CHAPTER II
IN SEARCH OF A HOME
IT was with the vision of a charming little bungalow in her mind thatMary started on her search for a house next morning; a little whitebungalow half hidden in vines, and set among heuisach and mesquitetrees, or maybe in the shelter of one giant pecan. As they had whirledaround the city in the touring car the day before, she had seen severalof that kind which she thought would suit both their taste and theirpurse.
She had not yet reached the point of picturing to herself the insidefurnishings. They would have to be of the simplest sort, of course. Butone picture seemed to rise up of its own accord whenever she thought ofthe new home. She saw a big living-room, the centre of a cheeryhospitality, where girls fluttered in and out at all hours of the day.Bright, fun-loving, interesting girls like Gay Melville and Roberta. Herwistful little face grew very sweet and eager at the mere thought ofsuch companionship, and there was such a dancing light in her gray eyesand such a happy glow of expectancy on her cheeks that more than onepasser-by took a second glance and felt the morning brighter because ofit.
Mrs. Ware had expected to accompany her, leaving Jack to Norman's carefor the morning, but a neuralgic headache, an old enemy of hers, seizedher on awakening, and she was obliged to shift the responsibility toMary's willing shoulders. Although it doubled the car-fare, Mary tookNorman with her for company. Armed with a map of the city and a list ofhouses, clipped from the morning paper, they started gaily out on theirquest. It was good just to be alive on such a morning, and out in thebrilliant sunshine, with the air so fresh and sweet, and the plaza asgreen and flowery as if it were mid-summer instead of the week beforeThanksgiving.
They walked at first, wanting a closer view than the cars afforded ofthe fascinating old curio shops. Mexicans were no novelty to them asthey were to Northern tourists. They had seen too many in Phoenix and atthe mining camp to care for a second look at the tall, peaked hats ofthe men or the rebosa-draped heads of the women. But the narrow streetsof the Mexican quarter with their chili and tamale stands interestedthem. It was some kind of a fete day, and flags were flying and afestive spirit was in the air; a spirit that seems to belong peculiarlyto this alluring old Spanish city, where fete days come often and onesoon learns to say "manana" with the rest.
Norman, who picked up bits of information here and there as a magnetdraws needles and nails, imparted some of it to Mary as he trudged alongbeside her. Everything was making a deep impression on his mind becausethis was his first journey of any consequence.
"This is the third oldest city in the United States, the guide booksays," he began, then paused before a shop window, attracted by thesign, "Dressed Fleas, 35 cents," to exclaim, scornfully, "Who'd be foolenough to want one of _those_ things, dead or alive!" With a skip or twoto catch up with Mary, he continued, "And there's thirteen miles ofriver twisting in and out among the streets, with seventeen bridges overit."
"It surely is the twistiest, crookedest river that I ever saw on a map,"answered Mary, "but that's what makes the town so lovely--all thosegraceful bends with the green banks and tropical foliage and the littleboats tied up here and there to the landings. I wish we could find thekind of a place we want somewhere along the river. Maybe we could manageto get a boat. Anyhow, if we couldn't do any better we could make araft. I'd love to pole one, and it would be just like doing it in ourown back yard if the river ran right behind our place."
"Say! Let's!" exclaimed Norman, explosively. "Mary Ware, you've got ahead on you that's worth something! And I'll tell you something else Iwish we could manage to do,--that's to get a house out near Brackenridgepark. They've got antelope and buffalo and elk, and all sorts of wildanimals out there. I'd like to see them often."
"We'd better get down to business, then," said Mary, "instead ofloitering along this way. We can look at the shops after we've found ahouse."
"Stop just a minute at the Alamo," begged Norman. "I want to see theplace where Travis and Davy Crockett and Bowie put up such a desperatefight against Santa Anna. This is just as interesting a place to me asBunker Hill or Plymouth Rock would be, and I want to write home to BillyDowns about it."
"But it isn't the _exact_ spot," objected Mary, who wanted to lose nomore time and was sometimes provokingly literal. "This is only thelittle chapel, and the real fight took place in a court that was awayover yonder, and the walls were pulled down long ago."
