"I'm to have ten a week.So I can't afford more than twelve or fourteen a month for rent, can I?""If you happen to have to live on the ten," was the reply with a sly, merry smile.
"It's all I've got."
Again the girl laughed, the good-humored mercenary eyes twinkling rakishly."Well--you can't get much for fourteen a month.""I don't care, so long as it's clean."
"Gee, you're reasonable, ain't you?" cried the girl."Clean!
I pay fourteen a week, and all kinds of things come through the cracks from the other apartments.You must be a stranger to little old New York--bugtown, a lady friend of mine calls it.Alone?""Yes."
"Um--" The girl shook her head dubiously."Rents are mighty steep in New York, and going up all the time.You see, the rich people that own the lands and houses here need a lot of money in their business.You've got either to take a room or part of one in with some tenement family, respectable but noisy and dirty and not at all refined, or else you've got to live in a house where everything goes.You want to live respectable, I judge?""Yes."
"That's the way with me.Do what you please, __I__ say, but for _God's sake_, don't make yourself _common!_ You'll want to be free to have your gentlemen friends come--and at the same time a room you'll not be ashamed for 'em to see on account of dirt and smells and common people around.""I shan't want to see anyone in my room."
The young woman winced, then went on with hasty enthusiasm.
"I knew you were refined the minute I looked at you.I think you might get a room in the house of a lady friend of mine--Mrs.Tucker, up in Clinton Place near University Place--an elegant neighborhood--that is, the north side of the street.
The south side's kind o' low, on account of dagoes having moved in there.They live like vermin--but then all tenement people do.""They've got to," said Susan.
"Yes, that's a fact.Ain't it awful? I'll write down the name and address of my lady friend.I'm Miss Mary Hinkle.""My name is Lorna Sackville," said Susan, in response to the expectant look of Miss Hinkle.
"My, what a swell name! You've been sick, haven't you?""No, I'm never sick."
"Me too.My mother taught me to stop eating as soon as I felt bad, and not to eat again till I was all right.""I do that, too," said Susan."Is it good for the health?""It starves the doctors.You've never worked before?""Oh, yes--I've worked in a factory."
Miss Hinkle looked disappointed.Then she gave Susan a side glance of incredulity."I'd never, a' thought it.But I can see you weren't brought up to that.I'll write the address."And she went back through the showroom, presently to reappear with a card which she gave Susan."You'll find Mrs.Tucker a perfect lady--too much a lady to get on.I tell her she'll go to ruin--and she will."Susan thanked Miss Hinkle and departed.A few minutes' walk brought her to the old, high-stooped, brown-stone where Mrs.
Tucker lived.The dents, scratches and old paint scales on the door, the dust-streaked windows, the slovenly hang of the imitation lace window curtains proclaimed the cheap middle-class lodging or boarding house of the humblest grade.
Respectable undoubtedly; for the fitfully prosperous offenders against laws and morals insist upon better accommodations.Susan's heart sank.She saw that once more she was clinging at the edge of the precipice.And what hope was there that she would get back to firm ground? Certainly not by "honest labor." Back to the tenement! "Yes, I'm on the way back," she said to herself.However, she pulled the loose bell-knob and was admitted to a dingy, dusty hallway by a maid so redolent of stale perspiration that it was noticeable even in the hall's strong saturation of smells of cheap cookery.
The parlor furniture was rapidly going to pieces; the chromos and prints hung crazily awry; dust lay thick upon the center table, upon the chimney-piece, upon the picture frames, upon the carving in the rickety old chairs.Only by standing did Susan avoid service as a dust rag.It was typical of the profound discouragement that blights or blasts all but a small area of our modern civilization--a discouragement due in part to ignorance--but not at all to the cause usually assigned--to "natural shiftlessness." It is chiefly due to an unconscious instinctive feeling of the hopelessness of the average lot.
While Susan explained to Mrs.Tucker how she had come and what she could afford, she examined her with results far from disagreeable.One glance into that homely wrinkled face was enough to convince anyone of her goodness of heart--and to Susan in those days of aloneness, of uncertainty, of the feeling of hopelessness, goodness of heart seemed the supreme charm.Such a woman as a landlady, and a landlady in New York, was pathetically absurd.Even to still rather simple-minded Susan she seemed an invitation to the swindler, to the sponger with the hard-luck story, to the sinking who clutch about desperately and drag down with them everyone who permits them to get a hold.
"I've only got one room," said Mrs.Tucker."That's not any too nice.I did rather calculate to get five a week for it, but you are the kind I like to have in the house.So if you want it I'll let it to you for fourteen a month.And I do hope you'll pay as steady as you can.There's so many in such hard lines that I have a tough time with my rent.I've got to pay my rent, you know.""I'll go as soon as I can't pay," replied Susan.The landlady's apologetic tone made her sick at heart, as a sensitive human being must ever feel in the presence of a fellow-being doomed to disaster.
"Thank you," said Mrs.Tucker gratefully."I do wish----" She checked herself."No, I don't mean that.They do the best they can--and I'll botch along somehow.I look at the bright side of things."The incurable optimism of the smile accompanying these words moved Susan, abnormally bruised and tender of heart that morning, almost to tears.A woman with her own way to make, and always looking at the bright side!
"How long have you had this house?"
