Part 2

This life here don't seem real to me. I went to bed at nine o'clock, which I don't remember I have ever done in my life before. Even as a kid I was on the streets until ten or eleven o'clock and, in the last three years, three in the morning has been my bye-bye time. I went up to a little room under the roof, and lay awake until almost morning, hearing such a lot of strange sounds that I was as nervous as a hen. There was a big tree by the corner of the house, and its branches would swish across the roof as if a ghost was trying to get in the window. Talk about the quiet of a country night, I never heard so many sounds in all my life and they all seemed sad. The little frogs go chug, chug, as if their hearts was broken, and every once in a while, the tinkle of the cow-bell from some pasture down below, would come to me. There is a night bird called the whip-o-will that set in a tree up near the barn and called another one across the lake whose answer I could just hear. There is a funny animal up here called the bull-frog, who sets upon a log over at the back of the lake and hollars at his friends. The first time I heard them, it nearly scared a lung from me, but now I lie in bed and laugh when they commence. I thought the Smiths were joshing me when they showed me the little thing that made such a big noise. Wouldn't it be nice if we could make a noise as big according to our size as the bull-frog does to his? I know lots of people that I would like to sit on a log and hollar at.

It seemed I had just shut my eyes when they called me to breakfast, but it was beautiful. We ate out in front of the kitchen door and saw a gray mist rise over the lake all turning to rose when the sun touched it. It looked like a pink silk dancing petticoat under a gray chiffon skirt. Did you ever eat at a table under a great big tree looking out on the water? You know you eat different. You eat slow, and you think of the things you love, the things you have read about, and of what you would like to be. The toast seems crisper, and the coffee tastes better, and you forget the rotten crowd and old New York and the hot, dry streets and the Childs restaurants and the dance halls and the whole bum world. Then our evenings are so happy! We row around the lake and afterwards come home and water the flowers. We must pump the water from the pump in the kitchen and carry it in pails. I had one side of the lawn and Mrs. Smith had the other side, and last night my flowers took fifteen pails. It makes my back ache, and the pump coughs as if it had the T. B., but the flowers are so pretty, and they look so happy and so old fashioned in the big green tubs, that I am willing to do anything for them. Mrs. Smith has learnt me their names. There are pansies with purple and yellow faces, and proud red dahlias, and China astors and hollyhocks against the wall, and flox all mixed together in a way that shows, as Mrs. Smith says, that there is no social standing in the country. There are some poor tea roses that by mistake got planted in a bed of merrigolds, and they are not doing very well and act unhappy. Each morning I go over them all and take away the foolish green worms that always crawl back in the night, although I throw them over the fence.

Then, when all the "chores," as Mr. Smith calls them are done, we shut the boat-house door and set on the veranda and watch the moon as it goes down over the tree tops. It shines so beautiful through the pine trees at the edge of the lake. Everyone is quiet. Even the babies snuggle down in our arms and stop their chattering. There are two great toads that live under the front veranda, who come out on the walk and look at each other as only toads in love can look, and there is a cricket in the tree down by the lake that calls to a lady cricket who lives over by the ice house. She answered lovingly for two evenings, but I guess now she is gone, and he sets in his lonely tree, and calls and calls, and no soft-voiced cricket says, "Yes, dear." There is a loud-voiced cricket that sets near the boat-house door, and says, "Come to me, come to me," and I fear my lady cricket has gone to him.

Then we take our little lamps and go to bed, and I have the baby near me if I want to speak to him. I use to have to read till I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, but now sleep seems to come to me just like a friend. Some way I feel that this is the right life, and if I only could live it long enough, I might become a woman after all.

_Nan_.

VII

_Dear Kate_:

I have had the grandest week. It is Billy's birthday, and I come out to stay two days with him and have stayed on and on and won't go back until next Monday. I brought out both the kids a white pique suit and white shoes and stockings, and they look awful cunning. I always buy something for Paul, because it seems kind of selfish to give to Billy and not to the other one. I don't think the Smiths have much money. He was a teacher in a school in England, and his health broke down and he come to America because he thought he could do better here, but I don't think every thing is going just as he thought it would. His brother is in Australia, and is doing fine, and I guess they wish that they had gone there instead. He is an awful nice man and knows all about the birds, and the trees, and the flowers, and he tells it to me and it has changed lots of things for me, because I know all the sounds now and what they mean, and they talk to me instead of being just noises.

