New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-12-31

spires Of Grace Church and made the green lawn
before it smile out Of the September dust ike
pleasant memory a sad and downCaSt day-
The Wholesale shops were closing and the street
was full Of hurrying girls and sauntering men. 1t
was like living, to look up Broadway at this hour
Later. when the hurrying girls were all safe III
their suppers and the men had all gone to dinner
and the street-sprinlllers came swishing past
sending up a smell of freshly wet earth. 1t
lonely lower Broadway even for country
bred girl like Mary Clafiin When the women. who
had befriended Mary in the Idle Hour Theatrical
Company while it played its dsconsolate and not
brilliantly successful through the summer
season in the Lake George region, had brought
Mary to this lodging down in the clangor of the
wholesale district Mary had thought the place
really bohemian and therefore most interesting
and agreeable
She had climbed past the wholesale tailors
the first floor past the cIgarakers on the second
floor, past the hOX-nakerS the third floor and
past the necktie factory on the fourth floor. the
rooms IN the peak OF the garnet. and never thought
how she would like to climb those stairs at dusk,
when al the various floors were locked and black,
and the dark staircase loomed before her, mvs-
ferrous indeed. but still not lonely as she. in
her hurried trepidation, sometimes wished it to
be.
There were SIX or seven squalid rooms in the
peak Of the garnet. and they were presided over
bv a pale woman whose mind was so much oecu-
ped with the strange doings OF beings of another
world whose society she assiduously cultivated
by means of tabla-tlppngs and other occult
sciences that she had little time to think of the
small comforts of a vain and fleeting world
The little rooms which always reminded Mary
Of the chicken-coops at home, opened on dark
square hall where a broken and asthmatic stove
was at the disposal Of such dodgers wished to
prepare their food by It's aid. However, as the
more prosperous Of the dodgers carried their own
oi1-stoves from lodging to lodging. and the less
prosperous We're forced To do without warm food,
the asthmatic stove was usually comfortably at
rest.
Its cheap and it's decent enough" said the
woman who had initiated Mary into the mysteries
Of clearinghouse life and saving this twisting her
small and exceedingly bright eyes into a kind OF
bird-liIe cunning of expression, she added. And
that's all ne want amt 1t
II was all that Mary wanted; but when the little
bird-like woman, known in the playbils as " Miss
Belle Beaurcgard," signed engagement TO play
The Juvenile part in a number four Girl Left
Behind Me- company and flew away sparrow-hlle
She left Mary lonely and trifie dsmayed despite
her one small seasons experience as real actress
and her desperate determination to lead what her
Aunt Caroline, the only one who had encouraged
her 10 leave home. called the Broader Life.
There were times when the Broader Life
seemed a wee bit tiresome, and even not 50
broad as Mary had hoped, after all and She taltered
a little in spite of her high courage. There were
times for instance when the dramatic agents upon
whom She relied for engagement seemed TO nave
FORGOTTEN her existence and when the only person
WHO did remember her was the landlady-and her
memory came down from the spirit world only on
rent-day.
oh YES. and Toni Tom never forgot. Mary
sometimes wished he would forget little when
he wrote his long matter-of-fact letters detailing
his progress in business and describing the new
house he wanted to build.
Sometimes Toms letters were not 50 bad-yester-
da, for example when the theatrical manager had