CHAPTER II – HOUSE HUNTING IN NEW YORK

Before the westerners awake to the new day, let us renew our acquaintance with them.

Polly Brewster, of Pebbly Pit, born and reared on that wonderful ranch in Colorado where the lava-jewels were found, is for the first time in her fourteen years, away from home. As she is at the most impressionable age, her wise mother authorized Anne Stewart, the young teacher who had spent the summer with the Brewsters and who was engaged to John Brewster, to spare no money when fitting Polly out for her life in New York. Mrs. Brewster wished Polly to feel herself the equal of anyone she met, if it pertained to dress. And style was about the only thing that Polly lacked, having all fine qualities in her character.

Eleanor Maynard, of Chicago, now Polly’s dearest friend, never had to count the cost of anything, as her father was the best known and richest banker of that great city. But because of her ill health, being a protegée of Anne Stewart for the past two years, this association had taught Eleanor to think twice before she wasted her allowance.

And Anne Stewart, just past twenty-one, was experienced for her age, because of her mother’s dependence on her for most things, since the father died many years before this story opens. And Paul, her younger brother now at college in Chicago (where the other boys also studied), was there because his sister earned the money with which to pay his expenses. Now that Anne would participate in the shares of the gold mine that had been discovered the day of the escape on Grizzly Slide, the Stewarts had no need to practise such strict economy as hitherto.

In the morning Polly was awakened by a knock at her door. “Poll, someone wants to speak to you over the ’phone,” said Anne.

“Me? Why, who can it be? I never talked into one of those funny little black horns in my life, Anne. Wait, and help me.”

In another moment Polly, in a pretty negligée – one of the purchases of the previous afternoon – ran out of her room. Anne sat her upon a stool before the small stand and showed her how to hold the instrument.

“Hello!” whispered Polly, half afraid that something would pop out at her.

Eleanor had crept out of her room by this time, and stood back of Polly, grinning at her friend’s nervousness.

“Speak louder,” admonished Anne in Polly’s ear.

“Hello!” shouted Polly, trying to adjust her senses to the unfamiliar method of conversing with an unseen individual.

Then a merry laugh and a familiar voice sounded in her ear. Her face expressed amazement, then pleased surprise, and then excitement. She glanced up at Eleanor as the voice continued speaking.

“Oh, we’re so glad to hear you are in the city. Now we shall have lovely times!” exclaimed Polly, finally.

A joyous boy’s voice continued talking but suddenly it ceased, and Polly looked at Anne for an explanation. The telephone receiver began clicking strangely in her ear, and she held it at arm’s length in fear of what might be going to explode inside that queer tube.

Eleanor laughed and said, “Let me do the talking – it sounds like Jim Latimer – is it?”

“Yes, Ken and he landed from the West at midnight, and they are going to the Mardi Gras with us to-night.”

Eleanor now took the telephone, and by the time the operator managed to connect the interrupted wires, she was ready to chat as if she had nothing else to do. After ten minutes of silly boy and girl talk, Anne whispered: “Oh, do stop, Nolla! It is eight o’clock and we want to fill a good day with work.”

“I’ve got to ring off, now, Jim, but we’ll see you to-night. Good-by!” Then Eleanor turned to her companions, and said:

“Well, that’s good news, Polly! To have the boys in the city to show us a good time before we start school.”

Without saying anything to cause the girls to object because this “good time” with the boys might be indefinitely postponed, Anne made up her mind that a home would and must be secured before anyone planned for pleasure or fun.

That day, they sought in buildings on every block uptown that had been left uninspected by Mrs. Latimer and Mrs. Evans, but with no success. If an apartment of five to seven rooms was found, it would be found to be dark, dirty, or in an objectionable neighborhood. They were ready to pay a high rent for six or seven rooms, but nothing suitable could be found.

When they returned to the hotel, at five o’clock, to wash and dress for the outing that evening, everyone felt discouraged. “And these poor deluded New Yorkers call the band-boxes we saw to-day, apartment rooms?” said Polly, sneering at the homes but not at the poor inmates.