I am learning to be a housekeeper, and "I help round," as Mrs. Smith says, all day. We washed Monday and I never knew it took such work to just wash clothes. I have washed handkerchiefs and some of Billy's things up in my room, but here we wash sheets and pillow cases and table clothes and shirt waists. Talk about shirt waists! I use to tell Mrs. Murphy that did mine up, that she was an old thief, cause she charged me twenty cents for them, but now I know she earned her money all right. First Mrs. Smith soaked the clothes over night with some white powder in the water. Then Mr. Smith fished the washing machine out of the lake where it was put where its seams would swell up, and I turned the handle of the thing, till I thought my arm would come off, but it was rather fun, as it was out-of-doors and I could watch the chip-monks as they come looking for scraps from the kitchen. There is some squirrels in the trees, and they look so pretty setting up on their haunches with their long bushy tails curled over their backs, nibbling away at a nut. If I lived in the country, I wouldn't keep a cat, because it kills the chip-monks and birds. The young black birds are just now trying to leave their nests, and sometimes they fall out and set on the ground under the bushes and call their father and mother with a funny little chirp sound, and the cat hears it and creeps with her stomach close to the ground till she is close to the baby bird, and then pounces like lightening on him, and the poor little chap cries for help most like a human baby. The mother bird will fight for her little ones, as long as she can, and sometimes I wish she would peck the old cat's eyes out. I spent a good share of my time chasing the cat from place to place, but even after doing that and watching the chip-monks and squirrels and stopping to keep the children from falling off the dock, I got the washing done at last, and Mrs. Smith rinsed and blued the clothes and hung part of them up on a line and part she spread on the grass to bleach. My clothes looked surprised as they never found themselves in such a place before, laying on nice clean grass with the hot sun blazing down on them. They seemed sort of happy, and they took such odd positions that I looked at them in wonder, hardly knowing my old friends. But they got whiter and whiter, and we gathered them in when the dusk come and they smelled so sweet, that I am sure I will have to carry clean thoughts for the rest of the week.

Mrs. Smith lets me gather the vegetables for dinner. Every morning after the dishes are washed, I go across the road to the garden and pick the string-beans and gather summer squash and grub around the nice smelly earth for potatoes. I get the dirt all under my finger nails, and can just see the duchess at Gimble's who manicures me, when she takes my lily-white hands in hers next time. I pick the cucumbers from the vines, and I never in all my life saw such big tomatoes. Then we come down the path, Billy carrying a cucumber in each hand, because they don't break if he drops them, and Paul with a summer squash swinging by the neck, and me with my apron piled full of things that smell of the vines.

There is nothing to drink up here, and I don't miss it and I don't bring cigarettes with me. My friends think it ain't nice to smoke, and I would not hurt them for worlds. Their friendship and the love they show me is worth more than all the drinks or smokes in little old New York. Why, I would give up anything just to see the look in their faces when they meet me at the station, and I know they really want me to come.

It rained yesterday, not a dull, drizzling rain like we have in the City, but a happy "I am good for you" rain, that washed old mother earth's face and left quiet gray shadows on the lake. I never thought I could think a rain was pretty, but yesterday it was just beautiful as it came down slantwise on the water. We heard it coming long before it got to us, sounded just like the patter patter of soft footed things on a chifon carpet, and way across the lake we could see a blue-gray wall that come nearer and nearer till it got to us. Then when the rain was finished, the lake looked like a dull looking glass with every leaf and tree showing in its face. The birds began to call to one another again, and the robbins came out on the lawn looking for worms. There is one saucy robbin who comes toward me and cocks his little head and says, "Am I not a little dandy? Do I not hold myself as a gentleman should?" Then he finds a big fat worm and pulls and tugs until he gets him loose and flies away to his wife and babies because, although his vest is far too gay for a person who is the main support, quite likely of a large and growing family, he don't seem to have the air of a bachelor. There is a loon at the other end of the lake that laughs just like a person, and twice I have seen a big bird walking around on the edge of the water that Mr. Smith says is a blue heron. When we go up into the woods, little red lizzards with gold spots run across the path, and the babies try to get them. I have been fishing twice, but I won't do it no more, as I can't bear to take the hooks out of the fish's mouth, so when the others go I will stay on shore and watch the funny water-bugs that make such big jumps. If we could jump like them, one good hop would take us from 14th Street to the Grand Central, and there would be no use for the subway.

I just live out-of-doors, setting on the veranda watching the mist rise over the lake, or, when I am not helping Mrs. Smith, spending long hours lying flat on my back looking up at the sky and wondering if there is some path for me, and if I will ever find it. I think it is good to get close to the ground, and I tell it all my secrets. It gives me strength, and a sort of hope I never had before.

