Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1917 — A Soul Fair and Fine [ARTICLE]

A Soul Fair and Fine

By E.C. WALTZ

(Copyright. 1917, by W. G. ChapmatQ Mrs- Colbert sat on a stool behind a tall desk, making out such business accounts as the keeping of a lodging house demanded. The fire in the small office was banked against any waste of coal. A worn shoulder shawl was pinned under her thin chin. As she shivered and drew this about her a young woman entered and closed the door. Mrs. Colbert looked up. Never had there come in that door such a fresh and glowing creature, never one so well dressed, although her clothes were not of a city cut. The two women looked at each other a moment. The younger actually smiled at the lodging-house keeper. “This is the place to get rooms, isn’t it?” she said, in a pleasant voice. Mrs. Colbert came around from her desk. There were two wooden chairs behind the railing. She opened the gate, set out a chair and turned, the stove damper. This was unusual courtesy for Mother Colbert. “Yes, I let rooms,” she said slowly, “but you could do better.” "My name is Doris Forbes,” said the girl. “My folks are dead and I came to the city to hunt work.” “Yes?” said Mrs. Colbert, questioning her beady black eyes. “My father was a country minister,” she continued. “He died last year and my mother has been dead a long time. I feel as if I must find work.” She spread <out her hands toward the warmth with another bright look. “Folks is poor in different ways,” began the old woman. .“Don’t you really think you could do better?” "I saw your sign and I came in because you were a woman. Have you a furnished room?” The elder woman shrugged hen shoulders as if to say, “If you will, you will,” took a bunch of keys and went upstairs. “There are many empty rooms, too many. Some of my best lodgers have been out of work so long. Here is a room on the side street, with tw r o windows, but you can’t reach it unless you go through the room of those Italian girls.” “Are they working girls?” asked Doris soberly, “because if they are, that would not he so bad. I should not be so lonesome and I like company.” “They sing on the streets and in concert halls sometimes,” replied Mrs. Colbert, with compressed lips; “they used to go with their father, who is dead. Blanca plays the harp, Francesca is younger. Today she went to the Art league. They want to paint from her, I suppose.” <She threw open the door of a room, dirty, meagerly furnished. Beyond was another, no larger, no better. Doris looked at the rusty, fireless stove with a shudder. “There was a woman who couldn’t pay the rent lived with them. They used to warm one stove for all.” When the trunk came to the place a few hours later, Mrs. Colbert went up with it She had been hearing curious sounds. The new. lodger had on a country girl’s working dress, a roaring fire in the cracked stove and had actually washed the windows and floor. There was such a subtle change in the room already that Mrs. Colbert stared. “Can you go on with coals?” she said, basking in the welcome warmth. “Coals are so dear, you See.”

“rm going to make coal somehow,” responded Doris cheerfully. “See if I don’t I know I can make my own way in the city. Do you suppose I can’t find a way in this great hive?” “There’s too many people,” gasped' Mrs. Colbert. Doris was unpacking her trunk. The' woman sat down, unable to resist this excitement. “It’s a death struggle from day to day, in the winter especially.”, Doris looked up gravely. “Does it have to be?” “I keep asking. I watch the people coming, going. You’re the first creature of hope, that’s come in here for many a long day." “Who was the last?” “These girl’s father. He never gave up. He was a musician but got lost in drink. There was something in him that never died. The girls do not understand, no more do I.” When the Raiboldlnl girls, shawls over their heads, stumbled in at dusk, Mrs. Colbert said to them: “There’s a new lodger in your back room. I won’t have Pietro or Rebo Nanni or any other man up there, laughing and drinking. If you do not like it, Blanca, there are other places. She is from the countfy and must be respected.” Doris heard two pairs of timid footsteps In the outer room. She opened the door. “It Is much too cold here. My stove ’is hot. Come, warm yourselves.” “Madonna mia!” cried Blanca as she stepped in, “what heat; what .comfort.” / For a few cheap purchases and the magic'of a woman’s hand had made 9 home of the bare room. On the old stove a tin kettle sputtered, a clean glans lamp gave a bright light on the table, already covered with oilcloth.

There were blankets and a patch work, quilt over the poor bed, a cushion in the creaking rocker. Before the stovestood Doris. Her, smooth brown hair was parted away from the broad brow, her calm eyes met theirs with friendliness. She wore a working dress and! apron. Bianca was young but worn and bent, with the weight of the harp. Francesca was a little more than a child, straight, slim and with the clustered ringlets of a boy. Both were Shivering with cold for the night was bitter., A wave of compassion went through Doris. She went forward and led Francesca to the stove. There was no more trouble in the -room of the Raiboldini. The Italian girls arranged that. The next day Doris set out to search for work. When she came home at night she smiled at Mrs. Colbert and told her that she was employed as cashier at a bakery. “It is not a very large bakery or a very large business,” she said cheerily, “but it will be a living, the rent and coals and meals. I must make a start.” The women held up their hands. Such luck! She w’ould shortly leave them. Three meals? Surfeit! Doris laughed over their awe. She had thenr in to her fire again. Mrs. Colbert came also. Once sfie had been fond of the Raiboldini girls. Now she would have Bianca play. Bianca brought the harp. Her thin face lighted with enthusiasm. She would play as her father taught her once more. So the street music was forgotten and again she struck the wonderful and tender strains that sent Francesco sobbing to the crucifix. In a week the Italian girls were changed and happier. They had. put their room in order and had mended their clothing. Doris sometimes thought of the sewing bees in her father’s parish. How little he could have imagined her impoverishing a needed sewing bee with two Italians and a lodging-house keeper! The baker was a young man. One night he walked home with Doris.after supper and asked to come to see her. With her usual simplicity she said he could if her roommates were at home, not otherwise. The next day he gave her a slight raise in salary and asked her to change to better quarters. Doris thought soberly.

“I can do more good there than any* where else just now,” she said directly, “and I would rather not change as you desire. I was to marry. My lover’s family objected as I was poor. I cannot forget and I am only happy now in living for others.” He had the manliness to continue her in his employ and to harass her no more. Another time Mrs. Colbert sat on her high stood in her little office. It was evening. Transient lodgers came ln,one by one. The place was cleaner. There was a fire and a brighter lamp. The door opened to admit a tall and stalwart young man. He glanced around. His eye fell upon a text upon the wall over the desk. It read. “God is love.” Then he stood in front of Mrs. Colbert. “Madam,” he said, a little tremulously, “I have reason to believe a young girl. Doris Forbes, lives in this house.” Mrs. Colbert looked at him with a close scrutiny. x;. “She does. She has been here six months. She is upstairs.” A light and delicious strain of harp music came from above, sweet as an angelic assurance. The man trembled. “I have had a long search. Will you show me the way? I am an old friend.” Mrs. Colbert lighted a, lamp from the shelf back of her and led him up the stairway. The tender and wooing harp music was in her ears. At the door the old woman stopped. “When she came I asked her two or three times if she couldn’t do better. But she said, no. She’s changed the house.” She opened the door. Bianca was at the harp, her worn face rapturous with the expression of the unforgotten genius of her father. Francesca looked with a tender joy at a rough sketch of her own head which had been given her and which she had pinned above the crucifix. Doris was seated in the creaky rocking chair, lulling to sleep a crippled child which had been ill for days in an uppei room. When the door opened she gave a bright glance at the newcomers, then held out her hand silently. Mrs. Colbert’s eyes were jnisty as she went down the stairs. “I asked her if she couldn’t do better. It’s been done fbr her.” -