Polly in New York
“It seems very strange that in such a vast city one is not able to find a decent apartment,” complained Mrs. Stewart.
“We are told ‘because of the war.’ The war is blamed for everything these days, but the real excuse for owners not building now is because of the high cost of material and labor. They are all waiting for better times; meantime people must take what can be had, or go without,” said Mr. Latimer.
“After hunting the way we have for more than a week, and not having found a suitable place, Mrs. Stewart, I would suggest your finding a nice boarding-house for the winter. If you put it off too long, even those places will be filled,” advised Mrs. Latimer.
“Dear me!” sighed Mrs. Stewart. “That was suggested this morning, but I said it seemed dreadful, when I came East just to make a home and keep house for the three girls.”
“Yes, it would be much pleasanter for everyone to have a home, but in cases like this Fall’s shortage of apartments, one must do what is most expedient,” returned Mrs. Latimer.
Mrs. Stewart told the girls, that night, what had been said, but they all felt sure something must turn up in the next day or two. So the next morning before starting out, they laid out a regular plan of work.
“Mother and Eleanor will start where we left off, yesterday, and weave a search back and forth downtown until they reach the hotel. I will take Polly and, beginning at Washington Square, work uptown until we finish. If either of us find anything at all decent, and in an agreeable neighborhood, pay down a deposit to hold it and be sure to get a receipt as a binder – Mr. Latimer told me that much. Then we will all go for the second inspection and decide. Dr. Evans said we’d better pay down several deposits rather than lose a place, as we can quickly sell out any option we have for more than we paid down.”
Having instructed her friends, Anne added one last bit of advice: “We will go as high as $3,000 a year for seven rooms, or $1,500 for four to five rooms – no more, as that is all shelter is worth. If we can’t find a place at that price, we’ll stay in a hotel!”
So the second day of house-hunting went forward by two divisions instead of one, and all that day Mrs. Stewart and Eleanor experienced the same snubs, weariness, and failures, as thousands of other home-hunters in New York had. And at evening they returned wearily to the hotel to hear what Anne had accomplished.
“Polly and she have not yet arrived,” announced Eleanor, as Mrs. Stewart and she entered their suite.
“I hope she has had better luck than we can brag about,” added Mrs. Stewart, dropping into an easy chair.
A long time after the “first division” had returned, baffled, to the hotel, Anne and Polly burst into the room with happy faces.
“Oh, we just found the most wonderful place! Polly and I actually discovered it. We were giving up all hope of ever finding a decent apartment at any reasonable figure, and had started for the subway when we saw this one. The flower-boxes caught Polly’s eye, so we are really indebted to her for having secured our home.”
Anne’s enthusiasm was contagious, and instantly Mrs. Stewart and Eleanor wanted to know where it was located.
Anne and Polly exchanged smiling glances, as if the secret was too precious to impart to others.
“I suppose you two did up the entire upper sections, to-day, eh?” asked Anne, countering their eager queries.
“Did we? I should say we did! I got a taxi for the day and we flew from one pile of stone and marble to the next, and so many rides up and down in gorgeous elevators all day has kept my head still spinning. But we had the same results as yesterday. When you inspect one of these modern honey-combs you see them all. The only difference being that a few owners manage to retain the elevator and telephone operators, while the majority of superintendents apologise by saying, ‘My help went on a strike, to-day.’
“It really looks, Anne, as if these poor New Yorkers will have to move out to the country if they want to live this year,” remarked Mrs. Stewart, earnestly.
Her companions laughed and Anne said: “Mother, you are too precocious. But now listen to our ‘find’!
“As I planned, you two went uptown while Polly and I went downtown from here. We covered all the lower sections by criss-crossing back and forth, but we came away from the Gramercy Park section, late this afternoon, with an utter sense of failure. In fact, I was silently planning to inquire about good boarding-houses, when we hailed a Lexington avenue car, going north.
“Being woolly westerners, we failed to ascertain how far northwards the car went, and having paid our fares, sat down. I remember turning to Polly and saying, ‘This is actually the first car in New York that I have been on that wasn’t crowded to the platforms.’”
Polly laughed at the remembrance, and Anne smiled. “But it was our salvation, Anne,” ventured the former.
