Polly in New York

“It seems very strange that in such a vast city one is not able to find a decent apartment,” complained Mrs. Stewart.

“We are told ‘because of the war.’ The war is blamed for everything these days, but the real excuse for owners not building now is because of the high cost of material and labor. They are all waiting for better times; meantime people must take what can be had, or go without,” said Mr. Latimer.

“After hunting the way we have for more than a week, and not having found a suitable place, Mrs. Stewart, I would suggest your finding a nice boarding-house for the winter. If you put it off too long, even those places will be filled,” advised Mrs. Latimer.

“Dear me!” sighed Mrs. Stewart. “That was suggested this morning, but I said it seemed dreadful, when I came East just to make a home and keep house for the three girls.”

“Yes, it would be much pleasanter for everyone to have a home, but in cases like this Fall’s shortage of apartments, one must do what is most expedient,” returned Mrs. Latimer.

Mrs. Stewart told the girls, that night, what had been said, but they all felt sure something must turn up in the next day or two. So the next morning before starting out, they laid out a regular plan of work.

“Mother and Eleanor will start where we left off, yesterday, and weave a search back and forth downtown until they reach the hotel. I will take Polly and, beginning at Washington Square, work uptown until we finish. If either of us find anything at all decent, and in an agreeable neighborhood, pay down a deposit to hold it and be sure to get a receipt as a binder – Mr. Latimer told me that much. Then we will all go for the second inspection and decide. Dr. Evans said we’d better pay down several deposits rather than lose a place, as we can quickly sell out any option we have for more than we paid down.”

Having instructed her friends, Anne added one last bit of advice: “We will go as high as $3,000 a year for seven rooms, or $1,500 for four to five rooms – no more, as that is all shelter is worth. If we can’t find a place at that price, we’ll stay in a hotel!”

So the second day of house-hunting went forward by two divisions instead of one, and all that day Mrs. Stewart and Eleanor experienced the same snubs, weariness, and failures, as thousands of other home-hunters in New York had. And at evening they returned wearily to the hotel to hear what Anne had accomplished.

“Polly and she have not yet arrived,” announced Eleanor, as Mrs. Stewart and she entered their suite.

“I hope she has had better luck than we can brag about,” added Mrs. Stewart, dropping into an easy chair.

A long time after the “first division” had returned, baffled, to the hotel, Anne and Polly burst into the room with happy faces.

“Oh, we just found the most wonderful place! Polly and I actually discovered it. We were giving up all hope of ever finding a decent apartment at any reasonable figure, and had started for the subway when we saw this one. The flower-boxes caught Polly’s eye, so we are really indebted to her for having secured our home.”

Anne’s enthusiasm was contagious, and instantly Mrs. Stewart and Eleanor wanted to know where it was located.

Anne and Polly exchanged smiling glances, as if the secret was too precious to impart to others.

“I suppose you two did up the entire upper sections, to-day, eh?” asked Anne, countering their eager queries.

“Did we? I should say we did! I got a taxi for the day and we flew from one pile of stone and marble to the next, and so many rides up and down in gorgeous elevators all day has kept my head still spinning. But we had the same results as yesterday. When you inspect one of these modern honey-combs you see them all. The only difference being that a few owners manage to retain the elevator and telephone operators, while the majority of superintendents apologise by saying, ‘My help went on a strike, to-day.’

“It really looks, Anne, as if these poor New Yorkers will have to move out to the country if they want to live this year,” remarked Mrs. Stewart, earnestly.

Her companions laughed and Anne said: “Mother, you are too precocious. But now listen to our ‘find’!

“As I planned, you two went uptown while Polly and I went downtown from here. We covered all the lower sections by criss-crossing back and forth, but we came away from the Gramercy Park section, late this afternoon, with an utter sense of failure. In fact, I was silently planning to inquire about good boarding-houses, when we hailed a Lexington avenue car, going north.

“Being woolly westerners, we failed to ascertain how far northwards the car went, and having paid our fares, sat down. I remember turning to Polly and saying, ‘This is actually the first car in New York that I have been on that wasn’t crowded to the platforms.’”

