Partners

  Then there came the sound of a fire siren, and fire engines clattering down the street, a red light showing through the window at the foot of her bed. She recalled that the room was a wooden affair, but tried to comfort herself with the fact that it wasn't any higher than the second story, and so went off to sleep again.

  It was late when she woke in the morning, woke with a sense that she was all wrong and would be reproved for being late. Then she came to herself and realized that there was nobody just at present who had a right to reprove her. She was free of the Bakers, free from the office, and out on her own. There might be others soon, she hoped there would be, who would have a right to find fault with her if she did not do their work on time, but just this morning there was no one, and her heart breathed a little thankful sigh.

  All the noises were going on outside, the sounds from the other houses. All but the radios. They were silent for the time being. But there were footsteps, many, on the sidewalk. Loud conversations, dogs barking, hucksters calling. A noisy world! She would have to learn to detach her mind from all sound to hope for any rest in a place like this. Well, she would probably get used to it.

  She got up and closed her window, lighted her wicked little stove and shivered through her morning dressing. By the time she was ready for her breakfast the worst of the chill was off the room, but there was the distinct smell of kerosene. Was that going to be the price of warmth? Perhaps if she stopped at a place where they sold such stoves she might find out the secret of how to take care of it. It wasn't an ideal heat, of course, but if there was a way to keep it from smoking, at least it was heat she could control and have when she needed it.

  By the time she had finished her orange and cereal, and the cup of coffee she allowed herself, she felt a little more cheerful. She decided that as soon as she had cleared away her breakfast things and washed her dishes--a cup and saucer, plate and spoon from home that she treasured in her trunk--she would go out to walk. She wouldn't even pretend to hunt for a job, not till tomorrow. She wanted just one day free. Oh, of course if she saw a notice in a shop window, Help Wanted, she might go in and inquire about it.

  But just as she was ready to put on her hat and coat and go out, the landlady tapped at the door and came in. She ensconced herself in the other chair and sat down to get acquainted with her new roomer. She introduced herself as Mrs. Beck, widow, and said she had run a rooming house for a good many years.

  "You'll find this is a real pleasant neighborhood," she vouchsafed. "Got an undertaker's place just down across the street, and a church almost next door. They got a good bell in their steeple, and it sounds real cheerful-like on Sundays and holidays, unless you might wanta sleep late, an' then it ain't sa handy, till you get use ta it. But it gives respectability ta the neighborhood, ya know, so I don't mind. Who sent ya here? How'd ya know I had a room vacant? I hadn't got around ta put up the vacancy sign in the winda yet."

  Dale smiled.

  "Why, nobody sent me exactly," she said. "I was out hunting up two or three places that were advertised, and I didn't like any of them, and then the taxi man told me he had taken a lady away from here to the station and maybe the room wasn't taken yet."

  "Oh," said Mrs. Beck interestedly. "Ya never know how ya'll get advertised, do ya? A taxi man! Just ta think it! Well, I'm glad I didn't spend the money ta advertise again. That girl that left was going out west to her mother. I figured from what I saw of her that her ma didn't want her ta come here in the first place, and she didn't get on as well as she expected, so when her ma telegraphed her some money she beat it home. But 'tisn't every girl has a mother with money to telegraph. Well, I say a girl is fortunate if she has her mother. A girl has no friend like her mother. I always say a girl's best friend is her mother. Mine, she's dead a good many years ago, but my grandmother's livin'. She's just like a mother ta me. She really brought me up. That's why I keep her here with me, though she's a good deal of trouble. She's gettin' old, and has the rheumatiz something awful. But other times she's real handy to tend the door, when she ain't sa lame. Seen her yet? Most of the roomers is real fond of her. They call her 'gramma.' But my! I often think, ef I'd had a mother alive she'd a been some use ta me now. She'd be younger, ya know, and not sa crippled up as gramma. But then, what can ya do? They will die, and mostly it's just the handy ones that are taken off."

  Dale suppressed a desire to laugh and tried to say "Yes?" with an accent that would sound like cordial interest.