Anne nodded and continued her story. “Then we soon learned why there were vacant seats on that car. A pleasant-faced, grey-haired man of about fifty, must have overheard my comment because he spoke to us after we were seated.
“‘Perhaps you did not know that this car goes no farther north than the next block? It is switched back downtown, from that point. Did not the conductor mention it to you?’
“I was furious, and I replied: ‘No! he never said a word when I paid the fares.’
“By this time the car stopped and the conductor called out: ‘All out – dis car goes no furder. We switch back next corner!’
“So Polly and I had to get off with the others. When we stepped down from the car, the nice man lifted his hat to us and said: ‘I judge you are strangers in the city. Can I direct you anywhere?’
“I thanked him and told him we were only going as far as Forty-second street to the hotel. Then I added, sarcastically: ‘But there may be no cars which run as far north as that street!’
“He laughed and said: ‘You had better walk over to Fourth avenue and get the car there. It takes you through the tunnel much quicker than the Lexington avenue car runs to Forty-second street. But be careful and do not board a car that stops at the car-house on Thirty-second street.’
“We all laughed at that, as it would have been just like me to do so; then we thanked him and started along Thirty-first street to reach the car. And there we found our Haven of Hope!”
“Where? Not on Thirty-first street, I trust!” exclaimed Mrs. Stewart. “Isn’t that section of the city dreadful?”
“Not the block where we found a home,” explained Anne. “It has several remodeled houses and several other flat houses on it.”
“But just wait until you see our house – it’s fine!” said Polly, eagerly.
“Polly caught hold of my arm and exclaimed: ‘Oh, Anne! see the lovely flower-boxes in that cute little house!’
“I saw three narrow windows on the second floor with green flower-boxes on the outside sills, but then my eyes dropped lower and I spied a swinging sign at a side-door. It merely said: ‘To Let’ inquire, etc. Polly saw it at the same moment, so we stood and gazed at each other.
“‘Let’s try and peep in at this window,’ suggested Polly.
“I agreed, and we did our best to see what was within; but the long iron-lattice that covered the four slits in the wide front doors, were covered from the inside. So we went to hunt up the agent.
“His office was only a few blocks down Fourth avenue, so Polly and I hurried there before it should be closed for the day. A boy was told to accompany us and we were soon inspecting the premises. Our escort offered all the information he had heard in the real estate office.
“‘This hain’t been on our books more’n a day. I just hung out the sign this morning. The last man what lived here was an artist and he fixed up everything like you see it now. But he wanted the owner to take out the stable doors and put in a studio-winder, and when the owner wouldn’t spend a cent, the artist up and moved. My boss said the next tenant would insist on having the doors taken out, so you might as well kick about them being here, and see if you’se kin get the winder in.’”
Anne’s mimicry of the office-boy was perfect and her hearers laughed, but Mrs. Stewart had caught the significant words: “Stable doors,” and now she looked deeply concerned. Anne hastened to end her narrative when she saw her mother’s expression.
“So Polly and I went back to the agent’s, heard the price of the place, and paid down half a month’s rent to hold it until you all can go with us to-morrow morning to approve of our selection.”
“Oh, Anne! how much was it a month?” exclaimed Eleanor, eagerly, while Mrs. Stewart looked dubious over such recklessness.
“One-fifty a month, and we can have a straight lease – no humbugging about clauses.”
“And how many rooms, did you say, dear?” gasped Mrs. Stewart.
“I didn’t say, mother, and I told Poll not to say more until after you see it in the morning.”
“But I like it, and it really does seem as if Providence sent us through that street,” added Polly, sighing with content.
“Eleanor, did you hear Anne say it had stable-doors?” now ventured Mrs. Stewart, fearfully.
“No! did you, Anne? Why would it have stable-doors?”
“Because in the days of horses and carriages, it was some rich man’s private stable,” laughed Anne, enjoying the horror on her mother’s face.
“A stable! Ha, ha, ha – for a Maynard of Chicago! Oh – ha, ha, ha!” laughed Eleanor, rocking back and forth.
Even Mrs. Stewart had to laugh at the picture Eleanor’s exclamation suggested – Mrs. Maynard and Barbara calling upon a member of their family who was living in an East Side stable!
