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.
“I didn’t mean anything,” said the boy, reflecting good breeding in choice of language, if not in manner of transportation. “I was just coming up to fly kites.”
“But on the dummy!” queried Ned.
“Well, we wouldn’t dare come up any other way. This apartment was not rented before and we had to sneak in on the janitor. This is the best lobby for kites,” and his eyes danced at the thought.
“But where’s the kite?” questioned Ned.
“Talent’s got it.”
“Talent?” repeated Dorothy.
“Yes, he’s the other fellow – the smartest fellow around. His real name – ” he paused to laugh.
“Is what?” begged Tavia, coming over to the little fellow, with no hidden show of admiration.
“It’s too silly, but he didn’t choose it,” apologized the boy. “It’s C-l-a-u-d!”
“That’s a pretty name,” interposed Mrs. White, feeling obliged to say something agreeable.
“But he can’t bear it,” declared the boy. “My name is worse. Mother brought it from Rome.”
“Catacombs?” suggested Tavia, foolishly.
“No,” the lad lowered his voice in disgust. “But it’s Raphael.”
“That was the name of a great painter,” said Mrs. White, again feeling how difficult it was to talk to a small and enterprising New York boy.
“Maybe,” admitted the little one, “but I have Raffle from the boys, and that’s all right. Means going off all the time.”
Everyone laughed. Raffle looked uneasily at the door.
“But where’s that kite?” questioned Ned.
“Talent was waiting until I got up. Then I was to pull him up. He has the kites.”
“As long as I didn’t kill you, Raffle,” said Tavia, “I guess we won’t have to have you arrested for false entering.”
“Dorothy caught the rope just in time,” Ned explained, in answer to his mother’s look of inquiry. “Tavia was so scared she was going to let it drop.”
“We had ordered things,” Tavia explained further, “and thought they were coming up. I was just crazy to have something to do with all the machines in the place, so went to get the things. Imagine me seeing something squirm in the dark!”
“But you weren’t afraid,” said Raffle to Dorothy. “You just hauled me out.”
“Your coat got torn,” Dorothy remarked to divert attention. “What will your mother say?”
“She will never see it,” declared the little fellow. “She goes to rehearsal all day and sings all night. Tillie – she’s the girl – she likes me. She won’t mind mending it,” and he bunched together in his small hand the hole in the short coat.
“I’ll tell you,” interposed Ned, “they say dark haired people fetch good luck, and you are our first caller. Suppose we get Talent, and bring him up properly, kites and all. Then perhaps, when I get something to eat, you may show me how to fly a kite over the Hudson.”
“Bully!” exclaimed Raffle. “I’ll get him right away. If John – the janitor – catches him waiting with the kites – ”
But he was gone with the rest of the sentence.
Ned slapped his knees in glee. Tavia stretched out full length, shoes and all, on the rose-colored divan, Dorothy shook with merry laughter, but Martha, the maid with the ruffled-up apron, turned to the kitchenette to hide her emotion.
“New York is certainly a busy place,” said Ned, finally. “We may get a wireless from home on the clothes line. Tavia, I warn you not to hang handkerchiefs on the roof. It’s tabooed, for – country girls.”
Tavia groaned in disagreement. The fact was she had made her way to the roof before she had explored her own and Dorothy’s rooms, and even Ned did not relish the idea of her sight-seeing from that dangerous height. But New York was actually fascinating Tavia. She would likely be looking for “bulls and bears” on Wall Street next, thought Ned.
“Aunty, we are going to have the nicest lunch,” interrupted Dorothy. “We all helped Martha; it was hard to find things, and get the right dishes, you know. I guess the last folks who had this apartment must have had a Chinese cook, for everything is put away backwards.”
“Yes, the pans were on the top shelves and the cups on the bottom,” Tavia agreed. “I took to the pans – I love to climb on those queer ladders that roll along!”
“Like silvery moonlight,” Ned helped out, “only the clouds won’t develop.”
“Wouldn’t I give a lot to have had all the boys share this fun,” said Dorothy. Then, realizing the looks that followed the word “boys,” she blushed peach-blow.
A Japanese gong sounded gently in the place called hall.
“There’s the lunch bell,” declared Dorothy. “And isn’t that little Aeolian harp on the sitting room door too sweet!”
“The sitting room is a private room in an apartment,” explained Ned, mischievously, “and it’s a great idea to have an alarm clock on the door.”
“There comes the boy with the kite,” Tavia exclaimed. “I don’t believe I care for lunch.”
“Oh, yes you do, my dear,” objected Mrs. White. “There are two boys and we will have to trust them on the balcony with their kites. The rail is quite high, and they look rather well able to take care of themselves.”
