And then I went out and turned toward home. I saw the blind man again, but no one followed me. I went up in the elevator with Mr. Kempwood, and I was so glad.
“Any more home runs?” he asked. I shook my head.
“And how does New York please you?” he asked further.
And to that I replied that it was all right, but made an involved living, since my aunt insisted on my changing my clothes all the way through every day, and eating in a different dress at night. I said it was simpler at home, where you dressed for dinner when you got up. I told him it left you more time for fishing and baseball and the more serious things of life. He laughed, and then looked suspicious.
“Young woman,” he said, “that country bloom doesn’t hide a brain-picker, does it?”
And I didn’t understand him then, but he explained. It seemed that Robert Louis Stevenson had lived on an island in the Pacific, and when someone had asked whether they dressed for dinner, he had said just as I did: “No, we dress when we get up.”
I said I hadn’t quoted, and that I hadn’t read Stevenson, liking Alger best of anyone, but Mr. Kempwood said that “Treasure Island” couldn’t be beaten and that he’d loan it to me, and then I found out what he meant by brain-picker. He meant someone who pikes. Evelyn reads book covers and reviews and then talks of the books as if she’d read them. I told Mr. Kempwood so. He said she wouldn’t thank me for doing so, and then--it was our floor, and again he stepped out, waited until Jane opened the door, and then said good-night. And I remembered his smile, as I had the night before.
On a long hall table I found a letter from Bradly-dear, and I was so glad to see it! And it made me laugh, but felt ever so tight in my throat too. Here is what she wrote, or some of it:
“Dear Natalie,
“We miss you fierce. Willy Jepson run a nail in his foot and fell offa the back ruf. Don’t you climb no fences at your aunt’s or ride a cow if they keep one. Your uncle is deep in bugs and has a mess of them in my tubs, with netting over the top. And the Lord knows when I will get the wash to soak. We miss you.”