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Page 11
Those first Chicago days were rich in flavour. The city was a marvel of
many terrors, a place of weird sounds, strange shapes and swift
movements, among which--having been made timid by much adversity--you
had need to be very, very careful if your hand was in no one's. The
house itself was wonderful: a house of real brick and very lofty. If you
started in the basement you could go "upstairs" three distinct times in
it before you reached the top. He had never imagined such a house for
any but kings to live in. Within were many rooms; he hardly could count
them all; and regal furnishings, gay with colour; and, permeating it
all, a most appetizing odour of cooked food, eloquent tale of long-eaten
banquets, able reminder of those to come.
Out beside the front door was a rather dingy sign that said "Boarders
Wanted." His deduction after reading the sign was that the person who
wanted the boarders was Aunt Clara's mother. She was like Aunt Clara in
that she was dark and small, but in nothing else. She did not wear
pretty dresses nor laugh nor address baby talk to "Boo'ful." She was
very old and not nice to look at, Bean thought; and an uneasy woman, not
knowing how to be quiet. Mostly she worked in the kitchen, after a hasty
morning tour of the house to "do" the rooms. Bean was much surprised to
learn that her name, too, was Clara. She did not look at all like any
one whose name would be Clara.
And presently there was to be a house even more magnificent than this,
where they would all live together and where, so they jested, the old
Clara wouldn't know what to do, because there would be nothing to do.
The house would be ready just as soon as Boo'ful made his "next turn,"
and that was so near in time that there was already a fascinating
picture of the lines of the house, white lines on blue paper, over which
Boo'ful and Aunt Clara spent many an evening in loving dispute. It
seemed that you could change the house by merely changing those lines.
Sometimes they put a curve into the main stairway or doubled the area of
stained-glass window in the music-room; sometimes it was a mere detail
of alteration in the butler's pantry, or the coachman's room over the
stable. The old Clara displayed no interest in these details. She seemed
to be content to go on wanting boarders.
This was not, as he saw it, an unlovely want. It surrounded her with gay
companions at meal-time; they were "like one big family," as one of the
number would frequently observe. He was the one that most often set them
all to laughing by his talk like that of a German who speaks English
imperfectly, which he didn't have to do at all. It was only
make-believe, but very funny.
After this joyous group and his Aunt Clara, who really came first, his
preference in humans was for a lady who lived two doors away. If you
rang her bell she might be one of three persons. It depended on what you
were looking for. She might be the manicure and chiropodist whose sign
was displayed; she might be Madam Wanda, the world-renowned clairvoyant,
sittings from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M., Advice on Love, Marriage and Business;
sign also displayed; or she might be merely Mrs. Jackson, with a choice
front room for a single gentleman, as declared by the third sign. In any
case she was a smiling, plump lady with a capable blue eye and abundant
dark hair that was smooth and shiny.
It was in company with his uncle that he first made her acquaintance.
His uncle knew all that one need know about Love and Marriage, but it
seemed that his knowledge of Business could be extended. There were
times when only the gifts of a world-renowned clairvoyant could enable
one to say what May wheat was going to do.
The acquaintance, lightly enough begun, ripened soon to intimacy, and so
were the eyes of Bean first opened to mysteries that would later affect
his life so vitally. He was soon carrying wood and coal up the back
stairs of Mrs. Jackson, in return for which the lady ministered to him
in her professional capacities. At their first important session on a
rainy Saturday of leisure she trimmed and polished each of his ten
finger-nails, told his past, present and future--he was going to cross
water and there was a dark gentleman he had need to beware of--and
suggested that his feet might need attention.
He squirmingly demurred at this last operation, and successfully
resisted it. But the bonds of their friendship were sealed over a light
collation which she served. She was a vegetarian, she told him. You
couldn't get on to a high spiritual plane if you ate the corpses of
murdered animals. But her food seemed sufficing and she drank beer which
he brought her in a neat pitcher from the cheerful store on the corner
where they sold such things. Beer, she explained to him, was a strictly
vegetable product, though not the thing for growing boys. The young must
discriminate, even among vegetables.
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