Part 14 (2/2)
The doors were high, and surmounted by quaint and worm-eaten carved work.
These halls seemed very dark and close to Mildred, who had just come out of the sunlight and from the country, but they were cool and s.p.a.cious. They were shown by the janitor to a room over twenty feet square on the second story, whose former occupants had left the souvenir of unlimited dirt. ”They was dissipated, and we don't let sich stay in the buildin',” said the man. ”That's one thing in favor of the place, papa,” poor Mildred remarked, and at the moment it seemed to her about the only thing, for the old house was evidently going down hill so fast that it seemed to her as if it might carry its occupants with it. Still, on further inspection, the room was found to be so large and airy and the ceiling so high that it might be made the abode of health and comfort. Opening into the large apartment was another about eight feet by twelve, and this was all.
Mildred drew a long breath. Could the whole domestic life of the family be carried on in those two rooms? ”I never realized how thousands of people live,” she sighed.
”It will only be for a little while, Millie,” whispered her father.
The young girl shrank and s.h.i.+vered even in the summer morning at the ordeal of crowded life, with only intervening doorways and thin part.i.tions between them and all sorts of unknown neighbors.
”Suppose, papa, we look at the other rooms of which you have the refusal,” she faltered.
Even in his false buoyancy he could not suppress a sigh as he saw that Mildred, in spite of her determination to make the best of everything, had not imagined what a tenement-house was. ”We will be back in an hour or more,” he whispered to the janitor, for he believed the other rooms would appear still more repulsive.
And so they did, for when Mildred had climbed up three stairways in a five-story, narrow house, which even at that hour was filled with a babel of sounds, the old mansion seemed a refuge, and when she had glanced around the narrow room and two dark closets of bedrooms, she shuddered and said, ”Papa, can we really afford nothing better?”
”Honestly, Millie, we cannot for the present. My income is exceedingly small, although it will soon be increased, no doubt. But if we pay too much for rooms we shall have nothing to live upon while waiting for better times. These rooms are fourteen dollars a month.
Those in the old mansion are only eight, and the two rooms there give more chance for comfort than do these three.”
”Oh, yes, yes,” cried Mildred, ”I could not live here at all. Let us go back.”
While returning, her father showed her apartments in other tenements for which rents of ten to sixteen dollars were charged, and she saw that she would not obtain any more in s.p.a.ce and light than for half the money in the old house, which had been built when that part of the island was open country.
”Forgive me, papa,” she said, smiling, ”that I s.h.i.+vered a little at the first plunge. We will go to the old house and stay there until we can do better. It was once evidently a beautiful home, and I believe that within it we can make a happy home, if we will.
These other tenements were never homes, and I don't see how they ever could be. They are angular, patent, human packing-boxes, which mock at the very idea of home coziness and privacy. They were never built for homes, they were built to rent. In the old house I noticed that a blank wall near will prevent people staring into our windows, and the s.p.a.ce has not been so cut up but that we can keep ourselves somewhat secluded.”
Next to a quiet way of earning money, Mildred coveted seclusion beyond everything else. There was one deep hope that fed her life.
Her father would work his way up into affluence, and she again could welcome Vinton Arnold to her own parlor. Happiness would bring him better health, and the time would come when he could choose and act as his heart dictated. With woman's pathetic fort.i.tude and patience she would hope and wait for that day. But not for the world must his proud mother know to what straits they were driven, and she meant that the old house should become a hiding-place as well as a home.
Therefore the rooms in the old mansion were taken. A stout, cheery Englishwoman, who with her plump, red arms was fighting life's battle for herself and a brood of little ones, was engaged to clean up and prepare for the furniture. Mildred was eager to get settled, and her father, having ordered such household goods as they required to be sent from their place of storage the following day, repaired to his place of business.
”Now, miss,” said sensible Mrs. Wheaton, ”I don't vant to do hany more than yer vants done, but hif I was you I'd give hall these 'ere vails a coat hof lime. Vitevash is 'olesome, yer know, and sweetens heverything; hit'll kind o' take haway the nasty taste those drunken people left.”
”Please whitewash, then, and use plenty of lime. If you can sweeten these rooms, do so by all means, but I fear that result is beyond your brush or any other.”
”You've seen better days, miss, and I 'ave meself; but yer mustn't be down'arted, yer know. See 'ow the suns.h.i.+ne comes in, and ven hit falls hon a carpet, a little furniture, and yer hown people, these 'ere rooms vill soon grow 'omelike, and yer'll come back to 'em hafteryer day's vork's hover gladly henough. I s'pose yer'll vork, since you've come hamong people who must vork hearly and late.”
”Yes, indeed, we'll work--that is all we ask for.”
”And hit's time I vas ha bout mine hinstead hof gossiping 'ere.
Yer'll soon see 'ow spick and span I'll make heverything.”
With a despatch, deftness, and strength that to Mildred seemed wonderful, she bought the lime, made the wash, and soon dark stains and smoky patches of wall and ceiling grew white under her strong, sweeping strokes. It was not in the girl's nature, nor in accordance with her present scheme of life, to be an idle spectator, and from her travelling-bag she soon transformed herself into as charming a house-cleaner as ever waged war against that chief enemy of life and health--dirt. Her round, white arms, bared almost to the shoulder, seemed designed as a sculptor's model rather than to wield the brush with which she scoured the paint and woodwork; but she thought not of sculpture except in the remote and figurative way of querying, with mind far absent from her work, how best she could carve their humble fortunes out of the unpromising material of the present and the near future.
CHAPTER XV
”WELCOME HOME”
Mildred felt that she had become a working-woman in very truth as she cleaned the dingy closets, vindictively prying into corners and crevices that had been unmolested by generations of tenants, and the rich color produced by summer heat and unwonted exertion deepened at the thought, ”What would Vinton Arnold, what would his mother think if they saw me now? The latter would undoubtedly remark,” she murmured, in bitterness of spirit, ”that I had at last found my true sphere, and was engaged in befitting tasks; but should I lose in his eyes?”
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