Polly laughed at the remembrance, and Anne smiled. “But it was our salvation, Anne,” ventured the former.

Anne nodded and continued her story. “Then we soon learned why there were vacant seats on that car. A pleasant-faced, grey-haired man of about fifty, must have overheard my comment because he spoke to us after we were seated.

“‘Perhaps you did not know that this car goes no farther north than the next block? It is switched back downtown, from that point. Did not the conductor mention it to you?’

“I was furious, and I replied: ‘No! he never said a word when I paid the fares.’

“By this time the car stopped and the conductor called out: ‘All out – dis car goes no furder. We switch back next corner!’

“So Polly and I had to get off with the others. When we stepped down from the car, the nice man lifted his hat to us and said: ‘I judge you are strangers in the city. Can I direct you anywhere?’

“I thanked him and told him we were only going as far as Forty-second street to the hotel. Then I added, sarcastically: ‘But there may be no cars which run as far north as that street!’

“He laughed and said: ‘You had better walk over to Fourth avenue and get the car there. It takes you through the tunnel much quicker than the Lexington avenue car runs to Forty-second street. But be careful and do not board a car that stops at the car-house on Thirty-second street.’

“We all laughed at that, as it would have been just like me to do so; then we thanked him and started along Thirty-first street to reach the car. And there we found our Haven of Hope!”

“Where? Not on Thirty-first street, I trust!” exclaimed Mrs. Stewart. “Isn’t that section of the city dreadful?”

“Not the block where we found a home,” explained Anne. “It has several remodeled houses and several other flat houses on it.”

“But just wait until you see our house – it’s fine!” said Polly, eagerly.

“Polly caught hold of my arm and exclaimed: ‘Oh, Anne! see the lovely flower-boxes in that cute little house!’

“I saw three narrow windows on the second floor with green flower-boxes on the outside sills, but then my eyes dropped lower and I spied a swinging sign at a side-door. It merely said: ‘To Let’ inquire, etc. Polly saw it at the same moment, so we stood and gazed at each other.

“‘Let’s try and peep in at this window,’ suggested Polly.

“I agreed, and we did our best to see what was within; but the long iron-lattice that covered the four slits in the wide front doors, were covered from the inside. So we went to hunt up the agent.

“His office was only a few blocks down Fourth avenue, so Polly and I hurried there before it should be closed for the day. A boy was told to accompany us and we were soon inspecting the premises. Our escort offered all the information he had heard in the real estate office.

“‘This hain’t been on our books more’n a day. I just hung out the sign this morning. The last man what lived here was an artist and he fixed up everything like you see it now. But he wanted the owner to take out the stable doors and put in a studio-winder, and when the owner wouldn’t spend a cent, the artist up and moved. My boss said the next tenant would insist on having the doors taken out, so you might as well kick about them being here, and see if you’se kin get the winder in.’”

Anne’s mimicry of the office-boy was perfect and her hearers laughed, but Mrs. Stewart had caught the significant words: “Stable doors,” and now she looked deeply concerned. Anne hastened to end her narrative when she saw her mother’s expression.

“So Polly and I went back to the agent’s, heard the price of the place, and paid down half a month’s rent to hold it until you all can go with us to-morrow morning to approve of our selection.”

“Oh, Anne! how much was it a month?” exclaimed Eleanor, eagerly, while Mrs. Stewart looked dubious over such recklessness.

“One-fifty a month, and we can have a straight lease – no humbugging about clauses.”

“And how many rooms, did you say, dear?” gasped Mrs. Stewart.

“I didn’t say, mother, and I told Poll not to say more until after you see it in the morning.”

“But I like it, and it really does seem as if Providence sent us through that street,” added Polly, sighing with content.

“Eleanor, did you hear Anne say it had stable-doors?” now ventured Mrs. Stewart, fearfully.

“No! did you, Anne? Why would it have stable-doors?”

“Because in the days of horses and carriages, it was some rich man’s private stable,” laughed Anne, enjoying the horror on her mother’s face.

“A stable! Ha, ha, ha – for a Maynard of Chicago! Oh – ha, ha, ha!” laughed Eleanor, rocking back and forth.

