Paris

CORNED BEEF HASH

Steamship and steamer friends had been left behind. Paris was ahead, closer now with every minute, every hurrying second. The little French girl who had kept on her hat and gloves and had read, in silence, a paper covered copy of Anatole France all the way from Cherbourg, let down the window, leaned out to wave a beckoning hand, and shouted, “Porteur! Porteur!”

Cynthia waited patiently, but as the other seemed in no haste to relinquish her place at the window, the American finally leaned over the French girl’s shoulder and beckoned in similar fashion. The long train slid gently to a stop and a score of stout little blue smocked men seemed to spring from the ground and began taking baggage from the open windows, loading it on wide straps over their sturdy shoulders.

Cynthia captured the eye of number 972; a beady eye above a red nose and a moustache that would have graced a member of the Beggar’s Opera. She gulped, “Taxi!”—thank goodness, there was a word that meant the same in several languages, at which he grinned cheerfully and slung her heavy suitcase and her paint box in one huge paw. The other grasped her neighbor’s bags and the whole strange and unwieldy combination lumbered off down the platform. Was he gone for good? Better follow that French girl, Cynthia decided. She seemed unconcerned. Oh, one had to give up the ticket here, and there was the porter again. No more customs, that had all been cleared at the quay, earlier in the morning.

The street met her with a blast of warm July air, a dazzle of summer sunlight and such a medley of strange noises: taxis hooting in a new, high key; shrill-pitched voices, mingled shouts and confusion, that she stood for a moment bewildered and lost. Horrid luck that no one she knew from the boat had been coming to Paris on this train!

Then Cynthia saw that her bag and paint box had been piled into a taxi like a shiny black beetle and the blue smocked one waited for his pourboire. She tipped him ten francs. Was that too much, or too little? She had been warned that, in either case, he would glare, but this one smiled, muttered, “Merci!” and departed. The hotel address was written on a card and Cynthia had only to show that to the driver, hop in, and they were off.

“Well!”

“Well, so this is Paris!”

“Well ...,” Cynthia giggled nervously. To be really here. To have arrived safely, all by herself. Well, that was something. “Paris!”

She sighed, relaxed back against the cushions and closed her eyes for a moment. Oh, the taxi was stopping. Her eyes popped open. Just a little policeman in a toy soldier cape and a white stick with which he seemed, miraculously, to hold up this mad traffic. Off again. She shut her eyes once more. New smells, hot asphalt, violets, damp warm air, something cooking, other things. She just couldn’t keep her eyes shut.

The car was running along gray cobbles between gray houses high and incredibly ancient. Tall, plane trees leaned out over gray walls that held in a silvery stream. The Seine! A little gay colored steamer, like a miniature ferry-boat, hooted and put off from a landing. Cynthia wanted to hug it all at once, to pinch herself to be sure she was here. How she wished Judy could see it, and Chick, dear Chick. This was to have been their honeymoon. He’d be over shortly, a few weeks at the most. And meanwhile there was work to be done; a language to learn, Nancy and Mrs. Brewster to see, and covers to be done for Little One’s Magazine.

Was that, could that possibly be, Notre Dame over there to the left? And the Eiffel Tower clear ahead, misty against sunny sky? She had seen it as they came in on the train. Really Paris!

“Not a motion picture!” chuckled Cynthia. And tomorrow she could go and see it all for herself.

Then a second bridge, Place St. Michel. And a swift turn to the left into a narrow street where noises echoed back from the high stone houses to right and left. They drew up before a door and a boy, in a horizontal striped waistcoat and white shirt sleeves, came out from the hotel entrance. Here was her home in Paris.

Inside, at the little brass-railed desk, they had a key for her room and a letter from Mrs. Brewster, who had made her reservation for her. There was a little cage-like elevator into which one squeezed, barely avoiding the folding doors, and then up, up, like a wobbly balloon. A hallway musty and dark, and at last a tall room with two high French windows opening on to a small balcony.

“Yes, this will do nicely,” said Cynthia in her best French, and so moved into Paris.