Any doubt of this being just the place they wanted vanished in the morning when Anne and Polly proudly escorted Mrs. Stewart and Eleanor about their future domicile. True, it had all the ear-marks of a stable from the outside, but once you were within, there was only an artistic home to be seen. The ground-floor which had once held four stalls and a harness-room, with space for two carriages, was now partitioned off in a manner that made the most of the space. A large living-room across the front acted as entrance-hall and passageway to the rear rooms and second floor. In the corner of the living-room, where the small brick chimney had served as smoke-vent for the stove of former days, there now was a wide tiled fire-place which would hold great logs.
Double glass-paneled doors led from the front room to the dining-room with its two high-set square windows opening to the sunlight in the rear. Also a single door went to the kitchen, which also had two high windows like those in the adjoining room. From the kitchen, a back door opened upon a tiny grass-platted garden of about twenty feet square. A fine locust tree grew in one corner of the plot and gave shade in the afternoon.
Anne explained certain peculiar features regarding the windows of the back-rooms. “Don’t you see why they are so high? It is because they were once the ventilators to the stalls. Each horse had his own window for air. But I think they now make the rooms look quaint, don’t you?”
The others agreed with her, and Eleanor said: “If we had a shelf running along under the windows, it would look better.”
“And we can use it for china,” added Polly.
Anne now started to go upstairs, followed by the other three; they all examined the bedrooms and were delighted with them. There were two large front and two smaller rear rooms, with a fine tiled bathroom between the back rooms. Not one of the rooms was as small as the largest chambers seen in the modern apartments.
“And all for a hundred and fifty a month!” exclaimed Eleanor, joyously.
“I reckon we’d better take it at once, children,” said Mrs. Stewart, approvingly.
“But remember,” said Anne, on the way to the agent’s office, “we have to make all inside repairs, or redecorate as we want. There is no steam heat or hot water supplied, either, like the swell apartment houses, uptown, offer us.”
“I’d rather have it so, Anne dear,” replied Mrs. Stewart. “I’ve always been used to a coal range and those fandangled gas ideas worried me, but I didn’t say anything to you-all. I noticed what a fine little kitchen stove this one has, so you’ll always have hot water – never fear. As for heat! Well, a great open fire-place in the front room will help heat upstairs, and there is a register in the bathroom that comes from the kitchen stove-pipe.”
“We can use electric or gas radiators, Anne,” added Eleanor, eagerly, “in very cold weather.”
“I never knew what heated bedrooms were like, in Pebbly Pit, Anne,” Polly said, anxious to have a word.
“Besides we may have a very mild winter,” remarked Anne.
So the lease was signed and the first month’s rent paid. “We’ll give you any assistance you may need in getting the place in order, Mrs. Stewart,” said the agent, as he handed the papers to his new tenant.
“That will be very nice, and we will take advantage of your offer, at once. I want the kitchen range and stove pipe put in perfect working order, and please see that the radiator in the bathroom is not obstructed in any way,” said the lady.
Anne and the agent exchanged looks and laughed. “I can see where Mrs. Stewart expects to enjoy herself this winter. Well, I told my wife the other day, we were more comfortable when we had an old-fashioned flat with a kitchen range, than we now are with all the latest modern improvements,” returned the agent.
“Anne, Polly and I want our rooms repapered and painted,” whispered Eleanor, tugging at Anne’s sleeve.
“I was about to suggest that you have all the woodwork given one coat of nice fresh paint, but the paper now on the walls is very expensive and artistic, so I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry to have it done over. The last tenant imported his own paper at a great expense for that place,” explained the agent.
“I think you are very kind and sensible to advise us in this way. So we’ll have the men do the paint but not touch the paper until we have had time to look it over again,” said Anne.
“When can we move in?” questioned Polly.
“Any time you like; but I would advise having the painters out first. I will send two men to begin work in there to-morrow.”
Then the four delighted tenants left the office, and on the walk back to the corner where they wished to board the car they eagerly planned how they would furnish their home.
CHAPTER III – FURNISHING THE STABLE
“Anne, if we hurry and get the furniture, we can settle our home before school starts,” suggested Eleanor, eagerly.
