Jane Journeys On Part 17

Jane was still for a moment. "No; I don't suppose I can prove it by any experience I've had in the past," she said, slowly, "but I can prove it by an experience I'm going to have!"

"Now what do you mean by that?" Daragh wanted to know. "Are you telling your fortune?"

Jane sat up straight, warm-cheeked, excited. "No, but I'm going out, alone and unaided, under a neat new name, with some cheap, plain clothes in a cheap, plain trunk, to Chicago, with fifty dollars only between me and the cold world,--and see what I see!"

"Well, now, G.o.d save us, but that's the mad plan, surely!"

"It isn't mad at all! I want a little change,--I've been working like a dynamo--and it will be loads of fun and I'll get corking copy out of it."

"It won't be a fair test," the superintendent protested. "You'll be--you, all the time."

"That's very nice of you," Jane gave her her glad boy's grin, "but I won't be. Don't you suppose I have imagination enough to project myself into another type? For a month I'll support myself in any way I can, nursery governess, mother's helper, upstair-work, shop, anything I can get. I'll _be_ that sort of girl, dress, diction, everything. I'll write a truthful bulletin of my luck to you two, but you won't have any address, and no one will know that--let's see ... _Edna Miles_--isn't that reasonable?--that Edna Miles is the lucky Jane Vail who wrote _Cross Your Heart_ and has a wicked balance in the bank!" She pulled herself up out of the depths of the great chair and put on her furs.

"I'm quite keen about it! It's going to be more fun than anything I've ever done. Tell Jane good-by, old dears! You'll hear from Edna Miles before long!"

"Wait a bit till we talk it over," said Daragh. "'Tis a wild plan, I'm telling you, will waste your time and----"

But Jane was out of the door, with only the echo of her laugh behind her.

"I don't think she'll really do it," said Miss Ellis. "When she comes to think it over, and realizes how uncomfortable she'll be----"

"She'll be doing it if she says she will," said the Irishman, gloomily, "and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't be stopping her, the way she----"

Jane thrust her bright head in at the door again. "I'll play fair, and I'll prove my point,--that you see pretty much what you look for, that you get pretty nearly what you give, that common or garden kindness is mirrored in kindness, that affection fairly boomerangs back! And after all, you know, the thing that made the lamb love Mary so is the axis on which the world turns! With which pearl of wisdom I give you good-morrow!"

This time she went in earnest, and the Settlement workers were left alone in their transformed parlor to consider the madness or merit of her little plan. Michael saw her at breakfast next morning but she was gayly uncommunicative as to her plans, and that night Mrs. Hills reported that her star boarder (who had the two best and biggest rooms, now, and a dressing-room and bath and her own telephone) had gone west for a month or so for a change.

The first letter came two days later and was addressed to Miss Emma Ellis at the Hope House Settlement, but the salutation was to them both----

DEAR EMMA ELLIS AND MICHAEL DARAGH,

I am writing this on the train as the intelligent readers will gather from the chirography. I have just had my breakfast, and it was funny to study the menu card for inexpensive nourishment with staying powers. I shared a tiny table with a large gentleman whose rubicund neck hung over his collar in back in what was distinctly not the line of beauty, a chatty soul, conversation not at all impeded by food ...

needed a few table traffic regulations ... The n.o.ble head of the animal to whose tribe he belongs beamed from his lapel and his genial heart from his bright little eyes, and he worried heartily because I didn't "tuck away a regular breakfast."

I had loads of fun getting my adventure trousseau together yesterday!

I flatter myself that I quite look the part,--my meek, brown serge and cotton gloves and my oldest shoes and a well-meaning little hat which took more courage than all the rest. I couldn't quite rise--or sink--to a straw suitcase. I have my shabbiest one--without labels!

This is a slow, cheap train and my bye-bye box was in the upper flat, and I haven't spent a penny for chocolate or magazines, and I'm actually beginning to _be_ Edna Miles!

_Next Morning, Nearly in Chicago._

Last night the beamish Buffalo, who had chatted off and on all day and had worried over my modest luncheon from across the aisle, insisted that dinner was to be not only with but "on" him, but I only consented on the "with" plan, and paid my own little check and tip.

He said I was a darned independent little piece but he liked my s.p.u.n.k! He asked me where I was bound and I said--sighing a little for good measure, Emma--that I was going to Chicago to earn my living.

Now in _I_ or _The Narrow Path_ he would at once have given me his card and offered to "fix me up with something at the office," but the Buffalo merely said "That so!" mistily through his pie _a la mode_ and that "Chi" was a great little old berg.

Isn't that one-in-the-eye for your theory, at the start?

Time to be brushed off. Edna Miles gives the Ethiopian only a quarter, but she hasn't demanded any service.

JANE, THE HONEST WORKING GIRL.