When the door closed, Cynthia sat down to catch her breath. So much had happened in the last half hour, she had seen so much that was new, and strange, and lovely. “I suppose there are people that live in Paris all the time and take it as a matter of course,” she told herself. “And, I suppose, I shall get to take it that way too, after a bit. But now it’s all rather frightening. I wonder if I can make myself understood, I wonder if I shall get lost, I wonder ... oh goodness, how shall I order meals? But perhaps menu French is the same everywhere.” Mrs. Brewster’s letter was reassuring. She seemed to think Cynthia would find everything very simple and easy. “But I am giving you the address of a little French girl, who speaks excellent English, she was a governess in London for some years. If you get lonely, or wish to improve your accent,” ha, accent! “don’t hesitate to look her up.” Enclosed was also a note from Nancy.

“Do come to Conquet,” she begged. “Mother and I are both painting here. It’s all pearly gray mists and long, empty beaches and sabots, and fish and steep streets and old houses. And you can find lots of children to pose for your covers.”

It did sound fun. But Paris seemed quite enough adventure for the moment. And Cynthia’s purse was very flat. She must first see Mr. Culbert, who was over here now, and was the editor of the magazine for which she had a contract for a dozen covers, see if she couldn’t get an advance on the first order, and if he could put her in touch with a way to get models. Just at the moment she hadn’t the slightest idea how to go about getting one for the painting she must do. She sat down and wrote to Nancy, planning to mail the letter when she went out to dinner. Then leaning out on the little balcony, she watched the light fade in the street below, listening to the sounds of Paris echo up between the ancient, stained, backward sloping housefronts.

What, she wondered, with a little pang of homesickness, were they doing now at home? Six o’clock ... but no, time was different. Was it three over there, or nine, now? The mental gymnastics made her head reel and she decided that she was hungry. But plenty of time yet. Cynthia hated to admit to herself that she dreaded that first meal alone, doubted her ability to order food, even to find her way home again, once she had set her foot off the hotel doorstep. It was after eight o’clock when she finally tore herself away from the window and summoned courage to go out for dinner. “You can’t starve till morning, idiot!” she told herself severely. “Just walk downstairs, and out the door. There must be lots of places to eat within the next two blocks. Why, France is a nation of cooks!” A short way up the Boule’ Miche’, she found a little place with pretty red-and-white checked table cloths on the iron topped tables, behind dusty box hedges in their wooden boxes. This was pleasantly removed from a small band that was playing lustily, and not too melodiously, on the street corner. Funny about those bands. She had passed three in the short distance from the hotel and another had begun playing beneath her window just as she went out.

No one else seemed to be eating. Perhaps French people dined later than this. The menu was as much an enigma as she had expected. It was written in a flowing Spencerian hand, in dim violet ink on a limp and food-stained bit of paper. Hardly a word seemed legible, and none of it was intelligible. “Goodness,” murmured Cynthia, and looked about her. Could she get up and leave, and try another place? But the waiter had already placed a napkin beside her, fork and knife beside the napkin. Cynthia decided she hadn’t the moral courage to rise and depart. Well, here goes!

“Bring me some of that, and that, and that,” she directed and pointed near the center of the page. The main body of a meal always came near the middle of the menu, didn’t it?

The waiter, who wore a spotty black dinner jacket and a white apron, broke into a voluble explanation of some sort. Evidently they were out of this, would mademoiselle not prefer that? Mademoiselle nodded in agreement. Yes, anything. Oui, oui, oui! The waiter departed on swift feet. Cynthia wondered what he would bring.

What he brought was a strange piece of pink meat swimming in a cold bath of oil. This she poked about with a fork, wondering what particular portion of what animal it might be. It hardly seemed edible, and certainly though she was hungry, she was not yet hungry enough for that. After a long time the waiter seemed to appreciate that she had finished with that course, and brought her some hot boiled potatoes. These were more palatable. And bread helped too. Then came a small white something wrapped in tin foil, and served with a large salt shaker.

But the foil proved to contain a small roll of really delicious cream cheese, and eaten with sugar, which came from the large salt shaker, and more of the crisp French bread. It served to round off the simple meal.

“I suppose I have eaten,” thought Cynthia as she wandered home again. “I wish I weren’t still so hungry. At least that meal was cheap, and that’s important at the moment.” But she continued to think of hot beefsteaks, and hot muffins, and hot chicken pies, and what she wouldn’t do to a big plate of ham and eggs. ... Oh dear! But tomorrow she’d try another place. Perhaps that wasn’t a really good example of French cooking.