Tavia looked longingly at the boys, who now were making their way to what Dorothy had termed the Dove Cote. Ned insisted upon postponing his lunch until they got their strings both untied and tied again – first from the stick then to the rail. Martha said things would be cold, but Ned was obdurate.
At last Mrs. White and her guests were seated at the polished table in the green and white room. She glanced about approvingly, while Martha brought in the dishes.
“I made the pudding,” Dorothy confessed. “I remember our old housekeeper used to make that Brown Betty out of stale cake, and as Martha could get no other kind of cake handy I thought it would do.”
“A cross between pudding, cake and pie,” remarked Tavia, “but mostly sweet gravy. It smells good, however. And I – cleaned the lettuce. If you get any little black bugs – lizards or snails – ”
“Oh, Tavia, don’t!” protested Dorothy, who at that moment was in the act of putting a lettuce leaf between her lips.
“But I was only going to say that these reptiles had been properly bathed and are perfectly wholesome. In fact they have been sterilized,” Tavia said, calmly.
“At any rate,” put in Mrs. White, “you all have succeeded in getting a very nice luncheon together. I had no idea you and Dorothy could be so useful. We might have gotten along with one more maid to help Martha. Then we would have had more house room.”
“I should think you could get the janitor to do odd jobs,” suggested Tavia, over a mouthful of broiled steak.
“Janitor!” exclaimed Mrs. White. “My dear, you do not know New York janitors! They are a set of aristocrats all by themselves. We will have to look out that we please the janitor, or we may go without service a day or two just for punishment.”
“Then I will have to be awfully nice to ours,” went on Tavia, in the way she had of always inviting trouble of one kind if not exactly the kind under discussion. “I saw him. He has the loveliest red cheeks. Looks like a Baldwin apple left over from last year.”
A rush through the apartment revealed Ned and the two kite boys.
“Anything left?” asked Ned. “These two youngsters have to wait until two o’clock for a bite to eat, and I thought – ”
“Of course,” interrupted his mother, pleasantly, as she touched the bell for Martha. “We will set plates for them at once. Glad to have our neighbors so friendly.”
The little fellows did not look one bit abashed – another sign of New York, Dorothy noted mentally. Talent, or Tal, as they called him, managed to get on the same chair with Raffle, as they waited for the extra places to be made at the table.
Tavia gazed at them with eyes that showed no wonder. She expected so many things of New York that each surprise seemed to have its own niche in her delighted sentiments.
“You see,” said Raffle, “Tillie goes out for a walk about noon time, then mother gets in sometimes at two, and sometimes later. A feller always has to wait for someone.”
“Does Tillie take – a baby out?” ventured Dorothy.
“Baby!” repeated the boy. “I’m the baby. She never takes me out,” at which assertion the two boys laughed merrily.
“She just takes a complexion walk,” Ned helped out.
Martha did not smile very sweetly when told to make two more places at the table, but she did not frown either. In a short time Ned, Raffle and Talent, with Tavia for company, and Dorothy assisting Martha, were left by Mrs. White to their own pleasure, while she excused herself and went off to write some notes. She remembered even then what Ned had said about boys liking to have things to themselves, and was not sorry of the excuse.
But Tavia held to her chair. She knew the strangers would say something interesting, and her “bump” of curiosity was not yet reduced.
“My big brother goes to the university,” Raffle said. “But he eats at the Grill. He never has to wait.”
“Your brother?” repeated Tavia, as if that was the very remark she had been waiting for.
“Now Tavia,” cautioned Ned.
“Now Ned,” said Tavia, in a tone of defiance.
“I only wanted to say,” continued Ned, “that this big brother is probably studying law, and he may know a lot about – well, the number of persons in whom one person may be legitimately interested.”
The small boys were too much absorbed in their meal to pay attention to such a technical discussion. Tavia only turned her eyes up, then rolled them down quickly, in a sort of scorn, for answer to Ned.
“Now for your pudding,” announced Dorothy, who came from the kitchenette with three large dishes of the Brown Betty on a small tray.
“Um-m-m!” breathed the boys, drawing deep breaths so as to fully inhale the delicious aroma.
“What’s that?” asked Ned, as the outside door bell rang vigorously.
In reply Martha announced that the janitor wanted to know if anyone had tied a kite to the lobby rail.
“The janitor!” exclaimed both small boys in one breath. Then, without further warning, they simultaneously ducked under the table.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SHOPPING TOUR
“I guess I’ll wear my skating cap, the wind blows so on top of those ’buses,” remarked Tavia, as she and Dorothy prepared to go downtown to see the shops. It was their second day in New York.
“And I’ll wear my fur cap,” Dorothy announced, “as that sticks on so well. It is windy to-day.”