  "Well, the reason I ast ya who sent ya here, I thought mebbe it was one of our roomers. You 'quainted with any of the roomers?"

  "No," said Dale. "I don't know this part of the city very well."

  "Well, we've got some real classy roomers," said Mrs. Beck with satisfaction. "The three girls along this hall are actresses. They're in the Follies now! They're all good lookers, an' smart dressers. I've often took notice how people watch 'em when they come in the door. There's one called Lily that has real what they call ash-blond hair, and light blue eyes. She looks sweet when she has her makeup on. She dances, and one time when we had a Halloween party here she give us a sample of her tap dancing before she went over to the nightclub where she worked. The other two girls, Rosine and Arletta, haven't quite sa much style, but they make up pretty. Not a man comes ta this house but he admires those three girls! He can't tell which he likes the best. All except the roomer on the third-floor front. He don't pay any attention ta nobody, not any women. He's awful quiet, never stops ta have a little conversation, just goes on his way, busy all day long, and sometimes all night, too. He's something on a newspaper. I haven't been able to find out just which one, nor what he is. Mebbe a reporter, though he ain't quite so flip as some o' them. I've had newspapermen before, and they're generally pretty flip. This man is named Rand. George Rand. He's so awful kind of dignified he isn't much of an ad for my house. The only thing is he's very prompt to pay, and that's something. I like people that pay on time. You know, I can't keep my house going if people don't pay me on time.

  "Of course not," said Dale drearily.

  "And by the way," said Mrs. Beck, "I was goin' ta ask you if you were suited. You know, you wanted to take it only for the night last night and try it out. Didn't you find it a nice, comfortable place?" She smirked at Dale with a sickening glare, perhaps trying to intimidate her.

  "Why, fairly so, Mrs. Beck," said Dale unenthusiastically. "There are a few things I shall want to talk to you about sometime later in the day when I have had a chance to look about me and see what I shall need."

  "Oh!" said Mrs. Beck malignantly. "What's wrong! People don't generally find fault with this room. Not at the price you're getting it for!"

  "I'm not finding fault, Mrs. Beck. I'm merely trying to decide whether this is going to be the right place for me. For one thing I should need more blankets of course, especially with no heat but the oil stove. Also, it does smoke. But perhaps that can be remedied."

  "Well, I don't understand that," said the woman indignantly. "Nobody has ever made a complaint about that before. But, of course, if you've done something to it, you'll have to have it repaired."

  "I haven't done anything to it," said Dale quietly. "It may be that the wick needs a good cleaning and trimming. I guess it's up to you to have that done, as you are supposed to be furnishing heat by that means. A person who is working doesn't have time to do that sort of work, too."

  "Oh, we expect to keep the stove in order, of course," said the landlady with a toss of her head. "By the way, where are you working? You've got a job, have you? I should think you would have been up early and gone to it."

  "I'm just changing," said Dale with dignity.

  "Hmm! I've heard that tale before. What did you get fired for? I think I'd better ask for your references. I've always had respectable people in my house. I can't run the risk of losing such people as my newspaperman. Mr. Rand is particular about his fellow-lodgers."

  "It was not a question of being fired, Mrs. Beck! The man for whom I hav
e been working for some time died last week, and the business has been closed up. I am getting a new position, and it will depend upon which job I take, whether I shall want to stay in this part of the city or not."

  "Oh, I see!" Mrs. Beck's voice was very cold and suspicious. "I don't know about taking on a lodger that has no means of paying me. I'm not a benevolent society. I think I shall have to have a week in advance. That's the way I always do with newcomers."

  Dale considered that a moment.

  "That will be quite all right with me, Mrs. Beck, if I decide to stay," she said, and her voice was steady and firm. "I am going out for a little while and I'll be back sometime during the afternoon, perhaps very soon. Then I'll let you know my decision at once, and I'll be glad to pay a week in advance of course."

