"Listen, Everett," said the girl. "Come down to me a month from to-night and I will show you that I am right and you are wrong."
"A whole month!" the man protested.
"Yes, a whole month—"
The sun was shining into the front windows of a room on the first floor of a high tenement down on the east side. A snow-white bed stood far enough from the wall to allow it to be made up with perfect ease. In front of it stood a screen covered with pretty chintz; white muslin curtains hung at the windows; everything was spotless from the kalsomined ceiling to the oiled floors, where a few bright-colored rugs made walking possible. As Katherine Anderson explained to some scoffing friends who came down to take luncheon with her.
"Everything is clean and in its proper place and the object-lesson is invaluable to these poor children. If you go into their homes you will find that the bed is a bundle of rags in some dark closet, while the front room is kept for company. Here I show them how easily this sunny room is made into a sitting-room by putting that screen in front of the bed and then there is a healthful place to sleep. You may think that I am over-enthusiastic, but I enjoy my classes and I assure you they are all day long, for besides the usual schoolroom work we have cooking classes, physical culture, nature classes and little talks about all sorts of things. I have one girl who I know is going to be a great novelist, she has such an imagination," said Katherine. "Her big sister always has a duplicate of anything of mine the child happens to admire, and the other day she came rushing in with the tale that 'burglars' had broken into their house the night before and stolen twenty bottles of ketchup and 'some preserts.'"
"Had they?" asked the guest. "What peculiar taste in burglary!"
"No," laughed Katherine; "she has no big sister and their house is one back room four flights up."
Four weeks had passed since the Morrison dinner, and Katherine was tired. Then, too, she was not altogether sure that her mission was a success. Was she wishing for the fleshpots of upper Fifth Avenue, or was it just physical weariness that would pass with the night? She had sent off a note in the morning:
"My Dear Everett—The work of the model flat is still in existence, and it is almost a month—a whole month. On Saturday afternoon I am expecting some of the mothers to come and tell me what they think of the work we are doing for their children. They will probably be gone by five o'clock, and if you care to come down at that time I might be induced to go out to dinner with you. Don't bother about a chaperon. As I feel now, I could chaperon a chorus girl myself.