Dorothy Dale in the City

The girls looked about them. A sleeping car! Tavia thrilled with pleasant anticipation. It was all so very luxurious! Aunt Winnie almost immediately discovered an old acquaintance sitting directly opposite. The lady, very foreign in manner and attire, held a tiny white basket under her huge sable muff. She gushed prettily at the unexpected pleasure of having Aunt Winnie for a travelling companion. Tavia thought she must be the most beautiful lady in all the world, and both she and Dorothy found it most disconcerting to be ushered into a sleeping car filled with staring people, and be introduced to so lovely a creature as Aunt Winnie’s friend. The beautiful lady whispered mysteriously to Aunt Winnie, and pointed to the hidden basket and instantly a saucy growl came from it.

“A dog,” gasped Dorothy, “why, they don’t permit dogs on a Pullman!”

“Let’s get a peep at him,” said Tavia, “the little darling, to go travelling just like real people!”

Immediately following the growl, the lady and Aunt Winnie sat in dignified silence, and stared blankly at the entire car.

“They’re making believe,” whispered Tavia, “pretending there isn’t any dog, and that no one heard a growl!”

“I’m simply dying to see the little fellow!” said Dorothy, unaware that the future held an opportunity to see the dog that now reposed in the basket.

“Well, Dorothy,” said Tavia, “according to the looks across the aisle ‘there ain’t no dog,’” Tavia loved an expressive phrase, regardless of grammatical rules.

“Did Ned get on?” suddenly asked Dorothy. “I don’t see him.”

“He’s on,” answered Tavia, disdainfully, “in the smoker. Didn’t you hear him beg our permission?”

After an hour had passed Aunt Winnie came toward them and said:

“Don’t you think it best to retire now, girls? You have a strenuous week before you.”

Dorothy and Tavia readily agreed, as neither had found much to keep them awake. Many of the passengers had already retired, some of them immediately after the last stop was made. Tavia could not remain quiet, and happy too, where there was no excitement. She preferred to sleep peacefully – and strangely, the Pullman sleeper offered no fun even to an inventive mind like Tavia’s.

“Ned might have stayed with us,” sighed Dorothy. “Boys are so selfish.”

“Wouldn’t you like to go into the smoker too?” suggested Tavia.

“What! Tavia Travers, you’re simply too awful!” cried Dorothy.

“Oh, just to keep awake. After all, I find I have a yearning to stay up. All in favor of the smoker say ‘Aye.’” And a lone “Aye” came from Tavia.

“Besides,” said Dorothy, “the porter wouldn’t permit it.”

“Unless we carried something in our hands that looked like a pipe,” mused Tavia.

“We might take Ned some matches,” rejoined Dorothy, seeing that the subject offered a little variety.

“When the porter takes down our berths, we’ll quietly suggest it, and see how it takes,” said Tavia. “Along with feeling like storming the smoker, I’m simply dying for a weeny bit of ice-cream.”

“Tavia,” said Dorothy, trying to speak severely, “I think you must be having a nightmare, such unreasonable desires!”

“So,” yawned Tavia, “I’ll have to go to bed hungry, I suppose.”

“Do you really want ice-cream as badly as that?”

“I never yearned so much for anything.”

Dorothy was rather yearning for ice-cream herself, since it had been suggested, but she knew it was an utter impossibility. The dining car was closed, and how to secure it, Dorothy could not think. However, she called the porter, and, while he was taking down their berths, she and Tavia went over to say good-night to Aunt Winnie and her friend.

“I’ll try not to awaken you, girls, when I retire,” said Aunt Winnie. “Ned’s berth, by a strange coincidence, is the upper one in Mrs. Sanderson’s section. Years ago, Mrs. Sanderson and myself occupied the same section in a Pullman for an entire week, and it was the beginning of a delightful friendship.”

Mrs. Sanderson told the girls about her present trip, but Tavia was so hungry for the ice-cream, and Dorothy so busy trying to devise some means to procure it, that they missed a very interesting story from the beautiful lady.

Then, returning to their berths, Tavia climbed the ladder, and everything was quiet.

“Dorothy,” she whispered, her head dangling over the side of the berth, “peep out and find the porter. I must have ice-cream.”

“Why, Tavia?” asked Dorothy.

“Just because,” answered Tavia in the most positive way.

Dorothy and Tavia both looked out from behind their curtains. Every other one was drawn tightly, save two, for Aunt Winnie and her friend and Ned, who had come back, were the only passengers still out of their berths. Ned winked at the girls when their heads appeared.