“Wasn’t it too funny about the little boys? I do believe if that janitor had caught them he would have punished them somehow. The idea of their kite dropping around the neck of the old gentleman on the next floor! I should have given anything to see the fun,” and Tavia laughed at the thought.
“The poor old gentleman,” Dorothy reflected. “To think he was not safe taking the air on his own balcony. I was afraid that Ned would be blamed. Then our apartment would be marked as something dangerous. But Aunt Winnie fixed it all right. Janitors love small change.”
“Most people do,” Tavia agreed. “I hope we find things cheap in New York. I do want so many odds and ends.”
“It will be quite an experience for us to go all alone,” Dorothy said. “We will have to be careful not to – break any laws.”
“Or any bric-a-brac,” added Tavia. “Some of those men we saw coming up looked to me like statues. I wonder anyone could enjoy life and be so stiff and statuesque.”
“We will see some strange things, I am sure,” Dorothy said. “I’m ready. Wait. I guess I’ll take my handbag. We may want to carry some little things home.”
“And I’ll take your silk bag if you don’t mind,” Tavia spoke. “I did not bring any along.”
So, after accepting all sorts of warnings from Ned and Mrs. White, each declaring that young girls had to be very well behaved, and very careful in such a large city, the two companions started off for their first day’s shopping.
Climbing up the little winding steps to the top of the Fifth Avenue ’bus Tavia dropped her muff. Of course a young fellow, with a fuzzy-wuzzy sort of a hat, caught it – on the hat. Tavia was plainly embarrassed, and Dorothy blushed. But it must be said that the young man with the velvet hat only looked at Tavia once and that was when he handed her muff up to her.
On top of the ’bus, away from the crowd (for they were alone up there), Dorothy and Tavia gave in to the laughter that was stifling them. They knew something would happen and it had, promptly.
“Perhaps that is why they wear such broad-brimmed hats,” Dorothy remarked, “to catch things.”
Soon an elderly woman puffed up the steps. She was so done up in furs she could not get her breath outside of them. Tavia and Dorothy took a double seat nearer the front, to allow the lady room near the steps.
“Oh, my! Thank you,” gasped the lady who had a little dog in her muff. “It does do one up so to climb steps!”
The country girls conversed in glances. They had read about dogs on strings, but had never heard of dogs in muffs.
“Lucky that muff did not drop,” Dorothy said, in a whisper. “I fancy the little dog would not like it.”
“I wish it had,” Tavia confessed. “The idea of a woman, who fairly has to crawl, carrying a dog with her.”
Once settled, the woman and the dog no longer interested our young friends. There were the boys on the street corners with their trays of violets; there were the wonderful mansions with so many sets of curtains that one might wonder how daylight ever penetrated; there were the taxicabs floating along like a new species of big bird; then the private auto conveyances – with orchids in hanging glasses! No wonder that Dorothy and Tavia scarcely spoke a word as they rode along.
There is only one New York. And perhaps the most interesting part of it is that which shows how real people live there.
“I wonder who’s cooking there now,” misquoted Tavia, as she got a peek into an open door that seemed to lead to nowhere in particular.
“Can you imagine people living in such closed-in quarters?” Dorothy remarked, “I should think they would become – canned.”
“They don’t live there, – they only sleep there,” Tavia disclosed, with a show of pride. “I do not believe a single person along here ever eats a meal in his or her house. They all go out to hotels.”
“But they can’t take the babies,” said Dorothy. “I often wonder what becomes of the babies after dark, when the parks are not so attractive.”
“Do you really suppose that people do live in those vaults?” musingly asked Tavia. “I should think they would smother.”
“We can’t see the back yards,” Dorothy suggested.
“Perhaps New York is like ancient Rome – all walls and back yards.”
“But the fountains,” exclaimed Tavia, “where are they?”
“There are sunken gardens behind those walls, I imagine,” explained Dorothy, “and they must be there.”
For some moments neither spoke further. The ’bus rattled along and as they neared Thirty-fourth Street stops were made more frequently.
“We will get off at the next corner,” Dorothy told Tavia, “I know of one big store up here.”
They climbed down the narrow, winding stairs and with a bound were in the midst of the Fifth Avenue shopping crowd.
Dorothy shivered under her furs. “Where,” she asked, “do all the flowers come from? No one in the country ever sees flowers in the winter, and here they are blooming like spring time.”
“Do you feel peculiar?” demanded Tavia, stopping suddenly.
“Why, no,” answered Dorothy innocently; “do you?”
“I feel just as if I needed a – nosegay,” said Tavia, laughing slily. “We’re not at all as dashing as we might be!”
They purchased from a thinly-clad little boy two bunches of violets, sweetly scented, daintily tasseled – but made of silk!