“Owners dare not build the rooms larger, Polly, because real estate in this city is so valuable and taxable. Every inch of property has to be made the most of. You know, that is why a builder, in large cities, runs his structures up in the sky – the sky doesn’t charge taxes on so much per foot, but the ground the building stands on does.”

“Oh, I never thought of that! So that is why New York houses go up twenty and thirty stories, eh? The owner has to get his rents out of the air and sky, and pay it over to the land-assessor,” Polly exclaimed, in a tone of understanding.

Her friends laughed. “You are an apt pupil, Poll,” said Anne.

When their hosts for the evening called for Anne and her party, they were all ready and eager to start. So they were soon seated in the two cars; Jim driving one, with Polly seated beside him, and Ken, Eleanor and Anne in the back seat. Mrs. Stewart was welcomed with the two ladies and the two men in the other car.

“Now, Jim,” called Mr. Latimer, “you be sure and trail me. I’ll go first, as I know every foot of the road to Coney Island.”

Polly had never been in an automobile before, and at first she felt frightened; but Jim chatted as he drove, and seemed to take it all so naturally, that she soon overcame the desire to clutch hold on the side of the car.

There were hundreds of other automobiles all going in the same direction, and when our two cars reached the Boulevard, there was such a gay stream of machines and people as the girls never dreamed of before. Confetti, paper ribbons, horns and what-not, were used by the passengers on trolleys and in automobiles along the road until the lighted spires of The Park, and other pleasure-giving resorts of Coney Island were seen.

Polly looked so different in her smart clothes that Jim Latimer wondered what had happened to turn this pretty ranch girl into such a stunning city girl in so short a time.

He kept glancing at her oval face, rounded with health and vigor; at her straight little nose, her wide-open, deep, soulful eyes that seemed to weigh all things wisely; the heavy wavy hair that was becomingly looped back from her face, and above all, the rich glow in her cheeks, and the creamy complexion and fine texture of her skin. “Nothing made-up there!” thought Jim.

But Polly was happily unaware of Jim’s wondering approval, for she was too completely absorbed in the sights about her. She could not have told anyone what Jim looked like in his city clothes. In fact, after the first hasty glance at Ken and him, and the realization that they had doffed their mountain outfits, she gave no second thought to their clothes.

At Coney Island, that night, the girls enjoyed one continual lark. Even Mrs. Stewart was urged to go with the elder Latimers and the Evans upon the chutes, the merry-go-rounds, the Twister, the Winsome Waves, and what-not. Such a reckless spirit of fun seemed to possess everyone in the place, that it was contagious.

When the evening was almost over, and Polly sighed with very surfeit of so much fun, the boys managed to “lose” the elders and took the two girls to the beach.

“Oh, how wonderful! I never thought of the ocean. There was so much to see and to do that I forgot Coney Island was right on the sea,” exclaimed Eleanor.

But Polly said not a word. She was suddenly confronted with the restless mighty ocean that she had always longed to see. The sense of frivolity that had filled her for the last few hours vanished, and she gave herself up to the power of that calm, never-ceasing roll of water. A few minutes before and she had been weary from so much laughter and sport, but now a wonderful peace and rest pervaded her being.

The boys understood this unusual effect of the ocean upon one who had never seen anything like it, and finally Polly heaved a sigh.

“Well, this is better than all else. It’s worth coming so far east to see. It’s the only decent thing of which New York can boast.”

Her companions laughed; after digging in the soft sand for a short time, and exchanging youthful view-points about everything in the universe, they all sauntered back to the place where the two cars had been parked.

A shout greeted them. “There, I knew you boys had dodged us on purpose. But Miss Stewart thought you were lost in this crowd.”

As everyone felt tired before the cars reached New York City again, the conversation was intermittent. But just before Mr. Latimer drove his car up to the hotel, Mrs. Stewart learned how Dr. and Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Latimer, and the two boys, Jim and Ken, had spent that entire day home-hunting for the westerners with no success.

“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.