Holding up a warning finger at Ned, who faced them, the girls stole out of their section and crept silently toward the porter. In hurried whispers they consulted him, but the porter stood firm and unyielding. They could not be served with anything after the dining car closed.

So they then descended to coaxing. Just one girl pleading for ice-cream might have been resisted, but when two sleep-eyed young creatures, begged so pitifully to be served with it at once, the porter threw up his hands and said:

“Ah’ll see if it can be got, but Ah ain’t got no right fo’ to git it tho!”

Soon he reappeared with two plates of ice-cream. Tavia took one plate in both hands hungrily, and Dorothy took the other. When they looked at Aunt Winnie’s back, Ned stared, but Aunt Winnie was too deeply interested in her old friend to care what Ned was staring at.

“Duck!” cautioned Tavia, who was ahead of Dorothy, as she saw Aunt Winnie suddenly turn her head. They slipped into the folds of a nearby curtain, but sprang instantly back into the centre of the aisle. Snoring, deep and musical, sounded directly into their ears from behind the curtain, and even Tavia’s love of adventure quailed at the awful nearness of the sound. One little lurch and they would have landed in the arms of the snoring one!

Just to make the ice-cream taste better, Aunt Winnie again turned partly. Dorothy and Tavia stood still, unable to decide whether it was wise to retreat or advance, Ned solved it for them by rising and waiting for the girls. Aunt Winnie, of course, turned all the way around and discovered the two girls hugging each other, in silent mirth.

“Tavia would have cream,” explained Dorothy.

“But it would have tasted so much better had we eaten it without being found out,” said Tavia, woefully.

“Just look at this,” said Ned, “and maybe the flavor of the cream will be good enough,” and he handed the girls a check marked in neat, small print, which the porter had handed him: “Two plates of ice-cream, at 75 cents each, $1.50.”

“How outrageous!” cried Dorothy.

“We’ll return it immediately,” said Tavia, indignantly.

“I paid it,” explained Ned, drily. “You wanted something outside of meal hours, and you might have expected to have the price raised.”

“At that cost each spoonful will taste abominable,” moaned Tavia.

Said Dorothy sagely: “It won’t taste at all if we don’t eat it instantly. It’s all but melted now.”

“Yes, pray eat it,” said the gruff voice of a man behind closed curtains, “so the rest of us can get to sleep.”

Another voice, with a faint suggestion of stifling laughter, said: “I’m in no hurry to sleep, understand; still I engaged the berth for that purpose – ”

But Dorothy and Tavia had fled, and heard no more comments. Aunt Winnie followed.

“How ridiculous to want ice-cream at such an hour, and in such a place!” she said.

“Old melted stuff,” complained Tavia, “it tastes like the nearest thing to nothing I’ve ever attempted to eat!”

“And, Auntie,” giggled Dorothy, “we paid seventy-five cents per plate! I’m drinking mine; it’s nothing but milk!”

Soon the soft breathing of Aunt Winnie denoted the fact that she had slipped silently into the land of dreams. Dorothy, too, was asleep, and Tavia alone remained wide-awake, listening to the noise of the cars as the train sped over the country. Tavia sighed. She had so much to be thankful for, she was so much happier than she deserved to be, she thought. One fact stood out clearly in her mind. Sometime, somehow, she would show Dorothy how deeply she loved and admired her, above everyone else in the world. After all, a sincere, unselfish love is the best one can give in return for unselfish kindness.

The next thing Tavia knew, although it seemed as if she had only just finished thinking how much she loved Dorothy, a tiny streak of sunlight shone across her face. She sat bolt upright, confused and mystified, in her narrow bed so near the roof. The sleepy mist left her eyes, and with a bound she landed on the edge of her berth, her feet dangling down over the side of it. The train was not moving, and peeping out of the ventilator, she saw that they were in a station, and an endless row of other trains met her gaze.

“Good morning!” she sang out to Dorothy, but the only answer was the echo of her own voice. Some few seconds passed, and Tavia was musing on what hour of the morning it might be, when a perfectly modulated voice said: “Anything yo’-all wants, Miss?”

“Gracious, no! Oh, yes I do. What time is it?” she asked.

“Near on to seven o’clock,” said the porter.