Norman planted himself at the entrance and proceeded to argue thematter. "But the chapel was part of it, and it stands for the wholething now--a sort of monument, you know, and there's relics insideand--"
"Oh, well, come on, then," said Mary, "if you're _that_ anxious, butjust for a minute. You can come here some other time by yourself andprowl around all day."
She followed him into the dim interior, still insisting at every stepthat they must hurry. It was so early no one but the care-taker was insight. She knew how Norman liked history, and what enthusiasticadmiration he had for the heroes of frontier times, but she wassurprised to see how deeply he was impressed by the venerable building.He took off his hat as they entered and walked around as reverently asif they were in a church. As they gazed up at the narrow, iron-barredwindows which had witnessed such a desperate struggle for liberty, hesaid, in an awed tone, which made even Mary feel solemn:
"'Here, for ten days, took place the most memorable, thrilling, tragic,and bloody siege in American history. One hundred and seventy-nineindomitable American frontier riflemen against an army of six thousandbrave and disciplined troops led by veteran officers!'"
"_Where_ did you get all that?" demanded Mary, in surprise.
"I saw it in a little pamphlet, in the reading-room last night, and ittold about the Comanche Indians that came here about seventy years ago.The fiercest fighting you ever heard of--thirty-two Indian warriorskilled right out there in the street that we came across just now, andseven Texans."
"Goodness, Norman!" she answered, with a shrug. "What do you want toresurrect all those old horrors for? It doesn't make the place any moreattractive to me to know that its streets once ran red with blood. I'drather think of them as they will be in the Spring on San Jacinto Day,red with roses after the Battle of Flowers. Think of our being here tosee that!" she added, exultingly.
As they emerged from the dimly-lighted chapel into the blinding sunshineof the street, Norman remarked thoughtfully, "Of course I'm sorry thatJack had the rheumatism so badly that he had to get out of Lone Rock,but as long as we did have to leave home, I'm jolly glad it brought usto San Antonio. Think of the times we'll have going out to Fort SamHouston to guard-mounts and parade. It's something just to be withinwalking distance of the largest army post of the United States."
"I'm thinking of the public library," was her rejoinder. "Jack can haveall the books he wants to read this winter; and I'm thinking of thefriends we'll have; the real, satisfying kind, that do things, and goplaces, and think, and keep you from sinking to the level of a cabbage.I've always wanted to live in the thick of things, and here we are atlast!"
They paused on the curb to wait for a long string of vehicles to pass.An army ambulance came first, drawn by sleek mules, driven by a soldierin khaki and carrying several ladies and children from the Post. Closebehind it came a riding party, clattering in on horseback from abreakfast at the Country Club. Then followed close on each other'sheels, a dilapidated prairie schooner, three boys on a burro, ahuckster's wagon, and a carriage with liveried coachman and prancing,thoroughbred horses. The clang of a long line of electric cars whizzingpast, the honk of many automobiles, and the warning sound of bicyclebells, as their owners wheeled in and out through the bewildering mazeof vehicles and pedestrians, made Norman exclaim, joyfully, "Gee! I'mglad we're out of Lone Rock! There's something to see here every singleminute."
Mary signalled a passing car, and as soon as they were seated, drew outher newspaper clippings. "Mrs. Barnaby said for us to go to LaurelHeights first," she remarked, "so I believe we'll find it best to trythis o
ne. It sounds all right."
She read the advertisement aloud: "A five-room bungalow, never beenoccupied, all modern conveniences, one block from car-line, rentreasonable, inquire next door."
Then she unfolded the map and studied it as they whirled along, now andthen repeating the name of a street as she came across one which soundedparticularly pleasing and story-bookish, as she called it, to Norman:"King William Street, Mistletoe Avenue, Dolorosa and San Pedro."
When a little later they alighted from the car and found the placedescribed in the advertisement, it was almost the bungalow of Mary'sdreams. The vines were lacking and the lawn was still strewn with thedebris of building, but that could soon be remedied.
"What good, wide porches to hang a hammock on!" exclaimed Norman, asthey mounted the steps and walked around, peering through the windows.
"You'll have to say gallery," corrected Mary. "Everybody down here callsa porch a gallery. They won't know what you mean."
