The St.Francesca apartment-house was a very new one, situated on a corner of an as yet sparsely built but rapidly spreading avenue above the "100th Streets"--many numbers above them.There was a frankly unfinished air about the neighborhood, but here and there a "store"had broken forth and valiantly displayed necessities, and even articles verging upon the economically ornamental.It was plainly imperative that the idea should be suggested that there were on the spot sources of supply not requiring the immediate employment of the services of the elevated railroad in the achievement of purchase, and also that enterprise rightly encouraged might develop into being equal to all demands.Here and there an exceedingly fresh and clean "market store," brilliant with the highly colored labels adorning tinned soups and meats and edibles in glass jars, alluringly presented itself to the passer-by.The elevated railroad perched upon iron supports, and with iron stairways so tall that they looked almost perilous, was a prominent feature of the landscape.There were stretches of waste ground, and high backgrounds of bits of country and woodland to be seen.The rush of New York traffic had not yet reached the streets, and the avenue was of an agreeable suburban cleanliness and calm.
People who lived in upper stories could pride themselves on having "views of the river." These they laid stress upon when it was hinted that they "lived a long way uptown."The St.Francesca was built of light-brown stone and decorated with much ornate molding.It was fourteen stories high, and was supplied with ornamental fire-escapes.It was "no slouch of a building."Everything decorative which could be done for it had been done.The entrance was almost imposing, and a generous lavishness in the way of cement mosaic flooring and new and thick red carpet struck the eye at once.The grill-work of the elevator was of fresh, bright blackness, picked out with gold, and the colored elevator-boy wore a blue livery with brass buttons.Persons of limited means who were willing to discard the excitements of "downtown" got a good deal for their money, and frequently found themselves secretly surprised and uplifted by the atmosphere of luxury which greeted them when they entered their red-carpeted hall.It was wonderful, they said, congratulating one another privately, how much comfort and style you got in a New York apartment-house after you passed the "150ths."
On a certain afternoon T.Tembarom, with his hat on the back of his head and his arms full of parcels, having leaped off the "L" when it stopped at the nearest station, darted up and down the iron stairways until he reached the ground, and then hurried across the avenue to the St.Francesca.He made long strides, and two or three times grinned as if thinking of something highly amusing; and once or twice he began to whistle and checked himself.He looked approvingly at the tall building and its solidly balustraded entrance-steps as he approached it, and when he entered the red-carpeted hall he gave greeting to a small mulatto boy in livery.
"Hello, Tom! How's everything?" he inquired, hilariously."You taking good care of this building? Let any more eight-room apartments? You've got to keep right on the job, you know.Can't have you loafing because you've got those brass buttons."The small page showed his teeth in gleeful appreciation of their friendly intimacy.
"Yassir.That's so," he answered."Mis' Barom she's waitin' for you.
Them carpets is come, sir.Tracy's wagon brought 'em 'bout an hour ago.I told her I'd help her lay 'em if she wanted me to, but she said you was comin' with the hammer an' tacks.'Twarn't that she thought Iwas too little.It was jest that there wasn't no tacks.I tol' her jest call me in any time to do anythin' she want done, an' she said she would.""She'll do it," said T.Tembarom."You just keep on tap.I'm just counting on you and Light here," taking in the elevator-boy as he stepped into the elevator, "to look after her when I'm out."The elevator-boy grinned also, and the elevator shot up the shaft, the numbers of the floors passing almost too rapidly to be distinguished.
The elevator was new and so was the boy, and it was the pride of his soul to land each passenger at his own particular floor, as if he had been propelled upward from a catapult.But he did not go too rapidly for this passenger, at least, though a paper parcel or so was dropped in the transit and had to be picked up when he stopped at floor fourteen.
The red carpets were on the corridor there also, and fresh paint and paper were on the walls.A few yards from the elevator he stopped at a door and opened it with a latch-key, beaming with inordinate delight.
The door opened into a narrow corridor leading into a small apartment, the furniture of which was not yet set in order.A roll of carpet and some mats stood in a corner, chairs and tables with burlaps round their legs waited here and there, a cot with a mattress on it, evidently to be transformed into a "couch," held packages of bafflingly irregular shapes and sizes.In the tiny kitchen new pots and pans and kettles, some still wrapped in paper, tilted themselves at various angles on the gleaming new range or on the closed lids of the doll-sized stationary wash-tubs.
Little Ann had been very busy, and some of the things were unpacked.
She had been sweeping and mopping floors and polishing up remote corners, and she had on a big white pinafore-apron with long sleeves, which transformed her into a sort of small female chorister.She came into the narrow corridor with a broom in her hand, her periwinkle-blue gaze as thrilled as an excited child's when it attacks the arrangement of its first doll's house.Her hair was a little ruffled where it showed below the white kerchief she had tied over her head.The warm, daisy pinkness of her cheeks was amazing.
"Hello!" called out Tembarom at sight of her."Are you there yet? Idon't believe it."