“The silkiness accounts for the always fresh and blooming violets,” Dorothy said ruefully. “Now, we look just like real New Yorkers.”
“Now where is that store?” said Dorothy, looking about with a puzzled air. “I’m sure it was right over there.”
“Isn’t that a store,” said Tavia, “where all those autos and carriages are?”
“Where?” asked Dorothy, still bewildered.
“Where the brown-liveried man is helping ladies out of carriages and things,” Tavia answered.
“Oh,” said Dorothy meekly, “I thought that was a hotel!”
If there was anything in the world more subduedly rich, or more quietly lavish, than the shop that Dorothy and Tavia entered, the girls from the country could not imagine it. The richest and most costly of all things for which the feminine heart yearns, were displayed here. For the first few moments the girls did not talk. They were silent with the wonder of the costliness on every side. Then Tavia said timidly: “Nothing has a price mark on!”
“Hush!” whispered Dorothy, “they don’t have vulgar prices here. They only sell to persons who never ask prices.”
“Oh!” said Tavia, with quick understanding, “however, dare me to ask that wonderful creature with the coiffure, the price of those finger bowls,” murmured Tavia, a yearning entering her soul to possess a priceless article.
“What do you want with finger bowls?” asked Dorothy, mystified.
“How do I know? I may yet need a finger bowl,” enigmatically responded Tavia, “maybe to plant a little fern in.” She handled the finger bowl tenderly. Dorothy, too, picked up a tiny brass horse, hammered in exquisite lines. “Isn’t this lovely!” she exclaimed.
“It’s a wonderful piece of work,” admired Tavia, while she clung with intense yearning to the finger bowl.
“How much are these, please?” Dorothy asked the saleswoman.
The saleswoman carefully brushed back two stray locks that had escaped from their net, and gazing into space said: “Five dollars and Six dollars and ninety-seven cents.” Her attitude was slightly scornful at being asked the very common “how much.”
The scorn was too much for Tavia’s spirit. She lifted her chin: “I’ll take two of each kind, if you please, send them C.O.D.,” and, giving her Riverside Drive address, Tavia, followed by Dorothy, turned and gracefully swayed from the counter, in grand imitation of an elegantly gowned young girl who had just purchased some brass, and had it charged.
“Tavia, how awful!” gasped Dorothy. “Whatever will you do with those things!”
“Send them back,” answered Tavia, with great recklessness, her chin still held high.
Dorothy admitted that of course it wasn’t at all possible to back away from such a saleswoman, but she felt quite guilty about something. “We shouldn’t have yielded to our feelings,” she said gently, “it would, at best, have been only momentary humiliation.”
“We’re in the wrong store,” said Tavia, decidedly, “I must see price signs that can be read a block away. This place is too exquisite!”
“Isn’t this the dearest!” Dorothy darted to the handkerchief counter, and picked up a dainty bit of lace.
Tavia gazed at the small lacy thing with rapt attention, cautiously trying to see some hidden mark to indicate the cost, but there was none.
“Something finer than this, please,” queried Tavia, of the saleswoman, “it’s exquisite, Dorothy, but not just what I like, you see.”
Dorothy kept a frightened pair of eyes downcast, as the saleswoman handed Tavia another lace handkerchief saying, with a genial smile: “Eighteen dollars.” Tavia held up the handkerchief critically: “And this one?” she asked, pointing to another.
“Twelve dollars,” replied the saleswoman, all attention.
“We must hurry on,” interposed Dorothy, grasping Tavia’s arm in sheer desperation, “there are so many other things, suppose we leave the handkerchiefs until last?”
Critically Tavia fingered the costly bits of lace, as if unable to decide. Then she smiled artlessly at the saleswoman. “It’s hard to say, of course, we’re so rushed for time, but we’ll look at them again.” Together the girls hurried for the street door.
“That was really New York style; wasn’t it?” triumphantly declared Tavia. “Never again will I submit to superior airs when I want to know the price.”
“Hadn’t we better ask someone where stores are that sell goods with price marks on them?” laughingly asked Dorothy.
They followed the crowd toward Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Gaily Tavia tripped along. She never had been happier in all her life. She loved the whirl and the people, and the never-ending air of gaiety. Dorothy liked it all, but it made her a bit weary; the festal air of the crowd did seem so meaningless.
When they reached Sixth Avenue it took but an instant for both girls to pick out the most enticing shop and thither they hurried. It was brilliantly lighted, the gorgeous splendor was Oriental in its beauty, there was no quiet hidden loveliness about this store, it dazzled and charmed and it had price signs! Just nice little white signs, with dull red figures, not at all “screeching” at customers, but most useful to persons of limited means. One could tell with the merest glance just what counter to keep away from.