Oh, Kate, I am so happy here! You know I have been hungry all these years and didn't know it, just hungry for friends. I wanted love that you didn't have to watch, and these people give it to me. They show me that they want me and I have a part in their life, eat the things they eat and hear their home talk and am just one of them. You know I never tasted food, no matter how much it cost, that tastes so good as it does out here. It ain't just the things, if you got lots of money you can buy them, but it is the something that goes with the "why, come right in, you are in time for dinner." If it was only potatoes and salt, the way they offer it to you makes it better than a dinner party at Martin's. In the afternoon, we have tea and bread and butter and preserves that Mrs. Smith has made herself. She is English you know, and says she could not go without her afternoon tea any more than she could go without her breakfast. And we set and talk and laugh and I feel as if there was such a thing as windows in one's soul, mine are all open to the sunlight for the first time.

Good night, Kate dear. Do I seem sort of stupid to you? I know you wouldn't like it here, as it is too far from Broadway, but I love it! We have been out on the water all evening, each sitting in our end of the boat with a lot of pillows at our back and looking at the moon. You know I never seemed to have known the moon before, he is a new friend that I have made at Lake Rest, and life will never be quite the same now I have known him. He makes me dream and I plan such a happy future for you and me and Billy, and when I look at him there is nothing but rose leaves in life. But--well--it is a new moon now, I wonder what the old moon will say.

Lovingly, _Nan_.

VIII

_Dear Kate_:

It is raining and I am staying in the room cause I bit my tongue last night and I can't talk. I am sore. Sometimes I think I will never do a good trick for a person as long as I live, and then, when the time comes I am always Mr. Easymark. Last night I was coming along home after work about two o'clock, and it was cold and rainy and a miserably bum night. At the corner of Sixth Avenue I saw a fellow all sort of hunched up, walking along as if he had a jag. As I went by him I saw it was Fred Dennis, and he sure looked all in. He was shaking as if he had chills and fever, and I stopped and asked him what was the matter. He said he just come out of the hospital where he had typhoid. Between you and me, I think he had been in the jag ward at Bellevue, but that was none of my business, and he sure needed help. He said he was stone broke, that he didn't have the price for a ten-cent lodging house, and he give me a touch. First I thought I would cough, then I looked in his shifty eyes, and I knew he would go straight to Kelly's and get a drink and take a chance of sleeping on the floor, so I said to him, "You come up to my room, and I will make you some hot cocoa, and you go to bed in a _bed_. That is what you need, or you will be costing the City a funeral." I sneaked him up to the room and had him put on that old Japanese wadded wrapper of mine and get in bed, and I made him some hot cocoa. His teeth chattered like they was playing a tune, but I piled all my bed clothes on him and my winter coat and most of my clothes and when he got warm, I went in and slept with Myrtle Seaman. She has only a single bed, and I went to turn over in the night and fell out and bit my tongue. Say, but it is sore. It seems to fill my whole mouth, and I spend most of my time setting in front of the looking glass to see if the swelling is stopped.

But my tongue ain't half as sore as I was, when I went into my room this morning thinking I would make Fred some coffee and give him a half a dollar, so as he could get a square meal. Now what do you think that piker had done? He had copped everything in my room that he could hock. He took my black bag, my winter coat, my new green silk petticoat that I got to wear with my slit skirt, the buckles off my dancing slippers, and the little silver frame that had Billy's picture in it. My can of cocoa was gone and he even sneaked the bottle of milk in front of the door. Can you beat that for nerve! Now, the next time I see a bum standing on a corner, shaking his teeth out with the cold, he can stand there and scatter his pearls from 14th Street to 42nd for all me.

I am just sore to-day. I have been a setting here and a thinking that this game ain't worth it. There must be something better somewhere than living from hand to mouth with people that would steal the pennies off your eyes. You can't tell where you stand with any of them. They will be good to you one minute, and the next minute do you a dirty trick. Just like Ethel Rooney who sat up three nights running with Mamie Callahan when she was sick, then pinched her only pair of slippers. I believe crooks have something wrong down deep inside of them. They never do nothing like other people. Their hearts are good, they will go to the pen for a friend rather than peach on him, and yet that friend wouldn't trust him alone in his room with a five dollar bill, and the women--if they don't steal each other's money, they steal each other's fellows if they're left around careless-like.

I sent your letter to Jim, and I told you before, I paid the storage man. Don't get so blue, it won't be long, and I am doing everything I can for you. You are always a kicking at me, Kate, and I am a doing the best I know how. I am working like a dog, and I don't spend a cent for myself more than I have to. I am a thinking of you, Kate, and I love you even if you do seem to always have a grouch against me.