“Thank you,” demurely answered Tavia, and started to dress. All went well until she climbed down the ladder for her shoes and picked up a beautifully-polished, but enormous number eleven! She looked again, Aunt Winnie’s very French heeled kid shoes and Dorothy’s stout walking boots and one of her own shoes were there, but her right shoe was gone!

She held up the number eleven boot and contemplated it severely. To be sure both her feet would have fitted snugly into the one big shoe, but that wasn’t the way Tavia had intended making her debut in New York City. She looked down the aisle and saw shoes peeping from under every curtain, and some stood boldly in the aisle. The porter at the end of the car dozed again, and Tavia, the number eleven in hand, started on a still hunt for her own shoe.

She passed several pairs of shoes, but none were hers. At the end of the car, she jumped joyfully on a pair, only to lay them down in disappointment. They were exactly like hers, but her feet had developed somewhat since her baby days, whereas the owner of these shoes still retained her baby feet, little tiny number one shoes! On she went, bending low over each pair. At last! Tavia dropped the shoe she was carrying beside its mate! At least that was some relief, she would not now have to face the owner in her shoeless condition and return to his outstretched hand his number eleven.

Tavia thought anyone with such a foot would naturally feel embarrassed to be found out. Now for her own. She stooped cautiously, deeply interested in her mission, under the curtain and a heavy hand was laid on her shoulder. She looked up in dazed astonishment into the dark face of the porter. Mercy! did he think she was trying to enter the berth? She realized, instantly, how suspicious her actions must have appeared.

“Please find my shoe!” she commanded, haughtily, “it is not in my berth.”

The porter released her. “Yo’ done leave ’em fo’ me to be polished?” he inquired, respectfully.

“No, indeed,” replied Tavia, trying to maintain her haughty air, “it has simply disappeared, and I must have two shoes, you know.”

“O’ course,” solemnly answered the porter.

“Tavia,” called Dorothy’s voice, “what is the trouble?”

“Nothing at all,” calmly answered Tavia, “I’ve lost a shoe; a mere nothing, dear.”

One by one the curtains moved, indicating persons of bulk on the other side, trying to dress within the narrow limits, and the murmur of voices rose higher. Shoes were drawn within the curtains and soon there were none left, and Tavia stood in dismay. Aunt Winnie, Dorothy and Ned and lovely Mrs. Sanderson joined Tavia, others stood attentively and sympathetically looking on while they searched all over the car, dodging under seats, pulling out suit-cases and poking into the most impossible places, in an endeavor to locate Tavia’s lost shoe.

A sharp, sudden bark and Mrs. Sanderson returned in confusion to her section and smothered the protests of her dog. She called Ned to help her put him into his little white basket, at which doggie loudly rebelled. He had had his freedom for an entire night, running up and down the aisle, playing with the good-natured porter.

Doggie played hide-and-seek under the berths and dragged various peculiar-looking black things back and forth in his playful scampering and he did not intend to return to any silk-lined basket after such a wild night of fun! So he barked again, saucy, snappy barks, then he growled fiercely at everyone who came near him. In fact, one of the peculiar-looking black things at that very moment was lying in wait for him, expecting him back to play with it, and just as soon as he could dodge his mistress, doggie expected to rejoin it, reposing in a dark corner of the car. At last he saw his opportunity, and with a mad dash, the terrier ran down the aisle, determination marking every feature, as pretty Mrs. Sanderson started after him, and Ned followed. Tavia sat disconsolately in her seat, wondering what anyone, even the most resourceful, could do with but one shoe!

A sudden howl of mirth from Ned, and an amused, light laugh from Mrs. Sanderson, and, back they came, Ned gingerly holding the little terrier and Mrs. Sanderson triumphantly holding forth Tavia’s shoe. By this time every passenger had left the car, and the cleaning corps stood waiting for Aunt Winnie’s party to vacate the vehicle.

Tavia put on the shoe, but first she shook the terrier and scolded him. He barked and danced up and down, as though he were the hero of the hour.

“We must get out of here, double-quick,” said Ned.

“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Dorothy, “where is everything! I never can grab my belongings together in time to get off a train.”

“I’m not half dressed,” chirped Tavia, cheerfully, “and they will simply have to stand there with the mops and brooms, until I’m ready.”

Aunt Winnie sat patiently waiting. “Do you want to go uptown in the subway or the ’bus,” she asked.

“Both!” promptly answered the young people.