As she strolled slowly back towards the hotel all the little bands were going full force. Cynthia noticed that people were beginning to dance, under the lights, on the hard cobbled pavements to the jiggling, monotonous tunes. She leaned for a while against the closed iron shutter of a shop, and watched the gay crowds gather. They seemed very happy. Was it some celebration, she wondered, or did French people always dance like this in the evening? The musicians beneath her window were in fine fettle, tootling, sawing, and bumping away at no particular tune, but just a sort of penny whistle noise with a strongly marked rhythm for the dancers.

She sat in her window watching them till she got so sleepy she could no longer keep her eyes open, then deciding they’d probably keep it up pretty late, till ten or maybe eleven, crawled into bed. It had been a long day since Cherbourg that morning, and in spite of the band, which surely must stop before midnight, she thought she could sleep.

But the monotonous, tuneless sound seemed to go round, and round, and round inside her head. She dreamed that she was waltzing rapidly with the garÇon of the striped waistcoat, with Madame in her black taffeta dress and wide gold chain, with the black cat of the restaurant. Then woke to hear the band still scraping, and bumping merrily. Foggily she struggled out of bed and closed first the heavy wooden shutters, then the window and went back to sleep with her head hot under the bedclothes. Twice she woke again at odd hours, but always that rhythm penetrated the darkness.

Then she woke again. Surprisingly all was still. How blissful that was! She was sure the musicians had stopped only a short time ago, and waited tensely to see if they would start again. But there was no sound. Then rolling over with aching head she saw that light streamed from between the chinks of the shutters, and that her watch said seven o’clock.

She opened her window, went back to bed and slept till nine. Then she wandered out to find breakfast. Only a gnawing hunger had made her get up at all.

Strangely enough none of the restaurants seemed to be open. She peered in at two, between drawn net curtains, to see chairs piled on empty tables, and boys washing down the floors. Then rounding a corner Cynthia came full on the Seine, between its gray stone banks, and a gray stone bridge beyond which loomed, full in the summer sunlight, the twin towers of Notre Dame de Paris. Oh lovely!

Along the embankment were the tiny stalls of the booksellers, all closed now. Didn’t Paris people go to work until noon, she wondered?

Then at the end of the block, facing a small open square she saw a sign which read “CafÉ, Chocolat.” Here, perhaps, she could get some sort of meal. Outdoors, under a gay striped awning she found a little wicker table with a red and white top, and wicker chairs. A big black cat with a white bib, and green eyes gave her welcome with purrs and ankle rubbings. This was going to be jolly. She stammered her desire for chocolate, and learned that “little breads,” and butter could also be procured, and that little breads were really crisp warm rolls.

Notre Dame faced her, serene, solid, impregnable. When breakfast was over she’d go across and visit the church, and stroll along by the river. This must be the famous Left Bank, where all the artists and students lived.

The cat rubbed, purring, about the table, and a small boy with eyes as softly dark as the cat’s fur, and clad in a diminutive smock of black, with a small black beret perched on his dark curls came out to stare solemnly at this stranger. Cynthia buttered a piece of roll, and offered it to him. With a shy, “Merci!” muttered in an oddly deep voice he took it, bolted it, and watched for the next mouthful. Cynthia grinned at him, ate a bit herself and gave him, thereafter, alternate bites. By the time two rolls were finished, and the big pitcher of hot chocolate was drained to the last sweet drop, the small boy had smiled also, had told her that his name was Nono, and that he lived here. Here at last was a friend. Tomorrow she’d bring a sketchbook to breakfast.

When tomorrow came Nono appeared, along with his black cat, for more bits of warm roll. But this time he smiled immediately, crinkling his dark eyes with an amused and delightful welcome. When his father brought the chocolate, he said something in brief reproof, but Cynthia protested. “Let him stay,” she begged and displayed her sketchbook.

The man grinned and nodded. He knew about artists, and explained to the boy that he must sit still for mademoiselle. Whereat Nono climbed into one of the cafÉ chairs, and grasping firm hold of the huge and somewhat reluctant cat, proceeded to demonstrate that he was born to be an artist’s model.

Oh, this was glorious. Cynthia’s fingers flew to get it all down before it could dissolve, and when the cat finally went calmly to sleep, Nono continued to sit immovable, wide eyed, minutes on minutes. Cynthia got more and more thrilled. It was going to be a honey of a sketch. She wondered if, maybe, colors tomorrow. ...