Yours, _Nan_.

IX

_Dear Kate_:

I haven't wrote you for a long time, cause I know you will be sore at what I am going to tell you, and I was afraid you would tell some of the old crowd where I was, and they would queer me in some way. I have been doing housework, Kate. Yes, I can see you throw a fit as you read it, but it will tell you one reason why I have not been able to send you any money the last two months. I had been dancing steady for a long time and I got dead tired of the crowd. The bum faces and the cheap girls and the dirty restaurants and the fresh waiters got on my nerves and it even spoiled my work. Mrs. Smith has been after me for a long time to leave it. She just talks to me and talks to me every time I go over there. I got half sick and went over to Lake Rest for a couple of weeks, and I used to lie at nights up in my room a hearing the sounds and a feeling the quiet, and in some way it made me hate the sidewalks and the hot dusty streets and the dance halls and the nights when I was up till morning and the days when I was a feeling like a boiled owl. I talked it all over with Mrs. Smith and she didn't want me to do clerking, cause I would still have to live in a room, and it is the people in the rooming houses she is dead sore at. She wants me to do something that will take me away from the crowd. Then she asked me if I would be willing to do house work. I told her I would be willing to try scrubbing, that sometimes it seemed that any old thing was better than what I have been doing for the last seven years. But I told her I didn't know nothing about housework, as I don't remember ever having been in a real house except hers. I lived in furnished rooms all my life but I was willing to learn and it seems to me if you are only willing to try, you can learn anything. I stayed with her two weeks, and she showed me how to cook potatoes, to fix meat, and I think the first day I made an apple pie all by myself, I nearly bust with pride. Why, Kate, there is a joy in just making something. To take some apples and some flour and butter and lard and to fix it all yourself, then take it out of the oven crisp and hot and have some one say, "Ain't that fine"! Why, you feel you have really _done_ something. It must be like when an artist paints a great picture. I had _made_ something, something that is a part of me. The last week I was there, she let me get all the meals, and if I ever marry a man, I would want to do all the cooking myself. I don't think there could be any bigger happiness for a woman who really loved her man, than to see him eat the food that she had fixed with her own hands, and if I could hear a man of mine say, "Pass me them biscuits, Nan," or "You sure can make good gravey," well--I would have all that is coming to me. I learned to set a table and how to put the right knives and the right forks in the right places, and I always put a bowl of flowers in the middle. Sometimes they was yellow nasturcheons, and I would mix them in with leaves and put them in a big yellow bowl and they would make the food taste better just to look at them. Often the babies and me would go out in the fields and get great arms full of daisies and I would put them in with some pretty ferns we had around the house, or else I would gather red poppies, and wheat and it would make it look as if all out-doors was a growing on the table.

Mrs. Smith showed me how to make a bed just right, and to dust and sweep, to iron the clothes and to do all the things that women must know if they keep a house clean. But finally she said she thought I would do, and one day she went over town to a friend of hers that lives up in the Bronx. What she told her I don't know, but anyway I got a job and I went over to my room and packed my things, and I have been here two months. It was hard at first, as I didn't know how to manage, and couldn't make my head save my legs. But I got along somehow, although at night I used to be so dead tired that two or three times I cried myself to sleep. The woman ain't as nice as Mrs. Smith, she is kind of suspicious of me, and watches me a lot, and she feels I ought to know more than I do and tells me to do things without telling me how. But I am going to stick it out. The main trouble is that it is devilish lonesome. At night after I get the dishes done, there ain't no place to go except a little room which looks out on a courtyard, and there is nothing to do and nobody to talk to, and I set by myself trying to think things all over. Sometimes I think I am a fool to work like a dog a whole week and only get six dollars for it, and then again I remember all Mrs. Smith said to me, and the nice letters she writes me telling me to be brave and that I am doing the square thing. My afternoons off I don't take, because I don't want to see the old crowd, and I don't know no one else. Every two weeks I have been over to see Billy, but it costs quite a lot, and after I pay $3.50 a week for his board, I ain't what you call a J. D. Rockefeller. I used always to take the kid some little thing, but now it has to be so darned little you can't see it. The woman next door has got a baby, and she knits things for it, and I asked the woman I worked for if she would ask the woman to learn me how to knit. She was awful nice about it, and I bought a lot of white yarn, and nights up in my room I made Billy and Paul each a jacket, and now I am making them some mittens, so when it gets cold they can wear them when they play outside. Next week after I get my pay, I am going to get some of that grey pusey yarn and make them each a cap.