They walked all around the house, exclaiming over each attractivefeature, as each window revealed a new one. The electric lights, theconvenient little bathroom, the open fire-place in the living-room, thebuilt-in china closet. Norman's only complaint was that the house wasnowhere near the river. That was a drawback in Mary's eyes also, forever since they had thought of a boat it had begun to take its place inthat mental picture in which those alluring girls were always flutteringin and out.
"Of course we'll look farther," she said. "It wouldn't do to take thefirst one we came to when there are so many to choose from. I'll justrun in next door and inquire the price, and tell them we'll make up ourminds later."
But when she had made her inquiries her decision followed immediately.What might seem reasonable rent to the owner and to the people of thatneighborhood was entirely out of the reach of the Ware pocket-book. "Youwon't find anything cheaper in this part of town," the woman assuredher, and after several more experiences of the same kind, Mary believedher.
They passed all sorts of beautiful homes in their wanderings; statelyColonial mansions, comfortable wide-spreading houses with broadgalleries and hospitable doors, picturesque bungalows in the missionstyle, little white-winged cottages over-run with tangles of MarechalNiel roses, their fragrant buds swinging from the very eaves. Thefarther they searched the more Mary longed to find a home among them,and it was with a feeling of deep disappointment that she turned back tothe hotel for lunch.
Mrs. Ware had spent part of the morning telephoning to different realestate offices recommended by Mr. Barnaby, and had a small list ofhouses sifted down from those offered her.
"They tell me we are too late to get much of a choice," she reported."People have been pouring into the city for a month, and the freightstations and ware-houses are piled up with household goods. It is thisway every fall, they say. No matter how many homes they build there arealways more families clamoring to occupy them than can be accommodated.It would be easier for us to find one if we could afford to pay more,but I had to cut out all the high-priced ones from the lists that theygave me."
Mary took the slip of paper from her mother, saying, "So far the ones wehave seen have been too big or too expensive, or else far too small. Iwonder what will be the matter with these?"
She began to find out almost as soon as she and Norman resumed theirsearch again after lunch. The lists they had led them into older partsof the town, where the rented houses had seen several generations oftransitory occupants. Some of the places they visited made her shrinkback in dismay. A long procession of careless tenants had passedthrough, each leaving some contribution to the evidences of their slackhousekeeping. Nearly every family had had its share of disease anddeath, and Mary hurried away with a wry face and the single exclamation,"germs!" Mrs. Barnaby had spoken of that class of houses. "You want tobe careful," she told her. "Even the nicest looking may have haddreadfully sick tenants in them, and although there is a law requiringlandlords to fumigate, and all that sort of thing, you can't be surethat it has been done as thoroughly as it should."
"This is getting monotonous," Mary exclaimed, wearily, when they hadwalked block after block to no purpose, and the end of the day foundthem with nothing accomplished. The morning freshness of the atmospherehad given place to such enervating heat that she had been carrying hercoat on her arm for several hours. The sky was overcast with clouds,when fagged and inwardly cross she climbed on the car that was to takethem back to the hotel, vowing that she couldn't drag herself anotherstep.
At the next corner half a dozen people hurried down the street, wavingfrantically for the car to wait. As they crowded into the aisle,laughing and out of breath, Mary heard a lady exclaim, "We certainlywere lucky to catch this car. If we'd had to wait for the next one the'Norther' surely would have caught us, and this is going to be a nasty,wet one, too."
Even as she spoke there was a sense of sudden chill in the air. A coldgale swept down the street, setting flags and awnings to flapping, andblinding pedestrians with whirling clouds of dust. The conductorhurried to close the car windows, and the passengers began strugglinginto their wraps.
The sudden freshening of the air had such a bracing effect that Marystraightened up, feeling that after all she might be able to walk thehalf block from the car to the hotel. When the time came, she found thatshe could even run the distance, for the few big drops of rain thatsplashed in her face were the fore-runner of a downpour, and they had noumbrella. Just as they reached the entrance such a mighty deluge beganthat Mary's disappointment in house-hunting was somewhat softened by thefact that her beloved hat had escaped a wetting which must have ruinedit.
"Never mind, little Vicar," said Jack, consolingly, when she had madeher report to the assembled family. "The proverbial turn in our fortuneis bound to come. It's never failed us yet, you know."