At last she nodded to the child. He laughed and stretched, and dumped the sleeping cat from his knees. Cynthia put two francs in his small hand. Was that, she wondered, too much, or too little? It was what her breakfast had cost her. Apparently, by his reception, it was all right.

“Tomorrow?” she asked in French, and pointed toward the chair again.

“Oui, oui, Demain,” agreed Nono. Then he must know that artists sometimes wanted one to pose again.

That was on Sunday. Saturday had not been strikingly successful. For some reason, perhaps because it was Saturday, everything, banks and the Express Company, Mr. Culbert’s office and most of the museums Cynthia wished to visit, had been closed. Monday, of course, they would be open again, and she could get in touch with Mr. Culbert. Cynthia’s money was running low and she must ask for an advance on the first cover, and must find some way to get in touch with models to work from.

But Monday was no better than Sunday, nor than Saturday had been. The band, for the third time, had played all night, and Cynthia had slept fitfully, hot and miserable in the closed, noisy room. She awoke feeling as though she could sleep for a week. Then she remembered Nono. Here at last was one bright spot in Paris. She hurried out to breakfast with her large sketch pad and her color box under her arm.

Nono was waiting for her, and so was the black cat. Cynthia was ravenously hungry. A continental breakfast wasn’t enough food to last one through a day of sightseeing, and so far she had found no good place to eat. Hastily she drank her chocolate, shared a double order of rolls and butter with the somewhat greedy little Nono. She herself was anxious to get to work on this color sketch.

Nono, complete with the large sleepy cat, clambered into his wicker chair. The sunlight reflected warm and yellow beneath his chin and his eyes were half closed, amusingly, in the glare. The black smock seemed almost a dark green in contrast to the cat’s soft fur, and beyond them was the red and white ruffle of the awning, a brilliant splash of warm color. Cynthia asked to have her little painting pail filled with water, sketched in the brief outline of her composition, and slashed happily into color. Once she said, mechanically “Rest!” and found that the boy understood. In a few minutes he returned to his place. The cat was a little different, but Cynthia had allowed for that, and now sketched him in and completed that part of the drawing all in one pose.

The drawing was emerging with both charm and strength. Black, red and warm flesh tones accented with the green of the cat’s eyes, and one white paw lifted to rest against Nono’s black smock. This, thought Cynthia, was one of the nicest things she had ever done. Even fatigue and hunger seemed to have added to her ability since her senses seemed sharpened, nerves tautened by the past two days.

She had decided to go that afternoon and find the little French girl Mrs. Brewster had recommended for language lessons. Her visit to the Express Company, and to the office where she had hoped to find Mr. Culbert were as unsuccessful as Saturday’s visits. Everything was still closed tight.

Cynthia was beginning to worry. She had only a few hundred francs, about fifteen dollars, left in her purse and there was no telling how long this celebration might last. It puzzled her. She had asked Madame at the desk and had learned that it was the “Fourteenth of July,” whatever that was! But Friday had been the fourteenth. Surely they didn’t celebrate America’s Fourth of July over here, did they? Foggily she tried to connect it with Lafayette and the two Revolutions, but couldn’t make it out. Everywhere the little street bands continued to play and people continued to dance in the streets.

Still pondering on this mystery she found the house on the Boulevard St. Michel that bore the address of the Mademoiselle Menard. Mrs. Brewster had explained that she lived on the fifth floor and that “in France the first floor is not the ground floor, nor the next, which is called the entresol. You have to go up two flights to get to the first floor and then begin to count from there!” They were long flights, too, and Cynthia had begun to feel a little faint by the time she reached the top. When she found Mr. Culbert, if she ever did, she would certainly beg him to take her out for a real dinner!

Cynthia put her finger on the large white push button and a bell pealed somewhere way off inside. But no one answered it. After a bit she tried again, and then again. What should she do next? She already had visited Notre Dame, and knew the Cluny and Luxembourg Gardens, for the past two days, as well as the palm of her hand. Besides she still felt strangely faint. She leaned against the heavy stone balustrade and looked down.

Suddenly up through the hallway, wafted from below came the most glorious and enchanting odor. Cynthia closed her eyes. It made her think of home, of a loaded dinner table with big plates of corned-beef hash, with an egg on top, slabs of bread and butter, and a thick slice of apple pie with cheese. Oh dear!