Even Mrs. Stewart had to laugh at the picture Eleanor’s exclamation suggested – Mrs. Maynard and Barbara calling upon a member of their family who was living in an East Side stable!

Any doubt of this being just the place they wanted vanished in the morning when Anne and Polly proudly escorted Mrs. Stewart and Eleanor about their future domicile. True, it had all the ear-marks of a stable from the outside, but once you were within, there was only an artistic home to be seen. The ground-floor which had once held four stalls and a harness-room, with space for two carriages, was now partitioned off in a manner that made the most of the space. A large living-room across the front acted as entrance-hall and passageway to the rear rooms and second floor. In the corner of the living-room, where the small brick chimney had served as smoke-vent for the stove of former days, there now was a wide tiled fire-place which would hold great logs.

Double glass-paneled doors led from the front room to the dining-room with its two high-set square windows opening to the sunlight in the rear. Also a single door went to the kitchen, which also had two high windows like those in the adjoining room. From the kitchen, a back door opened upon a tiny grass-platted garden of about twenty feet square. A fine locust tree grew in one corner of the plot and gave shade in the afternoon.

Anne explained certain peculiar features regarding the windows of the back-rooms. “Don’t you see why they are so high? It is because they were once the ventilators to the stalls. Each horse had his own window for air. But I think they now make the rooms look quaint, don’t you?”

The others agreed with her, and Eleanor said: “If we had a shelf running along under the windows, it would look better.”

“And we can use it for china,” added Polly.

Anne now started to go upstairs, followed by the other three; they all examined the bedrooms and were delighted with them. There were two large front and two smaller rear rooms, with a fine tiled bathroom between the back rooms. Not one of the rooms was as small as the largest chambers seen in the modern apartments.

“And all for a hundred and fifty a month!” exclaimed Eleanor, joyously.

“I reckon we’d better take it at once, children,” said Mrs. Stewart, approvingly.

“But remember,” said Anne, on the way to the agent’s office, “we have to make all inside repairs, or redecorate as we want. There is no steam heat or hot water supplied, either, like the swell apartment houses, uptown, offer us.”

“I’d rather have it so, Anne dear,” replied Mrs. Stewart. “I’ve always been used to a coal range and those fandangled gas ideas worried me, but I didn’t say anything to you-all. I noticed what a fine little kitchen stove this one has, so you’ll always have hot water – never fear. As for heat! Well, a great open fire-place in the front room will help heat upstairs, and there is a register in the bathroom that comes from the kitchen stove-pipe.”

“We can use electric or gas radiators, Anne,” added Eleanor, eagerly, “in very cold weather.”

“I never knew what heated bedrooms were like, in Pebbly Pit, Anne,” Polly said, anxious to have a word.

“Besides we may have a very mild winter,” remarked Anne.

So the lease was signed and the first month’s rent paid. “We’ll give you any assistance you may need in getting the place in order, Mrs. Stewart,” said the agent, as he handed the papers to his new tenant.

“That will be very nice, and we will take advantage of your offer, at once. I want the kitchen range and stove pipe put in perfect working order, and please see that the radiator in the bathroom is not obstructed in any way,” said the lady.

Anne and the agent exchanged looks and laughed. “I can see where Mrs. Stewart expects to enjoy herself this winter. Well, I told my wife the other day, we were more comfortable when we had an old-fashioned flat with a kitchen range, than we now are with all the latest modern improvements,” returned the agent.

“Anne, Polly and I want our rooms repapered and painted,” whispered Eleanor, tugging at Anne’s sleeve.

“I was about to suggest that you have all the woodwork given one coat of nice fresh paint, but the paper now on the walls is very expensive and artistic, so I wouldn’t be in too great a hurry to have it done over. The last tenant imported his own paper at a great expense for that place,” explained the agent.

“I think you are very kind and sensible to advise us in this way. So we’ll have the men do the paint but not touch the paper until we have had time to look it over again,” said Anne.

“When can we move in?” questioned Polly.

“Any time you like; but I would advise having the painters out first. I will send two men to begin work in there to-morrow.”

Then the four delighted tenants left the office, and on the walk back to the corner where they wished to board the car they eagerly planned how they would furnish their home.