“I will go downstairs with you, Lilly.”
“No, no, Mamma! You will get cold, and Alice will wake 313 up. Then Alice will come down, and she will get cold. I will bring up a tray in five minutes.”
Until she came back with the tray, I walked up and down the small room. My heart was singing within me. At that hour it had forgotten all its sorrow and its deprivations; it knew that the bare poverty of the last few months was over—the poverty that is without books, without all the comfortable things, that make sufficient food and clothing still poverty. For some long weary months, it had been beating itself against gates for which it could find no keys. Now, they had been set wide open. It would have been an unpardonable waste of God-given happiness to sleep, as long as the physical woman could keep awake.
We remained six weeks longer in the country, but they were weeks brightened with hope and cheerful expectations. I began at once a story for Appleton’s called “Margaret Sinclair’s Silent Money,” and among the simple Norse fishers of the Shetland Islands, forgot for hours together that I was yet in New Jersey. In October I went to the city to look for rooms, and as soon as I spoke to Mr. Sykes, he sent a youth with me to a real estate office. He also advised me as to the proper section of the city, and told me not to go far away from that quarter, because it contained the city’s three finest libraries, and he was sure I would find them indispensable in literary work.
I was as happy as if I was on a holiday, and before noon had settled on some unfurnished rooms in a large brick house on Amity Street. I was told that Poe had once occupied them, but I did not know anything about Poe in those days; and I was not influenced in my choice by this association. What decided me was first, the fact that they were large, lofty, old-fashioned apartments, with open grates, and a pleasant look-out for Alice. Second, that I had the Astor and Mercantile Libraries within five minutes walk, and the Historical Library on Second Avenue, not much further away. Mr. Sykes said I had made an excellent selection of rooms, and I went back to Ridgewood satisfied with the home they promised.
The next day I wrote Mr. Beecher a long letter. I told him all that had happened me, and asked if he could help me 314 to find literary work. Almost by return mail, I received his answer. In it he told me that he had just become largely interested in the Christian Union, and was sure if I could write something for that paper, as vivid or pathetic as my letter to him, my services would be welcome to the Christian Union. “Come into the city,” he said, “and we shall be able to keep your pen busy.”
Three days after the receipt of this encouraging letter, I stood in the rooms on Amity Street, with my daughters and my few household goods. I had five dollars and eighteen cents in my purse. I had no knowledge of the ways of life in a large city, and was quite as ignorant of the business of buying and selling. I had no relatives in America, no one I felt at liberty to ask assistance from. I stood absolutely alone in the battle of life, but I was confident, that God and Amelia Barr were a multitude.
In the old-fashioned grate of the room, I intended for our sitting-and dining-room, there was soon a good fire, and in less than an hour, the kettle was boiling, the lamb chops broiled, and the tea infusing. And never since my dear husband died, had I sat down to a meal I enjoyed so much. We were as happy as three children.
Before the evening of the next day, the rooms had quite a homey look. I had still some beautiful bed clothing, and table damask, and a few books; and books and an open fire are the best furniture any room can have. They look at every one that enters them with a smile and a welcome. And on that open fire, it was wonderful what excellent meals Lilly cooked us—nice little lamb stews, and broiled meats, and always the good cup of tea or of Java coffee. And we laughed at our small discomforts, and said we were “only tenting, until everything right and proper should arrive.”
As soon as the house affairs were arranged, I went down to the Christian Union office. I took with me a paper called “The Epiphany in the West Riding.” There was a Mr. Kennedy then in the working editor’s chair, and he read it at once and was delighted with it. He said such generous words of encouragement and praise, that I have yet the kindest 315 memory of him. He was the first editor of the Christian Union, I believe, but he left the paper very soon, and I have never heard his name since.