CHAPTER XI

A HOLD-ON IN NEW YORK

“My! Isn’t it hard to hang on!” breathed Tavia, clinging to Dorothy, as the subway train swung rapidly around the curves. As usual the morning express was crowded to overflowing, and the “overflowers” were squeezed tightly together on the platforms. Ned held Aunt Winnie by the arm and looked daggers at the complacent New Yorkers who sat behind the morning papers, unable to see any persons who might want their seats.

“Such unbearable air! It always makes me faint,” said Aunt Winnie, weakly.

“Let’s get out as quickly as possible,” said Dorothy, “the top of a ’bus for mine!”

“So this is a subway train,” exclaimed Tavia, as she was lurched with much force against an athletic youth, who simply braced himself on his feet, and saved Tavia from falling.

“The agony will be over in a second,” exclaimed Ned, as the guard yelled in a most bewildering way, “next stop umphgetoughly!” and another in the middle of the train, screamed in a perfectly unintelligent manner, “next stop fothburgedinskt!”

“What did he say?” said Tavia, wonderingly.

“He must have said Forty-second Street,” said Aunt Winnie, “that I know is the next stop.”

“I would have to ride on indefinitely,” said Tavia, “I could never understand such eloquence.”

“There,” said Dorothy, readjusting herself, “I expected to be hurled into someone’s lap sooner or later, but I didn’t expect it so soon.”

“You surely landed in his lap,” laughed Tavia, “see how he’s blushing. Why don’t you hang onto Ned, as we are doing.”

“Poor Ned,” said Dorothy, but she, too, grasped a portion of his arm, and like grim death the three women clung to Ned for protection against the merciless swaying of the subway train.

Reaching Forty-second Street, up the steps they dashed with the rest of the madly rushing crowd of people and out into the open street. Tavia tried to keep her mouth closed, because all the cartoons she had ever seen of a country person’s first glimpse of New York pictured them open-mouthed, and staring. She clung to Dorothy and Dorothy hung on Aunt Winnie, who had Ned’s arm in a firm grip.

Such crowds of human beings! Neither Dorothy nor Tavia had ever before seen so many people at one glance! So many people were not in Dalton in an entire year.

“This isn’t anything,” said Ned, out of his superior knowledge of a previous trip to New York. “This is only a handful – the business crowd.”

“Oh, let’s stay in front of the Grand Central Terminal,” said Dorothy, “I want to finish counting the taxicabs, I was only up to thirty.”

“I only had time to count five stories in that big hotel building,” cried Tavia, “and I want to count ’em right up into the clouds.”

“They’re not tall buildings,” said Ned, just bursting with information. “Wait until you see the downtown skyscrapers!”

“Ned throws cold water on all our little enthusiasms,” pouted Dorothy.

“Never mind,” said Aunt Winnie, “you and Tavia can come down town to-morrow and spend the day counting people and things.”

Arriving at the corner of Fifth Avenue, and successfully dodging many vehicles, they got safely on the opposite corner just in time to catch a speeding auto ’bus. Up to the roof they climbed.

“Isn’t it too delightful!” sighed Tavia, blissfully.

“We’ll come down town on a ’bus every day,” declared Dorothy.

They passed all the millionaires’ palatial residences in blissful ignorance of whom the palaces sheltered. They didn’t care which rich man occupied one mansion or another, they were happy enough riding on top of a ’bus.

Tavia simply gushed when they reached the Drive and a cutting sharp breeze blew across the Hudson river.

“I never imagined New York City had anything so lovely as this; I thought it was all tall buildings and smoky atmosphere and – lights!” declared Tavia.

Along the river all was quiet and luxurious and wonderful. The auto ’bus stopped before a small apartment house – that is, it was small comparatively. The front was entirely latticed glass and white marble. A bell boy rushed forward to relieve them of their bags, another took their wraps and a third respectfully held open the reception hall door. Down this hall, lined on two sides with growing plants, Aunt Winnie’s party marched in haughty silence. They were afraid to utter an unseemly word. Tavia’s little chin went up into the air – the bell boys were very appalling – but they shouldn’t know of the visitors’ suburban origin if Tavia could help it. They were assisted on the elevator by a dignified liveried man, and up into the air they shot, landing, breathless, in a perfectly equipped tiny hall. At home, of course, one would call it a tiny hall, but in a New York apartment house it was spacious and roomy.

Still another person, this time a woman, in spotless white, opened the door and into the door Aunt Winnie disappeared, and the others followed, although they were not at all sure it was the proper thing to do.