_Same Night, 9.30._

Before I get into my doll's-size bed I'll pen these sleepy lines. My room is just about the dimensions of a bath mat. It contains the aforementioned bed (I shall have to put myself into it with a shoe horn!) _an_ chair, on which I sit, and a bureau. The room must have been built around them ... clearly they didn't come in through the door. My little trunk has to wait outside in the hall like a faithful dog. When I look at my face in the mirror I'm sure that Heaven will protect this particular working girl; that my face will be not my fortune but my defender. It looks as if a nervous student had been practicing facial surgery on me. The carpet is just the color of deviled ham, and on the wall is a s.h.i.+ny, violent-colored picture in a tarnished gilt frame which shows a dangerously fat infant in a crib with a kitten standing on its stomach.

I left the train without incident. I didn't even see the Buffalo to say good-by. In the station I purposely wandered about a bit and asked questions and suddenly a brisk little woman with "Stranger's Friend" on her bonnet dashed up and asked me where I was going. I told her I was alone in her great city, looking for work, and she told me not to worry,--that she would look after me, and she has,--oh, but hasn't she! She thought a minute and then said, "I know of a good Christian room for you." I was so intrigued by the thought of a Christian room that I could hardly wait to see it. (I'm in it.

This is it.)

She told me just where to sit and wait for her, and there I dutifully sat, clutching my luggage, and she ran off to telephone and said it was all fixed--the lady would have me, and it would be five dollars a week for room, breakfast and dinner. And she would put me on the right car and tell me just where to get off, and the landlady would direct me to the Employment Agency later. Just as she was seeing me to the street I spied the Buffalo in the offing, waving to me, and I waved back, and he started briskly toward me.

"Who is that man?" the Stranger's Friend wanted to know. I said he was a kind gentleman I had met on the train but I didn't know his name. Well, the next thing I knew she had whirled me cleverly into an eddy of crowd and thence into the Ladies' Waiting-Room and was regarding me sternly. "We will wait here until he goes away. That is the very _first_ thing to remember, my dear. Never talk to strange men!" And I said, "Yes, ma'am, I will," and "No, ma'am, I won't," and presently she reconnoitered and said that the coast was clear, and put me on my car, with minute directions for finding my new home.... It is easy and comforting to believe that there is, literally, no place like home, no other place. I shall call my landlady Mrs. Mussel,--it suits her so perfectly, the way she clings to her drab background, and closes up with a snap at every approach.

I daresay she means well. It is necessary to believe that she does.

She states that she sets only a plain home table ... and there is a sort of atmospheric menu card--coming events casting their savors before, stale memories of the past....

She marched me straight off to the Intelligence Office. There was nothing for me, but I signed up and am to be there at eight in the morning. And now, unless I stop, I shall fall asleep and out of my chair and dash my brains out on the deviled-ham carpet. The Laboring Cla.s.ses keep early hours.

G--N--

J.

Thereafter the bulletins came thick and fast to Hope House, always to the two of them together, now addressed to Miss Ellis and then to the Irishman. The second followed swiftly on the heels of the first.

_The Next Night._

I went early to the Intelligence Office. (_Intelligence!_) The other Judy O'Gradys and I sat in waiting while our sisters under the skin, the Colonel's ladies, looked us over. I registered for nursery governess, Mother's Help, second maid, or companion, with Mrs.

Mussel and the S.F. for reference, but to-day all the cry for help was for kitchen mechanics!

When I reported my empty net to Mrs. Mussel on returning, she emitted a little desolate cluck. She foresees her Christian room rent overdue, poor thing. The kind little S.F. dropped in and bade me be of good cheer. She's a brick, and I feel so guiltily aware of tricking her.

I tried to lure my landlady out to a movie, but she thriftily refused. She was watching at the window when I came home to-night and just at the steps I dropped my five cents' worth of literature and a man who was pa.s.sing picked it up for me. He glanced at the page as he handed it back and grinned, "That's a great little old story!" And I agreed cordially, "It sure is!" and thanked him and ran up the steps.

I wish you could have seen my landlady's face. I thought at first I would be sent to bed without my supper. When it comes to your s.e.x, Michael Daragh, her slogan is--"Run, daughter, the Indians are upon us!"

G--N--

J.

It was several days, then, before they heard again from her, and Emma Ellis secretly considered that Miss Vail was without doubt giving up and coming home, but Michael Daragh found himself angrily anxious. But the letter was rea.s.suring.

_On the Job._

DEAR PEOPLE,

Edna Miles is nursery governess to the two small offspring of Mrs.

Arnold Laney, an opulent, hard-finished lady who cleverly found the one pearl in the oyster bed, meaning me, this morning. I dashed thankfully home and almost jolted Mrs. Mussel out of her gloom, bought two gingham dresses for mornings and hied me to my new home. I have a cot in the nursery and one bureau drawer and two hooks in the closet and wrath in my heart, but the kiddies want a story now and I must stop. They are sallow, fretty, plain little things, but I'm conscientiously liking them as hard as ever I can. The work shouldn't be hard, and I have forty a month and three hours every Thursday afternoon and every other Sunday. I don't like my missus very much, but the master of the house is a typical T.B.M., only I should say, from my brief glimpse, that things at home make him _tireder_ than his business does. I eat with the children in the breakfast room and the food is rather awful. However, the game is young. Wish me luck, old dears!

It was eight days before another letter came, and then it was headed----

_Back in my Christian Room!_