  "Oh!" said the woman, somewhat mollified. "Well, of course that'll be all right then, and if you pay that way I think I can find another blanket for you, and a new wick for the stove. Was you going to look for a special job somewhere?" she asked curiously. "Because if you aren't, maybe I could suggest one. The girls told me about it last night. It's in the Follies. They need a couple more girls in the chorus, an' they pay real well. You're right pretty, an' you look athletic. I wouldn't doubt but they'd be glad to get you. When you're made up I think you'll look swell! If you'd like to try for it I might call up Lily and ask her to be on the lookout for you, and introduce you to her manager. I'm sure she'd do that. She's an awful kindhearted girl."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Beck, but that kind of work would be out of my line. It's very kind of you to suggest it, but I just wouldn't be interested."

  "Oh! What is your line?"

  The woman's eyes were curiously, superciliously upon her.

  "Why, I've been a private secretary, typing, bookkeeping, that sort of thing," said Dale pleasantly.

  "Hmm!" said the woman contemptuously. "There isn't much money in a thing like that. A lotta hard work, and no pay!"

  "It's what I'm fitted for," Dale said decidedly. "And now," she glanced at her watch, "I have one or two things in mind that I must attend to this morning, so if you will excuse me I'll see you later in the afternoon and tell you definitely yes or no."

  Mrs. Beck arose with heightened color. Was she going to lose a lodger? One who had come right out of the blue as it were, through the instrumentality of a mere taxi driver?

  "Well," she said uncertainly, glancing around the room, "I'll be here most of the afternoon. And if you decide to stay I think I can let you have a pair of blankets, nice new ones that haven't been used scarcely at all. And perhaps you'd like a shade on your light. I don't know but I've got a white glass globe you could use."

  "Thank you," said Dale, "that would be nice. But there's one thing I would like to have, and that is a firm table. I do a good deal of writing sometimes, and that table over there is very shaky, so if you can find a firmer one it would help."

  "I'll look around and see what I can find that I can spare you," promised Mrs. Beck as she sailed away.

  Dale put on her hat and coat and hurried away. It was good to get out into the sunshine and breathe the air again. When she reached the corner she looked back on her house. It was respectable on the outside, and bearable on the inside, and of course cheap. She must not dare to get dissatisfied with it until she had an assured job.

  Now, the first thing she must do was to go and put her hundred dollars in the bank, and draw out enough of it to pay Mrs. Beck as soon as she got back. If she went back. Of course, if a miracle should happen and she should land a marvelous job, she would just go and take that room with the tiny kitchenette that she had read about in one of the advertisements. But that was wholly unlikely. Miracles did not happen for such as she. She wondered why. They used to happen sometimes for her mother. But Mother was a wonderful woman, a saintly woman, who lived so near to God that He was always real to her, and she was sure of His love. Would she ever get to be like that, perhaps when she grew old? Did God grow on people, she wondered, or did they have to do something about it themselves?

  Fortunately her connection with the Baker office had made her known at the bank where they had done business, and so when she carried her check from the Baker estate and deposited it she had no trouble in cashing a small check, enough to carry her through the next week at least. But as she received the cash and turned to put it away in her handbag, it came to her what a hole even a very little check made in her hundred dollars. She fairly trembled as she walked out of the bank. In how very short a time her hundred dollars would melt away and leave her nothing, unless she could get a job that would bring her at least a little every week.

  Suddenly instead of opening the door she turned back to the teller who had been waiting upon her and smiled at him wistfully.

  "I wonder if you would know where would be the best place for me to go to apply for a new job?" She asked it shyly. "I've been so busy helping the Baker people get settled that I haven't had any time to go out and hunt for a new job, and I'm sort of a stranger in the city. I just don't know what to do first."

  The teller shook his head.

  "I'm sorry," he said, "I don't know of any place open just now. There are agencies of course, but I really don't know which is most likely. Everybody, of course, is hunting jobs. Couldn't you get some of the Baker family to recommend you to someone?"

  "No, they're gone to Ohio, all of them. They lawyer, of course, wouldn't know me, except as I've done some of the typing for the settlement. And he said he knew of nothing. I thought perhaps you would know a likely place for me to start hunting."

