PHŒBE'S DIARY
September 15.
I'm in Philadelphia—really, truly! Phœbe Metz, late of a gray farmhouse in Lancaster County, is sitting in a beautiful room of the Lee residence, Philadelphia.
What a lot of things I have to write in you, diary! I can scarcely find the beginning. Before I left home I thought about keeping a diary, how entertaining it would be to sit down when I'm old and gray and read the accounts of my first winter in the city. So I went to Greenwald and bought the fattest note-book I could find and I'm going to write in you all of my joys—let's hope there won't be any sorrows—and all of my pleasures and all about my impressions of places and people in this great, wonderful City of Brotherly Love. Of course, I'll write letters home and to David and Mother Bab and some of the girls, but there are so many things one can't tell others yet likes to remember. So you'll have to be my safety valve, confidant and confessor.
When I left the train at Philadelphia I was bewildered and confused. Such crowds I never saw, not even in Lancaster. Seemed like everybody in the city was coming from a train or running to one. I was glad to see Miss Lee. She's the dearest person! I love her as much as I did when I went to her school on the hill. I'm as tall as she is now. She dresses beautifully. I thought my blue serge suit was lovely but her clothes are—well, I suppose you'd call them creations. I'm so glad I'm going to be near her all winter and can copy from her.
As I came through the gates at the depot she caught me and kissed me. I thought she was alone, but a moment later she turned to a tall man and introduced him, her cousin, Royal Lee, the musician. If Aunt Maria could see him she'd warn me again, as she did repeatedly, not to "leave that fiddlin' man get too friendly." He's handsome. I never before met a man like him. His magnetic smile, his low voice attracted me right away.
After he piloted us through the crowded depot and into a taxicab Miss Lee began to ask me questions about Greenwald and the people she knows there. I felt rather timid, for I was conscious of the appraising eyes of her cousin. He didn't stare at me, yet every time I glanced at him his eyes were searching my face. Does he think me very countrified, I wonder? I do have the red cheeks country girls are always credited with, but I'm glad I'm not "buxom." I'd hate to be fat!
I wish I could describe Royal Lee. He's just as I pictured him, only more so. He has the lean, æsthetic face of the musician, the sensitive nostrils and thin lips denoting acute temperament. His eyes are gray.
As we rode through the streets of the city Miss Lee told me her mother would have me stay with them until we can find a suitable boarding place. To-morrow we're going in search of one.
Taxicabs travel pretty fast. We skirted past curbs so that I almost held my breath and shot past trucks and other cars till I thought we'd surely land in the street. But we escaped safely and soon stopped at the Lee residence, a big, imposing brownstone house. It looks bare outside, no yard, no flowers. But inside it's a lovely place, so inviting and attractive that I'd like to settle down for life in it.
Mrs. Lee is as charming as her daughter. She has been a semi-invalid for years, but even in her wheelchair she has the poise and manner of one well born. Her greeting was so cordial and gracious, but all I could answer was an inane, "Thank you, you are very kind." Will I ever learn to express my thoughts as charmingly as these people do, I wonder!
When Miss Lee took me up-stairs it was up a bare, polished stairway upon which I was half afraid to tread. And the room she took me to! I've heard about such rooms and read about them. Delft blue paper and rugs, white woodwork and furniture, blue hangings, white curtains—it's a magazine-room turned to real!
When I tried to express my gratitude for her goodness Miss Lee hushed me with a kiss and said she anticipated as much joy from my presence in the city as I did, that I was so genuine and refreshing that it would be a pleasure to have me around. I don't know just what she means. I'm just Phœbe Metz, nothing wonderful about me, unless it's my voice, and I hope that is. She said, too, that I would make her very happy if I'd let her be a real friend to me, and if I'd call her Virginia. Why, that's just what I've been wishing for! I told her so. She is just twelve years older than I am, so she's near the thirty mark yet, and I like a friend who is older. She seems just the same Miss Lee, no older than she was when I walked down the street of Greenwald in my gingham dress and checked sunbonnet and buried my nose in the pink rose David gave me. How lucky that little country girl is! I'm here in Philadelphia, in a beautiful house, with Virginia Lee for my friend, and glorious visions of music and good times flashing before my eyes. I put my hands to my head to keep it from going dizzy!
There's a little speck of cloud in the blue of my joy right now, though. I'm afraid I've blundered already. Miss Lee—Virginia, I mean—said as she turned to leave my room that they have dinner at six and I'd have plenty of time to get ready for it. I had to tell her that I couldn't change my dress, that I hadn't thought to bring any light dress in my bag but had packed them all in the trunk. She hurried to assure me that my dark skirt and white blouse would do very well, that she would not dress for dinner to-night. But I feel sure that she seldom appears at the dinner table in a blouse and tailored skirt. Guess Aunt Maria'd say I'm in a place too tony for me, but I know I can learn how to do here. I might have remembered that some people make of their evening meal a formal one. I've read about "dressing for dinner" and when my first opportunity comes to do so it finds me with all my dress-up dresses packed in a trunk in the express office! Perhaps it serves me right for wanting to "put on style," but I remember an old saying about "doing as the Romans do." At any rate, I'm going to make the best of it and quit worrying about it, or I'll be so fussed I'll eat with my knife or pour my coffee into my saucer!
