know how to get the furniture. I said, "Now, you just trust your
aunt Nancy, we will buy it on the installment plan." I found out he had
only about $25 after he had payed their fare down here, cause her folks
are poor, so I said, "Well, we will go look up a flat. Better get out a
ways so you will get more for your money", and we found a pretty place
at 207th Street for twenty dollars a month. Four rooms and bath on the
fifth floor and there ain't no elevator, but they are both strong so it
won't hurt them to climb the stairs, and he will be so tickled to get
home nights that he won't think about them. He wanted to furnish it and
have it all ready when they come back, he is going up to get her and be
married at her folks', but I put the nix on that too. I said, "We will
furnish the bed room and the kitchen so as you can have a place to stay,
but let her pick out the fancy things like the parlor rug and the dining
room table. It will make it seem more like her own," and so he done
everything I said. They got back about five days ago and say, haven't
we been the busy ladies! She is an awful nice little thing, has not got
much sense and green--well, Kate. Believe me, we are the funniest
looking pair. I guess she makes her own clothes and her hats--they must
have been wished on her. But I like her and she is the happiest thing
about the flat. She thinks it is the grandest place she ever seen. I was
right about letting her pick her own things as it has given her
something to do, the first few days when she was kinda lonesome for her
mother and little bit afraid of Charlie. We went to a place on 125th
Street and picked out the furniture, a real nice dining room table and a
little side board that looks like real mahogany, and six chairs. Got a
centre table and a nifty rug for the parlor and a morris chair and a
rocking chair, and got the bed room furniture all white, and didn't we
have fun buying kitchen things! We went to the ten-cent store and bought
everything you ever heard of, from frying pans to egg beaters, and we
packed them home in the subway looking like immigrants just landed. She
got the grandest set of dishes, a hundred pieces for three ninety five.
Each dish has got a wreath of pink roses around the edge and they would
make even fried onions smell like Spring. I am going to help her make
the curtains, cause lace ones don't look right in such a little place
and we bought some white stuff with dots in it for six cents