  "Well, I don't, not just now. Over at the city hall they might have odd jobs of typing. You're a stenographer? Well, copying might help while you're hunting a real job. Have you a typewriter?"

  "Yes, an old one. I haven't thought of getting copying to take home."

  "Well, try it, and in three or four days, that is, when you happen to be back this way, drop in, and if I've heard of anything I'll tell you. What's your address?"

  Dale hesitated then gave the Beck address. She could leave a forwarding address in case she moved.

  She thanked the teller and went out. Then she bought a paper and sat down in a park to look through the advertisements. Not much that was intriguing, but still she'd better try them all.

  So she started on her weary pilgrim way, forgetting entirely that she had promised herself a whole day of rest before she began to hunt a job.

  Wearily she plodded on from one advertised "Want" to another, until she had covered all that had sounded in the least hopeful.

  Some of the most interesting wants had already been filled when she got there, and she would turn sadly away and go on to the next.

  She was thoroughly discouraged when the day was at an end and she had found no trace of anything hopeful. And then she remembered that she hadn't intended hunting today anyway.

  She sat down on a park bench in the dusk and shivered. The sky was still luminous with a hint of sunset, but darkness was creeping fast into the shadows near the earth, and when she looked up again there was a single star smiling out from the night sky gaily and winking at her till she almost felt like smiling back.

  With her eyes on the star she continued looking up.

  Oh, God, she said in her heart, but looking at the star as if she could almost see the Most High up there in that point of brightness. Mother used to believe You cared. She used to tell me You loved me, and that when she was gone You would care for me. I suppose I believe that. Yes, I think I do. But oh, God, I'm so tired and so discouraged, and so alone! If that's true won't You do something for me just to make me realize that it's true! If You'd only send me a little more money. Oh, if You'd only send me a place to work, and someone to be friendly with. Dear Father in heaven, won't You comfort me? And two great tears stole out and rolled down her cheeks in the dusk.

  There were people going by her, hurrying home to warmth and light and pleasant loving voices, nice suppers. But they were happy, going home, and
she had no home to go to.

  Dear God, if you really love me as Mother said, won't You send me some sign, just a little money from somewhere, even if it's only a little bit, or some kind of a job, even a very humble job, or somebody to be a friend, so I don't feel so lonely? Just so I know You have heard me and are taking account of me?

  After a little she got up and went to a cheap restaurant for a very cheap dinner. She mustn't spend what she had in a hurry. But as she went she kept breathing softly under her breath: "Dear God, I'm trusting You to take care of me. I can't feel it's true, but I'm going to trust You, and I want to try to do what You want me to do."

  That night she went to bed at once when she got back to the house. She would have paid her landlady for the week in advance, but Mrs. Beck had gone to the movies, and "gramma" had the door locked and didn't want to get up to unlock it, so Dale went to bed, too, and went sound asleep before the roomers got back from their various occupations. Her mind, for the time being at least, had found a place to rest.

  Chapter 3

  When Dale awoke in the morning she had forgotten all about her prayer, and half wondered at herself that she seemed to have lost that sense of heaviness and worry. Things were just as they were the night before, and she supposed she ought to fret and try to think a way out of her difficulties, but somehow the day seemed more hopeful than any day yet, and there wasn't any reason for it to be so, either. Not a reason that seemed sensible.

  She got up, put on her cereal to cook, and made the coffee. Her breakfast tasted good to her.

  When she had finished she cleared away everything and then hurried down to pay her landlady and prevent another visit from her if possible.

  Mrs. Beck was honey itself when she saw the money, and produced a pair of blankets that looked as if they hadn't seen really very hard wear yet. Though Dale resolved that she would hang them out the window after dark and let them get a good airing before she used them. Mrs. Beck tried to make Dale sit down and have a little chat, did her best to find out where she had been hunting for a job and whether she had succeeded in getting one yet, but Dale only lingered by the door a minute and evaded her questions very cleverly.