"But we've simply got to get out of this expensive hotel," she answered,desperately. "Do you realize that we could keep house for a week on whatit costs the four of us to stay here just one day?"
Mrs. Ware broke the long silence that followed, by suggesting, "Maybefor the present we'd better try to get a few rooms somewhere, just forlight housekeeping. It's a last resort, I know, but Mary is right. Everyday we spend here is taking a big mouthful out of our little capital."
Nobody liked the suggestion, for whatever else they had lacked in theirArizona homes there had been no lack of space, but they all saw thewisdom of Mrs. Ware's suggestion, and agreed to try it until they couldlook around and do better.
"How lovely it must be to have an ancestral roof-tree," thought Marythat night, as she tossed, restlessly, kept awake by the noises of thebig hotel. "I can't think of anything more heavenly than to always livein the house where you were born, and your fathers and grandfathersbefore you, as the Lloyds do at The Locusts. It must be so delightful tofeel that you've got an attic full of heirlooms and that everythingabout the place is connected with some old family tradition, and to knowthat you can take root there, and not have to go wandering around frompillar to post as we Wares have always had to do. I wonder if LloydSherman knows how much she has to be thankful for!"
Next day in her shortest skirt and rain-coat, and under a drippingumbrella, Mary started to look for rooms. She was alone this time.Company was too expensive a luxury to afford more than one day, since itmeant extra car-fare. She paddled blithely off, however, never mindingthe weather. This rain made the little home she was seeking seem all themore desirable. Whenever a window showed her a cozy interior with thelight of an open fire shining cheerily over it, she thought it would notbe long till she would be making afternoon tea over just such a fire, orpopping corn or toasting marsh-mallows. She could think of a dozen waysto make it attractive for the girls when they dropped in of rainyafternoons.
Occupied with such plans she tramped along through the mud and slush ashappily as she had gone through the sunshine the day before. But by theend of the morning repeated failures began to bring a worried linebetween her eyes and a sharp note of anxiety into her
voice when shemade her inquiries. Once, finding herself in the neighborhood of a housewhich she had refused the day before because it did not quite measure upto the standards she had set, she went to look at it again, thinking,after all, they might manage to be more comfortable in it than in a fewrooms. To her disappointment she found a family already moving in. Ithad been rented almost immediately after her refusal to take it.
In her search for rooms a new difficulty faced her. Invariably one ofthe first questions asked her was, "Anyone sick in your family?"
"Yes, my brother," she would say. "He has rheumatism. That is why we areparticular about getting a sunny south room for him."
"Well, we can't take sick people," would be the positive answer, and shewould turn away with an ache in her throat and a dull wonder why Jack'srheumatism could make him objectionable in the slightest degree as atenant. The morning was nearly gone before she found the reason. She wasshown into a dingy parlor by a child of the family, and asked to wait afew moments. Its mother had gone around the corner to the bakery, butwould be right back.
There were two others already waiting when Mary entered the room, astout, middle-aged woman and a delicate-looking girl. The woman lookedup with a nod as Mary took a chair near the stove and spread out herdamp skirts to dry.
"I reckon you're on the same errand as us," said the woman, "but it'sfirst come, first served, and we're ahead of you."
"Yes," answered Mary, distantly polite, and wondering at the aggressivetone. When the child left the room the woman rose and shut the doorbehind it, and then came back to Mary, lowering her voiceconfidentially.
"It's just this way. We're getting desperate. We came down here for mydaughter's health--the doctor sent us, and we've gone all over towntrying to get some kind of roof over our heads. We can't get in anywherebecause Maudie has lung trouble. People have been coming down here forforty years to get cured of it, and folks were glad enough to rent 'emrooms and take their money, till all this talk was stirred up in thepapers about lung trouble being a great white plague, and catching, andall that. Now you can't get in anywhere at a price that poor folks canpay. I've come to the end of my rope. The landlady at the boarding-housewhere we've been stopping, told me this morning that she couldn't keepus another day, because the boarders complained when they found whatailed Maudie. I was a fool to tell 'em, for she doesn't cough much. It'sonly in the first stages. After this I'm just going to say that I camedown here to look for work, and goodness knows, _that's_ the truth! WhatI want to ask of you is that you won't stand in the way of our gettingin here by offering more rent or anything like that."