“If you-all had only let me ship my stuff from Denver you wouldn’t have to buy a stick!” declared Mrs. Stewart.
They were standing on the corner waiting for an uptown car but not one was in sight. Anne showed signs of impatience but exclaimed at her mother’s remark:
“Mother, you know very well what the crating and freight would have cost, and you sold your stuff for more than it was worth. I think you are most fortunate to have that little roll of money on hand, when you consider the wear and tear your furniture has had in the last thirty years.”
“Anyway, Mrs. Stewart, I don’t want Victorian period in our house. Polly and I want to furnish and decorate our own rooms as we like. This is to be our first experiment in real artistic work,” said Eleanor, comfortingly.
Polly nodded her head at these words; but standing with her back to the curb, her face was opposite a large show-window in the corner building. Now, as if by some magnet, her eyes were attracted to what that window contained.
“Why, just see there! Right near our street is a furniture shop!” With this exclamation, Polly ran over to inspect the objects displayed in the window. A carved four-poster, and other rare antiques, drew the attention of the little group.
Polly glanced around to see what furniture shop it was that was so near their new home.
“Why! It’s an auction place. Surely, it cannot be that such wonderful things are sold in a junk room,” exclaimed Mrs. Stewart.
That made the other three look also, and Eleanor added: “It doesn’t follow that just because this is an auction house, that it must be a junk room.”
“Well, I never saw anything but awful junk in the second-hand place in Oak Creek,” explained Polly.
“Even the Denver dealers sell only junk, Nolla. But it may be different in New York. Everything seems to be different,” said Anne.
“Of course it is! Why wouldn’t it be when you stop to think of it. In the first place, no one in Oak Creek ever had anything but junk to sell. And in Denver, where everyone hangs on to every stick they have, simply because it is so difficult to get anything worth while, the poor second-hand dealer starves for want of trade. But here, as well as in Chicago, folks send stuff to places like this for sale, when they can’t find a place to move into. I just bet there will be thousands of families that will have to sell out this year just because there are not enough homes for all of them.” Eleanor’s logic was sound, and Polly ventured a suggestion.
“I’d love to go in there and see what they do with such pieces. There are lots of well-dressed people going in – come on.”
Nothing loath to see the interior of a New York second-hand shop, the westerners went to the front door. There a colored porter stood and bowed politely.
“Sale goin’ on in third room, right, ladies; have a catalogue?”
As the uniformed attendant offered Anne a pamphlet of about twenty pages, he waved them inside out of the doorway. Then he repeated his directions to the next couple who followed directly after Mrs. Stewart’s party.
To say the four friends were astonished at the size and quality of the auction-rooms is speaking mildly. Not a piece of furniture but looked rare and expensive. It seemed improbable that it all was for sale.
A second attendant now came up and said: “Sale now going on in south gallery, ladies.”
Then Anne took her courage in her hands. “We have never visited a sale before, so you will confer a favor by showing us where to go, or what to do. We are about to furnish a house.”
The man sensed a good customer, and gallantly showed them through several well-stocked rooms until they reached the last, where a smiling smooth-tongued individual sat behind a raised desk and spoke conversationally to the crowd which sat in rows before him.
“Jake, find me four chairs, in a hurry,” whispered the man who was conducting Anne’s party.
Without confusion and in a moment’s time, Jake carried over four wonderful Jacobean chairs, two in each hand, their backs to each other, and handled as recklessly as if the fine carving was made of unbreakable metal.
“Now, ladies, enjoy yourselves,” the smiling attendant said; then he stopped for a moment at the desk to say a word to the auctioneer who continued his selling as if no new victims had been introduced.
One marvelous article after another was brought forth and placed for exhibition upon the Persian rug that covered the platform in front of the audience. And one after another, the objects of art and beauty were sold to different buyers at a preposterously low figure.
But the wily auctioneer took notice that not a member of the newly arrived party was bidding on anything. He decided that this must not be, so he stood up to address the assembly.
“Friends, I know that you are here to buy and not to waste your time in mere curiosity. If there is any particular article you need, or have seen on the premises, speak out and I will oblige you by introducing it in this sale.”
