“Yes,” Alice said.
“Well, he hems and haws,” Evarts said. “Murchison hems and haws, but Alice pins him down, because all these other people are listening, and when he finishes his lecture, she goes right up on the platform and she gives him the play—she’s got it in her pocketbook. Well, then she goes back to his hotel with him and she sits right beside him until he’s read the play-the first act, that is. That’s all I’ve written. Well in this play there’s a part he wants for his wife, Madge Beatty, right off. I guess you know who Madge Beatty is. So you know what he does then? He sits right down and he writes out a check for thirty-five dollars and he says for me and Alice to come to New York! So we take all our money out of the savings bank and we burn our bridges and here we are.”
“Well, I guess there’s lots of money in it,” the conductor said. Then he wished the Malloys luck and walked away.
Evarts wanted to take the suitcases down at Poughkeepsie and again at Harmon, but Alice checked each place against the timetable and made him wait. Neither of them had seen New York before, and they watched its approaches greedily, for Wentworth was a dismal town and even the slums of Manhattan looked wonderful to them that afternoon. When the train plunged into the darkness beneath Park Avenue, Alice felt that she was surrounded by the inventions of giants and she roused Mildred-Rose and tied the little girl’s bonnet with trembling fingers.
As the Malloys stepped from the train, Alice noticed that the paving, deep in the station, had a frosty glitter, and she wondered if diamonds had been ground into the concrete. She forbade Evarts to ask directions. “If they find out we’re green, they’ll fleece us,” she whispered. They wandered through the marble waiting room, following the noise of traffic and klaxons as if it were the bidding of life. Alice had studied a map of New York, and when they left the station, she knew which direction to take. They walked along Forty-second Street to Fifth Avenue. The faces that passed them seemed purposeful and intent, as if they all belonged to people who were pursuing the destinies of great industries. Evarts had never seen so many beautiful women, so many pleasant, young faces, promising an easy conquest. It was a winter afternoon, and the light in the city was clear and shaded with violet, just like the light on the fields around Wentworth.
Their destination, the Hotel Mentone, was on a side street west of Sixth Avenue. It was a dark place, with malodorous chambers, miserable food, and a lobby ceiling decorated with as much gilt and gesso as the Vatican chapels. It was a popular hotel among the old, it was attractive to the disreputable, and the Malloys had found the way there because the Mentone advertised on railroad-station hoardings all through the West. Many innocents had been there before them, and their sweetness and humility had triumphed over the apparent atmosphere of ruined splendor and petty vice and had left in all the public rooms a humble odor that reminded one of a country feed store on a winter afternoon. A bellboy took them to their room. As soon as he had gone, Alice examined the bath and pulled aside the window curtains. The window looked onto a brick wall, but when she raised it, she could hear the noise of traffic, and it sounded, as it had sounded in the station, like the irresistible arid titanic voice of life itself.
THE MALLOYS found their way, that afternoon, to the Broadway Automat. They shouted with pleasure at the magical coffee spigots and the glass doors that sprang open. “Tomorrow, I’m going to have the baked beans,” Alice cried, “and the chicken pie the day after that and the fish cakes after that.” When they had finished their supper, they went out into the street. Mildred-Rose walked between her parents, holding their callused hands. It was getting dark, and the lights of Broadway answered all their simple prayers. High in the air were large, brightly lighted pictures of bloody heroes, criminal lovers, monsters, and armed desperadoes. The names of movies and soft drinks, restaurants and cigarettes were written in a jumble of light, and in the distance they could see the pitiless winter afterglow beyond the Hudson River. The tall buildings in the east were lighted and seemed to burn, as if fire had fallen onto their dark shapes. The air was full of music, and the light was brighter than day. They drifted with the crowd for hours.
Mildred-Rose got tired and began to cry, so at last her parents took her back to the Mentone. Alice had begun to undress her when someone knocked softly on the door.
“Come in,” Evarts called.
A bellboy stood in the doorway. He had the figure of a boy, but his face was gray and lined. “I just wanted to see if you people were all right,” he said. “I just wanted to see if maybe you wanted a little ginger ale or some ice water.”
“Oh, no, thank you kindly,” Alice said. “It was very nice of you to ask, though.”
“You people just come to New York for the first time?” the bellboy asked. He closed the door behind him and sat on the arm of a chair.
“Yes,” Evarts said. “We left Wentworth—that’s in Indiana—yesterday on the nine-fifteen for South Bend. Then we went to Chicago. We had dinner in Chicago.”
“I had the chicken pie,” Alice said. “It was delicious.” She slipped Mildred-Rose’s nightgown over her head.
“Then we came to New York,” Evarts said.
“What are you doing here?” the bellboy asked. “Anniversary?” He helped himself to a cigarette from a package on the bureau and slipped down into the chair.
“Oh, no,” Evarts said. “We hit the jackpot.”
“Our ship’s come in,” Alice said.
“A contest?” the bellboy asked. “Something like that?”
“Oh, no,” Evarts said.
“You tell him, Evarts,” Alice said.
“Yes,” the bellboy said. “Tell me, Evarts.”
“Well, you see,” Evarts said, “it began like this.” He sat down on the bed and lighted a cigarette. “I was in the Army, you see, and then when I got out of the Army, I went back to Wentworth …” He repeated to the bellboy the story he had told the conductor.
“Oh, you lucky, lucky kids!” the bellboy exclaimed when Evarts had finished. “Tracey Murchison! Madge Beatty! You lucky, lucky kids.” He looked at the poorly furnished room. Alice was arranging Mildred-Rose on the sofa, where she would sleep. Evarts was sitting on the edge of the bed swinging his legs. “What you need now is a good agent,” the bellboy said. He wrote a name and address on a piece of paper and gave it to Evarts. “The Hauser Agency is the biggest agency in the world,” he said, “and Charlie Leavitt is the best man in the Hauser Agency. I want you to feel free to take your problems to Charlie, and if he asks who sent you, tell him Bitsey sent you.” He went toward the door. “Good night, you lucky, lucky kids,” he said. “Good night. Sweet dreams. Sweet dreams.”
The Malloys were the hard-working children of an industrious generation, and they were up at half past six the next morning. They scrubbed their faces and their ears and brushed their teeth with soap. At seven o’clock, they started for the Automat. Evarts had not slept that night. The noise of traffic had kept him awake, and he had spent the small hours sitting at the window. His mouth felt scorched with tobacco smoke, and the loss of sleep had left him nervous. They were all surprised to find New York still sleeping. They were shocked. They had their breakfast and returned to the Mentone. Evarts called Tracey Murchison’s office, but no one answered. He telephoned the office several times after that. At ten o’clock, a girl answered the phone. “Mr. Murchison will see you at three,” she said. She hung up. Since there was nothing to do but wait, Evarts took his wife and daughter up Fifth Avenue. They stared in the store windows. At eleven o’clock, when the doors of Radio City Music Hall opened, they went there.