"Certainly not," Mary answered, drawing back a little, almostintimidated by the fierceness which desperation gave to the other'smanner.
The landlady bustled in at that moment, and as she threw the rooms openfor inspection, she asked the question that Mary had heard so often thatmorning,--"Any sick in your family?"
"No," answered the woman, glibly. "I'm down in the city looking forwork. I do plain sewing, and if you know of any likely customers I'd beglad if you'd mention me."
The landlady glanced shrewdly at Maudie, who kept in the background.
"She does embroidery," explained her mother. "Needle-work makes her alittle pale and peaked, sitting over it so long. I ain't going to lether do so much after I once get a good start."
"Well, a person in my place can't be too careful," complained thelandlady. "We get taken in so often letting our rooms to strangers. Theyhave all sorts of names for lung trouble nowadays, malaria and a weakheart and such things. The couple I had in here last said it was justindigestion and shortness of breath, but she died all the same sixweeks later, in this very room, and he had to acknowledge it was herlungs all the time, and he knew it."
Mary looked around the room with a shiver. Its old wallpaper, dingypaint and worn carpet proclaimed too plainly that its renovation sincethe last lodgers' departure had been only a superficial one, barely whatthe law demanded.
"No, thank you," she replied to the landlady, who had turned to her withthe hope of finding a more desirable tenant. "I couldn't consider theserooms at all. There are only two, and we need three at least."
Out on the street again a tear or two splashed down and mingled with therain on her face as she walked away. She was growing desperate herself.If two rooms had been all they needed, she could have found them anumber of times over. Or, if they could have afforded some of the flatsor the sunny suites she discovered on pleasant streets, her search wouldhave been soon over. But it was the same old circle she kept coming backto. When the rooms were large enough and within their means, either theywere unsanitary or the owners objected to invalids. In vain sheexplained that Jack's helplessness was due to an accident, and thatrheumatism is not contagious. Too many people like Maudie's mother hadbeen ahead of her and bred suspicion of all strangers in quest of roomsfor light housekeeping.
Mary had told her mother not to expect her back for lunch. She would gointo some tea-room or restaurant wherever she happened to be. But oneo'clock found her in a part of the town where nothing of the kind was insight. She bought an apple and some crackers at a grocery, and ate themunder cover of her umbrella while she stood on a corner, waiting for acar to take her to another part of the city.
What a different place it seemed to be from the one they had seen theday of their arrival! Then it was a world of hospitable homes andsunshine and kindly faces. The very shop windows looked friendly andinviting. Now, plodding along in the wet, to the tired, homesick girl itseemed only a great, desolate place full of lonely, discouragedstrangers and sick people and dingy boarding-houses, whose doors shutcoldly in anxious faces.
All afternoon she kept up the search. The electric lights were beginningto gleam through the rain, throwing long, quivering reflections in thepuddles when she finally turned back to the hotel, bedraggled andutterly discouraged.
"I _won't_ cry!" she said, fiercely, to herself. "I can't! For Jackwould see that I had been at it, and he is getting so sensitive lately.It would hurt him dreadfully to know that we are barred out of all thedesirable places because he is an invalid."
The habit of years is strong. Mary had persisted so long in applying thegood Vicar of Wakefield's motto to her childish difficulties anddisappointments, that it had taught her remarkable self-control. Insteadof bursting impulsively into the room as so many girls of her age wouldhave done, and giving vent to her over-taxed nerves and discouragementin a tearful report of the day's adventures, she walked slowly from theelevator to her room, trying to think of some careless way in which toannounce her failure. She paused with her hand on the knob, thinking,"I'll just tell them that I've come back like Noah's dove did the firsttime it was sent out from the ark, because I could find no rest for thesole of my foot; at least a rest which fitted both our ideas and ourincome."
To her relief, the room was empty when she entered. The only lightstreamed through the transom and keyhole from Jack's room, where a lowmurmur told that her mother was reading aloud. Opening the door just acrack so that her face was not visible, she called, gaily, "I'm back,mamma, but you can just go on with your reading; I'll not tell a singlething till I'm all dried and dressed. I'm as wet as a frog."
