Jane Journeys On Part 19

I rush into the house glowing and braced from a brisk walk but my cheer soon gutters out,--I might as well try to illuminate a London fog with a Christmas tree candle.

I try to help her with her errands and marketing and to-day I was staggering home under a load of parcels and slipped on the gla.s.sy pavement just in front of the house and fell flat. A smart motor which was spinning by slid to a standstill and the driver jumped out and ran back to me. He was a beautiful big youth and the machine was one of those low, cla.s.sy, dachshund effects in mauve. THE MAIDEN'S DREAM picked me up and all my packages and looked us all over to make sure we weren't damaged. One of the parcels contained liver, and it became unwrapped.... (Dost like the picture, Jane Vail bearing home the liver for her frugal evening meal?) He did it up very deftly and then he asked me if he couldn't give me a lift. I said he certainly could but for the fact that I was already arrived at my destination.

Then he said, "I'll give you a hand with the plunder, then. Which house?"--and THE MAIDEN'S DREAM and the liver and I mounted Mrs.

Mussel's steps together. He was as big and bonny as the impossible young persons in the backs of magazines, and he said it was tough weather to be walking and I said it was tough weather to be out of a job, and he said that was tough luck. (See how I gave him an opening, E.E.?) I thanked him and he said it was nothing and sped down to his speedster and I went in to my Christian room. Mrs. Mussel had been doing her regular Sister Anne act at the window and had "seen it all," she a.s.sured me ... I will omit her Phillipic....

JANE.

_Wednesday._

Still no gainful occupation, people! Compared to her present att.i.tude, Mrs. Mussel was Jest and Youthful Jollity before. And the blacker things get the earlier we rise. It seems to me that no sooner have I fitted myself compactly into my doll's-size bed and closed my eyes than I hear her mournful summons to another day. Oh, the inky gloom of these murky mornings! I know that the young woman who said so lyrically, "_If you're waking, call me early, call me early, Mother dear!_" is popularly supposed to have died without issue, but that is a misconception. I shrink from putting a Spoon River scandal on her mossy tombstone, but my Mrs. Mussel is her lineal descendant.

To-day I was racked by a yearning for the flesh-pots. I made myself as near smart as possible and flew for the smartest tea-room on Michigan Avenue. If I could stay me with Orange Pekoe and comfort me with toasted crumpets and English marmalade--But just as I was blithely footing it across the threshold the S.F. rose up behind me like a genie from a bottle and plucked me back.

"Edna Miles," she gasped, "my poor child, you can't eat in there!

It's the most expensive place in the city. Besides,--it is half-past four,--you'll spoil your dinner!"

_Very_ peevishly and hollowly,

JANE.

_Thursday Night. On the Joyful New Job._

Oh, my dear people, but I do believe in Fairies! I've met one personally! While we sat at melancholy mending this morning, my doleful landlady and I, after my fruitless tour of the agencies, who should dash up to our dull door but THE MAIDEN'S DREAM! In his s.h.i.+ning chariot! Mrs. Mussel said, "Edna, you go straight upstairs and lock yourself in your room and _I'll_ 'tend to him!" But I was at the door before he had time to ring the bell.

"Great luck," he said, "'fraid you'd be gone. Got a job yet?"

"No."

"Well, I was telling my sister about you, and she thinks she has just the place for you. Want to hop in the boat and run out to see her now and talk it over?"

Mrs. Mussel said of course he hadn't any sister, and that I ought to be ashamed of myself and I would probably never be seen or heard of again, and she knew he had a poison needle and she rang up the Stranger's Friend, but before she got her connection I was spinning up the North Sh.o.r.e. THE MAIDEN'S DREAM lives in a young palace and Miss Marjorie, his sister, is also Peter Pan's sister. He explained to me, as we went, that she had been thrown from her horse and would never walk again, and so she "did things for girls, you know--keeps her busy----"

She looks exactly like a Fra Angelico angel! She kept me to luncheon in her room with her--oh, flesh-pots!--hot broth and tiny chops and pop-overs and magic salad and chocolate and ginger-bread--and told me about this extraordinary job. Then THE MAIDEN'S DREAM whizzed me home for my things (I found Mrs. M. and the S.F. holding an agitated Directors' Meeting), but when the S.F. heard Miss Marjorie's last name, she beamed and brought me out here.

Miss Marjorie explained that I'm to be more or less of a maid-companion to my pretty little mistress. She's a limp and lovely nymph who's quarreled with her husband and is in hiding in this funny old house which belonged to her family, in a weird neighborhood where none of her own set would ever discover her. The house is comfortable enough inside, but the locality is a rather rough one, and there is not even a telephone. There is a cook and a cleaner-by-the-day, and the new maid-companion, so she should be reasonably well looked after.

Whoops, my dears! Fifty dollars a month and almost nothing to do!

This is the Promised Land!

Joyfully,

JANE.

_Monday._

DEAR PEOPLE,

The cook is cross because she drinks and she drinks because she is cross, and I have persuaded my nymph to let her go and give me a try at it. The cleaner-by-the-day will do the grubby things and I shall like it. Time to get luncheon! Wish you might drop in to sample my fare!

JANE.

P.S. There is the most engaging grocery boy with red hair and a heart-twisting grin. I'm not sure I wasn't considering him when I turned kitchen mechanic. Denny Dolan is his name and G.o.d loves the Iris.h.!.+

J.

_Wednesday._

It's fun, my dears, every inch of it, from my little lady's breakfast tray to Denny's extra trips with things he "forgot."

She wanted to give me the cook's wages in addition to mine, because she says I do all the work of both places, but I modestly compromised on seventy-five and on my first day out I'm going to take Mrs. Mussel a regal present.

Opulently,

JANE.

_Friday._

MY DEAR PEOPLE,

My nymph is ill and unhappy and grieving for her husband, but she won't send for him, and it's the time of all times when he should be with her. I went the five blocks to the drug store and telephoned Miss Marjorie about her, and she sent the old family doctor, and when he left her eyes were red, and I suppose he was urging her to make it up.

She's such a vague, sweet, helpless thing! This dreary neighborhood is bad for her.

Denny Dolan says "there's a hard-boiled bunch hangin' around here,"

and warns me against venturing out after dark, even to the post-box.

JANE.

P.S. He brought me a paper bag of gum drops to-day!

_A Week Later._

Almost too busy to write, my dears, what with cooking and catering and maiding and companioning. Besides, I'll have you to know I'm keeping company! It's walking out with Denny Dolan I am! I get the cleaning woman to stay with my nymph for an hour, and I'm stepping out with my young man. Twice to the movies we've been, and had dripping ice-cream cones afterwards!

So no more at present, for a girl would be thinking of her beau the way she has no time to be palavering on paper and he waiting in the alley!

DENNY'S GIRL.

_The Next Night._

I went into town to-day and I met the Buffalo just as I was leaving a Loop car, and it seemed only the fair and sporting thing to let him speak to me.