Later in the evening.
What a whirl my brain is in! Things happen so fast that I scarcely know where to begin again to write about them. But it began with the dinner. That was the grandest dinner I ever tasted but I don't remember a single thing I ate, though I do know there was no bread or jelly. What would Aunt Maria think of that! The delicate china, fine linen and silver were the loveliest I have ever seen. There were electric lights with soft-colored shades and there was a colored waiter who seemed to move without effort. The forks and spoons for the different courses bothered me. I had to glance at Virginia to see which one to use. Once during the dinner I thought of the time Mollie Brubaker told Aunt Maria about a dinner she had in the home of a city relative. I remember how Aunt Maria sniffed, "Humph, if abody's right hungry you can eat without such dumb style put on. I say when you cook and carry things to the table for people you don't need to feed them yet, they can help themselves. Just so it's clean and cooked good and enough to go round, that's all I try for when I get company to eat." I felt like a fish out of water at the Lee dinner table, but Mrs. Lee and the others were so kind and tactful that I could not be embarrassed, not enough to show it. However, I thought to myself as we rose from the table, "Thank Heaven!"
Mrs. Lee asked me whether I like music. We were in the sitting-room and Mr. Lee stood by the piano, his hand on his violin case.
"Yes, indeed!" I told her, for I was anxious to hear him play. I have never heard any great violinist but the sound of a violin sets me thrilling. I could listen to it for hours.
Mr. Lee smiled at my enthusiasm, lifted the instrument to his shoulder and began to play. If I live to be a hundred I'll never forget that music! Like the soothing winds of summer, the subtle fragrance of a wild rose, the elusive phantoms of our dreams, it stirred my soul. I sat as one dazed when he ended.
"You say nothing. Don't you like my music?" he asked me.
"Like your music? Like is too poor a word!" And I tried to tell him how I loved it. He smiled again, that calling, hypnotizing smile, that made me want to rush to him and ask him to be my friend. But I restrained myself and turned to listen to Virginia. The music haunted me. It sounded like the voice of a soul searching for something it could never find. I was still dreaming about it when I heard Mr. Lee say, "Now, Aunt, shall we have some cribbage?" I watched him uncomprehendingly as he arranged a small table and brought out cards and boards for a game. The full significance of his actions dawned upon me—they were going to play cards! I had never seen a game of cards, but Aunt Maria taught me long ago that cards are the instrument of the Evil One. My first impulse was to run from the room, away from the cards, but I hated to be so rude.
"Do you play cards?" Royal Lee asked me.
"No, oh, no!" I gasped.
"You should learn. I'm sure you would enjoy playing."
I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment and went on, "We'll teach you to play, Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game.
Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat near her. She asked me questions about Greenwald. Goodness only knows what I answered her. My attention was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed me. In Aunt Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed. What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had to get out of that room! I don't know if she saw through my ruse but she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs. "There's a desk in your room, Phœbe. You can be undisturbed there. Tell your aunt we are going to help you find a comfortable home and that we are going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to visit with you."
When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those cards actually scared me. I shrank from being so near the evil things. But after a while as I came to think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt me if I didn't play them. I promised myself to keep from being contaminated with the wickedness of the city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me sobered. I wrote a long letter to Aunt Maria and then turned off the lights and looked down into the city street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many lights stretched off until some of them were mere specks. There was a wedding across the street. I saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride, dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came up to my room and I asked her about it she didn't know a thing about the wedding. Why, at home, if there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know about it or are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But Virginia says a city is different, that you don't really have neighbors like in Greenwald.
Virginia told me, too, how she came to teach in our school on the hill. When she finished college she wanted to earn money, just to prove that she could. Her father wanted her to stay home and live the life of a butterfly, she says. One day he said, more in jest than earnest, that if she insisted upon earning money he'd give his consent to her being a teacher in a rural school. She accepted the challenge and through her cousin she secured the place on the hill and became my teacher. When her father died and her mother became a semi-invalid she gave up her work and took up the old life again. She said that as if it were not really a desirable life, this going to teas, dances, plays, musicals, lectures, and having no cares or worries. Of course I know many of her pleasures are forbidden fruit for me, but if I ever can wear pretty clothes like hers and go off to an evening musical or concert I know I'll be as excited as a Jenny Wren.