"Oh, I was afraid you'd be," came the anxious answer. "I'll come andget--"
"No," interrupted Mary, decidedly. "I don't want anything but time."Closing the door between the rooms, she switched on the light and beganslipping out of her wet clothes into dry ones. In a moment or two shewas in her soft, warm kimona and Turkish slippers, standing on thethreshold of the bathroom, intending to plunge her face into a basin ofhot water. It was the best thing she could think of to remove the tracesof tears, and she was so tired that now she was safe in the harbor ofher own room the tears _would_ come, no matter how hard she tried tokeep them back.
But before she could turn the faucet, a tap at the hall door made herdab her handkerchief hastily across her eyes, for Mrs. Barnaby's voicefollowed the tap.
"I sur
ely hate to trouble you," she began, apologetically, as soon asMary had admitted her, "but if you could only hook me up this one moretime--I've been waiting for James with this shawl over my shoulders fornearly half an hour. Then I heard you come in and I thought maybe youwouldn't mind doing it once more. We're going home in the morning."
Then with a keen look into Mary's face, she added, kindly, "Why, youpoor child, what's the matter? Your brother isn't worse, I hope!"
There was such a note of real concern in the sympathetic voice thatMary's lip trembled and her eyes brimmed over again. When the nextmoment she found herself drawn into Mrs. Barnaby's capacious embracewith a plump hand patting her soothingly on the back, the story of herdiscouragement seemed to sob itself out of its own accord. Theperformance left Mary's eyes very red and tear-swollen, but the outburstbrought such relief that she could laugh the moment it was over. It wasMrs. Barnaby's surprise which brought the laugh.
"I can't get over it!" she kept exclaiming. "To think that all this timeI supposed that you were enormously wealthy--actually rolling in riches!Well, well!"
"I didn't know that my 'short and simple annals of the poor' would be soupsetting," giggled Mary, hysterically. "You were so sweet andsympathetic I couldn't help telling you. But don't take it to heart,please. We Wares never stay discouraged long. I'll be all right nowafter I get my face washed. As soon as I fasten your dress I'll run inand turn on the hot water."
The hooking proceeded in silence, Mrs. Barnaby so absorbed in thoughtthat she forgot her usual sigh of relief and expression of thanks at theend. Instead she said, abruptly, "You come and go up on the train withus in the morning to Bauer. It's only thirty miles from here and it's upin the hills, high and dry, and there's the Metz cottage I'm sure youcan get, all freshly scrubbed and ready to move into. Mrs. Metz is thecleanest little German woman you ever saw,--scrubs even the under sidesof her tables as white as the tops. It wasn't rented when we came downhere last Saturday. Let me talk to your mother about it. I'm sure it isjust the place for you."
"Oh, no," began Mary. "We couldn't possibly go there! We've counted somuch on living here in San Antonio this winter and meeting some of ourfriends' friends--"
Then she stopped with a little gasp, and after an instant's pause said,apologetically, "I didn't mean to refuse so abruptly, and now I take itall back. Changing plans so suddenly is somewhat of a shock to one'ssystem, isn't it! After all, I'm like a drowning man catching at straws,and I'd be very glad, indeed, if you would talk to mamma about it. Youcan go right in now while I finish dressing, if you like."
It was not the first time Mrs. Barnaby had been ushered into Jack'sroom. Their acquaintance had begun over the railing of their adjoiningbalconies the first day of Mary's house-hunting, and had rapidlydeepened into a mutual liking. So strongly had Mrs. Barnaby beenattracted to the young fellow who bore his crippled condition so lightlythat he made others forget it, that she induced James to go in and makehis acquaintance also. The two men had spent several hours of the long,rainy morning together, each greatly interested in the other'sconversation.
Mary, who had been gone all day, did not know of this, but she knew thather mother had met and liked Mrs. Barnaby, and that the story of theday's unsuccessful search would not sound half so serious if thatcheerful old lady told it, especially if it were followed immediatelyby her offer to find them a home in Bauer.
Bauer was an uncharted country on Mary's map, but if Mrs. Barnabythought of it as their desired haven, she could trust her capable handsto take them safely into it. So it was with a sigh of relief that sheopened the door between the rooms, saying, "Here's Mrs. Barnaby, mamma,"and left her to make explanations while she finished dressing.
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