Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1918 — IN 4-D [ARTICLE]

IN 4-D

By MAUNA COWLES

(Copyright, 1918, by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate.) "Tenant in "“apartment Four D, Marbridge court,” whispered vociferous Nathan, the young man who worked the switchboard at Curtis & Carter’s real estate offices. The young man listened to the voice on the telephone, then turning to the young Mr. Carter, he said: r “She wants to talk to one of the firm. Kind o’ mad, I should say. Want to talk to her, Mr. Carter?” ■ “What’s she -like?” queried the youngest member of the firm. “Sounds like a cranky old school ma’am. She’s awful mad — “Oh, well, I might as well talk to her. Hl kid her a little, and maybe that will keep her quiet,” and still turning over the papers on his desk, with his right hand. Mr. Carter reached out with his left hand to take the receiver off its hook on his desk phone while the operator connected him with the tenant in apartment Four D. “So you’re pretty cold. Well, now — I didn’t catch the name —Miss Crosby —I certainly am sorry. But you’ll have to see Mr. Hoover about that. Now, you don’t think we’re keeping that apartment cold just to make you mad. No, honest, there isn’t any way we can get more coal. What —the theaters get coal enough. Well, that’s a good one. All you can do, then, is to go to a show. It’s matinee day. Now, really, I didn’t mean to make you angry. But you see, everyone is kicking, and it really isn’t our fault. We can’t get any more coal and all we can do is to try and keep cheerful about it. 1. What? You bet that it isn’t so cold here in our office as it is in your apartment? Well, now, Miss Crosby,. Til have to admit that it is pretty comfortable here. We’ve got a southern exposure and we’re on the ground floor, and somehow these office building people do manage to get the coal. Yes, it is unfair. 'What? Why, certainly. Td be glad ta see you. Come right along. Yes, just ask for Mr. Carter, Jr., Frank Carter. Good-by, Miss Crosby. I’ll see you soon.” He hung the receiver back on the hook and then clapped his hand over the ear with which he had been listening as if to relieve it from the effect of the volley fire that had been charged on it through the phone. "Wow,” he said, addressing the telephone operator on the opposite side of the room, beyond the little wooden fence. “Wow, but she certainly is some sour old maid. I thought I’d kid her Into good humor, but it was the wrong tack. I wonder if she’ll call thy bluff and come down and see how warm we are. But say, Nathan, try to get the coal commissioner on the wire again. It’s a shame to run the fires so low. Ask them if they can’t let me speak to him personally. It seems as if something ought to be done.”

A half-hour later young Carter heard a very low but unmistakable whistle. It was Nathan’s way of indicating that something worth observing was occurring in the office. There was a note of admiration in the whistle —distinctly it was his way of signaling to the other boys in the office and Mr. Carter, who was still young enough to be interested in such a signal even though he was a member of the firm —the proximity of a pretty girl, Carter looked up from his paper, caught the direction of Nathan’s gaze and the.n whistled an answering whistle, very low. but still audible to Natfian. It was a pretty girl and she was approaching in the vicinity of Nathan. Enveloped in a voluminous furtrimmed rough woolen coat of a dark violet hue, with her hands encased in a black muff to match the fur on her coat, with a picturesque black velvet hat, cut on the poke bonnet order, that cast much shadow on her face, there was still enough opportunity to see that the girl beneath so much warmthgiving clothes was young, animated’ and pretty. -The- bewildered NathanJooked up as. she approached and to her query that Carter did net hear, he nodded to the desk of the youngest member of .the firm. Then the violet coat and the delicate aroma of violet sachet that went with it moved toward the little wooden fence that hedged in Mr. Carter’s desk. “Here I am,” said the girl. Tm the tenant in Four D., Marbridge court. Where do you want me to sit —inside the fence or outside?” Carter jumped frosn his sedt and was so confused that all he could say was: “Inside the fence —please take this chair, any chair, any chair. Yes, indeed. You —are actually Miss Crosby? How very good of you.” “No, I -Won’t take your chair. I’ll take this little one,” she said, slipping out of her coat and revealing a very neatly fitted plain blue serge dress beneath. She placed the chair precisely half way between the radiator and the window where the light would come over her left' shoulder. “There,” she said. *T like it just like that. T shall knit and not disturb you at aIL Please sit down, Mr. Carter. You can’t imagine what a pleasure it is to be warm." Carter noted a tone of asperity in the girl’s voice but he did not feel in the least irritated by IL He tried to •wing h?aßjlf around in his swivel

