately residences, and there were few people on the sidewalks. The air, too, was clearer, though the walls were grimy and also the gra.s.s in the occasional tiny front yards. But the curtains at the windows looked clean and fresh, and so did the better cla.s.s of people among those on the sidewalk. It delighted her to see so many well-dressed women, wearing their clothes with an air which she told herself she must acquire. She was startled by the conductor's calling out:

"Now, miss!"

She rose as he rang the bell and was ready to get off when the car stopped, for she was eager to cause him as little trouble as possible.

"The house is right straight before you," said the conductor.

"The number's in the transom."

She thanked him, descended, was on the sidewalk before Mrs.

Wylie's. She looked at the house and her heart sank. She thought of the small sum in her purse; it was most unlikely that such a house as this would harbor her. For here was a grand stone stairway ascending to a deep stone portico, and within it great doors, bigger than those of the Wright mansion, the palace of Sutherland. However, she recalled the humble appearance and mode of speech of her friend the drug clerk and plucked up the courage to ascend and to ring.

A slattern, colored maid opened the door. At the first glance within, at the first whiff of the interior air, Susan felt more at ease. For she was seeing what even her bedazzled eyes recognized as cheap dowdiness, and the smell that a.s.sailed her nostrils was that of a house badly and poorly kept--the smell of cheap food and bad b.u.t.ter cooking, of cats, of undusted rooms, of various unrecognizable kinds of staleness. She stood in the center of the big dingy parlor, gazing round at the grimed chromos until Mrs. Wylie entered--a thin middle-aged woman with small brown eyes set wide apart, a perpetual frown, and a chin so long and so projected that she was almost jimber-jawed. While Susan explained stammeringly what she had come for, Mrs. Wylie eyed her with increasing disfavor. When Susan had finished, she unlocked her lips for the first time to say:

"The room's took."

"Oh!" cried Susan in dismay.

The telephone rang in the back parlor. Mrs. Wylie excused herself to answer. After a few words she closed the doors between. She was gone fully five minutes; to Susan it seemed an hour. She came back, saying:

"I've been talking to my nephew. He called up. Well, I reckon you can have the room. It ain't my custom to take in ladies as young as you. But you seem to be all right. Your parents allowed you to come?"

"I haven't any," replied Susan. "I'm here to find a place and support myself."

Mrs. Wylie continued to eye her dubiously. "Well, I have no wish to pry into your affairs. 'Mind your own business,' that's my rule." She spoke with defiance, as if the contrary were being a.s.serted by some invisible person who might appear and gain hearing and belief. She went on: "If Mr. Ellison wants it, why I suppose it's all right. But you can't stay out later'n ten o'clock."

"I shan't go out at all of nights," said Susan eagerly.

"You _look_ quiet," said Mrs. Wylie, with the air of adding that appearances were rarely other than deceptive.