Then Tavia gasped. In her loveliest dreams of a home, she had never dreamed of anything as perfectly beautiful as this. Little bowers of pink and white, melted into other little rooms of gold and green and blue, and then a velvety stretch of something, which Tavia afterward discovered was a hall, led them into a kitchenette.

“Do people eat here?” said the dazed Tavia.

“One must eat, be the furnishings ever so luxurious,” sang Ned.

Dorothy rushed immediately to the tiny cupboard, and examined the Mother Goose pattern breakfast dishes, while Tavia gazed critically at the numerous mysterious doors leading hither and thither through the apartment.

They gathered together, finally, in the living room, which faced the river. The heavy draperies subdued the strong sunlight.

Mrs. White sighed the happy sigh that betokens rest, as she sank into a Turkish chair. Dorothy and Tavia were not ready to sit down yet – there was too much to explore. From their high place, there above the crowds, and seemingly in the clouds, they could see something akin to human beings moving about everywhere, even, it seemed, out along the river drive. For a brief time no one spoke; then Ned “proverbially” broke the silence.

“Well, Mom,” he emitted, “what is it all about? Did you just come into upholstered storage to have new looking glasses? Or is there a system in this insanity?”

Mrs. White smiled indulgently. Ned was beginning to take an interest in things. He must surmise that her trip to New York was not one of mere pleasure.

The girls, unconsciously discreet, had left the room.

“My dear son,” said the lady, now in a soft robe, just rescued from her suit-case, “I am glad to see that you are trying to help me. You know the Court Apartments, the one I hold purposely for you and Nat?” He nodded. “Well, the agent has been acting queerly. In fact, I have reason to question his honesty. He is constantly refusing to make reports. Says that rents have come down, when everyone else says they have gone up. He also declares some of the tenants are in arrears. Now, if we are to have so much trouble with the investment, we shall have to get rid of it.”

The remark was in the note of query. Nat brushed his fingers through his heavy hair.

“Well, Mom,” he said impressively, “we must look it over carefully, but I have always heard that New York real estate men – of a certain type – observe the certain and remember the type – are not always to be trusted. I wouldn’t ask better sport than going in for detective work on the half-shell. But say, this is some apartment! I suppose I may have it some evening for a little round-up of my New York friends? You know so many of the fellows seem to blow this way.”

“Of course you may, Ned. I shall be glad to help you.”

“Oh, you couldn’t possibly do that, mother,” he objected. “There is only one way to let boys have a good time and that is to let them have it. If one interferes it’s ‘good-night’,” and he paused to let the pardonable slang take effect.

“Just as you like, of course,” said the mother, without the least hint of offence. “I know I can depend upon you not to – eat the rugs or chairs. They are only hired, you know.”

“Never cared for that sort of food. In fact I don’t even like the feel of some of these,” and he rubbed his hand over the side of a plush chair. “Nothing like the home stuffs, Mom.”

“You are not disappointed?”

“Oh, no, not that. Only trying to remember what home is like. It kind of upsets one’s memory to take a trip and get here. I wonder what the girls are up to? You stay here while I inspect.”

Mrs. White was not sorry of the respite. She looked out over the broad drive. It was some years since her husband had taken her to a pretty little apartment in this city. The thought was absorbing. But it was splendid that she had two such fine boys. Yes, she must not complain, for both boys were in many ways like their father, upright to the point of peril, daring to the point of personal risk.

The maid, she who had come in advance from North Birchland, stepped in with the soft tread of the professional nurse to close the doors. Something must be going on in the kitchenette. Well, let the children play, thought Mrs. White.

Suddenly she heard something like a shriek! Even then she did not move. If there were danger to any one in the apartment she would soon know it – the old reliable adage – no news is good news, when someone shrieks.

CHAPTER XII

HUMAN FREIGHT ON THE DUMMY

Tavia almost fell over Ned. Dorothy grasped the door. The maid ruffled up her nice white apron!

They all scrambled into the living room and there was more, for with them, in fact, in Ned’s strong arms, was a child, a boy with blazing cheeks and defiant eyes.

“Look, mother! He came up on the dumb waiter!” said Ned, as soon as he could speak.

“Yes, and I nearly killed him,” blurted Tavia. “I thought the place was haunted!”

“On the dumb waiter?” repeated Dorothy.

The maid nodded her head decidedly.

“Why!” ejaculated Mrs. White, sitting up very straight.