chair so that he could go on with the work before him, but the chair seemed to swing of Its own accord around agwln so that he sat looking at his guest. “So —so you took my Invitation seriously, did you? Pm glad.” He laughed with embarrassment and the girl opened two blue eyes wide and round, with studied naivety, behind which Carter knew lay much sarcasm. “Why, didn’t yop mean that you wanted me to come?” she asked. “You first suggested the theater, but you see, Pve been at the theater till I’ve seen every show in town and every movie in the neighborhood. And I simply must get these army sweaters done!” Carter noticed that she had taken a half finished khaki sweater from her bag. Even to his inexperienced eyes the knitting seemed wonderfully firm, warm and compact and he noted the gold ends of the knitting needles. “I’ve called on all my friends. You see I don’t know many people in town, and I’ve shopped till I’ve bought a trunkful of things I don’t need. I’ve spent hours in church and other hours in the museum and the public libraries. So your invitation was very welcome. Perhaps if I had always lived in the North I conld stand the apartment. But you see this is my first winter North. I came with my aunt and now she has gone away for a few weeks and I’m dlone. One feels the cold more when one is alone, I think.” Then promising not to disturb Mr. Carter any more she continued her knitting in silence. From time to time when Mr. Carter felt that her eyes were intent on her knitting he swung around in his swivel chair and caught a timid glance at the girl. Sometimes he noticed the graceful ankle, at other times the slender capable hands that were so neatly framed In the tight white lace cuffs of her dark sleeves. At other times he noticed the glint of auburn in her hair and then again the long curve of the dark lashes that shaded her blue eyes. He did not know that from beneath those long lashes the blue eyes were perfectly capable of observing his stolen glances though the graceful fingers went on uninterruptedly with the needles and wool. “Couldn’t you give me a job?” Nancy Crosby put this question to Mr. Carter one day after she had been making her visits to his office for the purpose of keeping warm during the course of an entire week. “I am getting tired of knitting. One can’t do that all the time. I could do copying for you and sort over papers perhaps and stick up envelopes and stamps and things.” So Mr. Carter secured a little mahogany desk, had it placed beside his own and there established Nancy Crosby as his volunteer assistant. They had finally agreed that the money that she earned as his assistant should be contributed to the Red Cross. It was in the afternoon of that day that Mr. Carter dropped in at the Marbridge Court and getting the emergency key to apartment Four D from the janitor there let himself into the empty apartment and did a little amateur tinkering on his own account. That morning through his incessant efforts a goodly supply of coal had been deposited in the coal bins of the Matbridge Court. Nancy Crosby continued to work for him for a week more. He asked her one day whether" her apartment was still cold. “Yes,” she said, “it really is dreadful. There isn’t any steam in the living room radiator, though the bedroom radiators are all right. But you see I can’t stay there in the day time. Isn’t it strange, for the other tenants are perfectly comfortable now.”

‘‘Yes, it is funny,” agreed Carter, and began to read a lease on his desk with eagerness. At the end of that week Nancy’s aunt was expected to return and Nancy had indicated that she would have to give up her job. “I took it just to be spiteful. In fact, I came down to bother you, just to make you furious. I thought you were holding off the steam so as to save money and I intended to find out and to make you so tired of seeing me around that you would get the coal at any cost. But really I have had a lovely time. Thank you for making it so pleasant. But now that aunt is coming back I really wish something could be done about that apartment.” *TII go up myself,” Carter promised. “Maybe something is theriffatter with the Irving room radiator. TH have it attended to at once. But—but —we aren’t going to forget each other now, are we? You see, I’ve been getting terrifically interested in you, though I suppose to you I’m an impossible sort of fellow.” “Impossible I” echoed Nancy. “You don’t suppose I would have fibbed about the radiator if I hadn’t wanted an excuse to be with you. I haven’t even noticed whether It was hot or cold.” “You haven’t” gasped Carter. “And I put the valve out of commission in your living room.”