He glanced over the crowd and finally allowed his gaze to rest upon the four who sat in the front row. They all felt guilty of using his time and room when they had no idea of buying any particular thing. Mrs. Stewart was about to whisper to Anne that they had better go when Eleanor spoke up fearlessly.
“I saw a four-poster in the show-window before I came in. Is it for sale?”
Her three companions felt the shock that is experienced when one does an unusual or unexpected thing. But they each felt thrilled, too, at the courage of that one.
“I regret exceedingly, my dear young lady, that that particular set of antique mahogany cannot be sold until day after to-morrow. In fact, only the contents of this vast room is for sale to-day. We take them in turn, you see. To-morrow the adjoining room goes, and the day following that everything is sold and cleared out of the third room – where the bed is.”
“But we have a four-poster in this sale, Mr. Winters,” quickly said one of the floor-men.
“Ah, indeed! Perhaps the young lady will like it as well as the other one. Bring it forward, Joe.”
Without the slightest delay, the floor-men then pulled and pushed a very elaborately carved four-posted bed out upon the dais. It was similar to the one in the window but it was smaller, this one being four feet wide while the one on exhibition for Friday’s sale was full sized.
The auctioneer spoke of all the points about this particular piece of furniture, and then began to offer it for sale. The four visitors in the front row sat as if hypnotized at his manner.
“What, no one here to appreciate this marvelous work of other days, now to be sold for three hundred dollars?”
Not a sound encouraged him, so he sighed and said: “Well, is there anyone who will give two hundred for it?”
Eleanor’s heart thumped. She was willing to give it but she found her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth at the very idea of securing the bed at such a price.
“Too bad! Then I shall have to ask if anyone will pay me one hundred dollars? Is this bed not worth that to you, young lady – or perhaps you need a full-sized bed?” The auctioneer looked at Eleanor but failed to see the dazzling glint that shot into her eyes when he offered the bed for one hundred. He really had no hope of starting it at that figure so he over-did it that time.
“All right, friends, I am perfectly willing to have you set your own price on this magnificent piece of carving that is no less than a hundred and fifty years old. Now what is your pleasure? Fifty, forty, thirty – what? did I hear a bargain-hunter say twenty-five? Oh, impossible?”
Eleanor almost fainted at such a dreadful sacrifice, and would have stood up to offer him the hundred, had not a man in the rear called out “Fifty.”
“Ah, that is better – thank you. Now, fifty, fifty, fifty – who says seventy-five? I want seventy-five – fifty, fifty, fifty, fif – fif-tee, tee, t-e-e – what, no one here willing to pay more than fifty dollars for this bee-u – utiful bit of antique mahogany? Fif-fif-fif – Ah!”
Eleanor swallowed hard, half-stood up, and the auctioneer caught her eye at last. He smiled, acknowledged her expression, and now called:
“Seventy-five! I now have seventy-five, seven, seven, sev-sev-seventy – seventy-fi-ifvvve! I have seventy-five dollars for this wonderful mahogany bed that is really worth seven hundred dollars in any store to-day. And I only have seventy-five dollars bid. Seven-tee – ”
Again Eleanor half-stood up and this time she managed to say “One hundred, please!”
“Thank you, young lady – you certainly understand fine furniture. I am now offered one hundred dollars by one who knows the value of this bed – one hundred, one hundred – hundred – one, h-u-ndred dollars offered – who will give a hundred and ten – only ten more gets it?”
Polly was so amazed when Eleanor said “One hundred dollars” that she giggled hysterically; but not wishing to have her friend brag how “she bid at this auction and her friends were too shy,” Polly looked anxiously at the auctioneer. He saw that look and understood.
“Don’t hesitate, young lady. You know ‘he who hesitates is lost’ – in this case, loses a great bargain. If you wish to bid, never fear competing with a friend. In this business there are no friends – all men are strangers. Shall I say one hundred and ten for you?”
Polly nodded eagerly and smiled broadly at Eleanor. The two girls were so delighted with themselves at daring to speak out so bravely in a city like New York that they failed to realize the auctioneer had knocked down the bed to Polly.
“This young lady in front. I must say she appreciates fine furniture!” declared the suave auctioneer to everyone in general.
“W-h-y, Pol – le-ee! Is that your bed?” gasped Mrs. Stewart.