Like a good little hound following the scent, Cynthia, hypnotized by that delicious smell, stepped down, step after step, to the floor below. Still that beckoning, delightful odor. Another flight. It was stronger now, over the banisters.

“Heavens!” thought Cynthia. “How can I ever stand this?”

Here was the door and she had tracked it to its lair. A door, heavy and thick and solid, like those above. It was open just a crack, which was why the lovely smell had wandered out. Cynthia leaned against the doorpost. There were tears of hunger and of homesickness in her eyes as she sniffed ... and sniffed. Onions in that hash, too! No calves head in cold oil here, no tough thin steaks that might, or might not, be horsemeat!

Then the door opened with a whoosh and Cynthia almost fell through it into the hall beyond.

“’Ello!” said a cheery voice in French. Another girl, shorter than Cynthia but about her own age, with an amusing long nose, twinkly brown eyes, her hair covered by a chic little straw hat with a red quill, a white wool dress embroidered in red.

The girl continued to chatter something in French. Cynthia looked as blank as a brick wall; she had been wrenched all too suddenly from that corned-beef-hash day-dream.

“Say!” cried the girl suddenly. “You’re an American, too, aren’t you?”

Cynthia could have hugged her, right then and there. Why she hadn’t heard a word of English for three whole days.

“Oh, yes!” she almost shouted. “And oh, is that hash you are cooking?”

The girl giggled, then sniffed appreciatively. “Does smell good, doesn’t it? Mother’s a swell cook. Look here ...” she opened the door that had half closed behind her. “Hey, Mums, have we got enough for a guest?” and before Cynthia could object, had shoved her ahead, down the hallway, into a wide room lit by late sunlight.

“Take off your mittens and bonnet and shawl,” laughed the girl. “You’re invited to dinner ... that is if you can stay. Mums, this is Miss America, winner of all beauty prizes to date, isn’t she pretty? ...” Heavens how the girl did rattle on, thought the amused Cynthia. ... “I found her fainting on our doorstep and brought her in.” “Mums” was wide and comfortable looking in a huge white apron and carried a turning-spoon in her hand. She seemed unperturbed by her daughter’s nonsense.

“My name’s Wanstead, Cynthia,” explained the owner of that name. “And I do hope you will forgive me. I sniffed your delicious cooking two flights up.”

“Good grief, I must have left that door open again!” rattled the girl. “We’d just about lose our French lease if they sniff our cooking in the hall. Oh, I forgot, my name is Murchison. This is Mrs. Murchison, my honored parent. ... Listen I’ve got to run out with some letters for the post. Sit still and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Cynthia was only too glad to sit. Normally she would have protested more strongly against their forced hospitality, but today, homesick and genuinely hungry and considerably worried about the future, she found this American household irresistible. Mrs. Murchison puttered into the room and out again murmuring absentmindedly: “Father loves corn-beef hash. ... Can’t get French cook to make it properly. ... Marie, our cook, gone home for the holidays ...” and still murmuring disappeared at last in the direction of the kitchen.

Over the delicious dinner Cynthia heard the story of the mysterious holiday. “It’s the Jour de Bastille,” Alice explained to her, “in celebration of the destruction of that beastly prison. The French never have a half-holiday. They save it up and make four days of it. Father’s in the consular service and had to be home for tomorrow morning, but most Americans who live here plan to stay out of Paris during these four days, they’re so noisy. Our cook won’t be worth her salt for the next week, she’ll be so sleepy. If you ask me, you look half asleep.”

“I’ve had one of those bands under my window for the past three nights,” apologized Cynthia. “Please, can I have some more hash?”

“Save room for real American ice cream,” advised her hostess, and, when dinner was over, “I’m going to tuck you into bed right away, you poor thing. It’s only seven and you can sleep till ten or eleven. Then I’ll wake you to go home. Come on, my room is at the back, on the garden, you won’t hear a single drum or whistle or even a taxi horn.” Cynthia was too weary to utter more than a feeble protest. “It seems kind of funny to break into a stranger’s house, eat their hash and go to sleep in their bed,” she murmured as she slipped off her shoes.

“Take off your dress. That’s right. I’ll just throw a blanket over you and open this window a little. Sleep doucement!”

Cynthia started to call, “Don’t fail to wake me,” but must have been asleep before she could speak the words. At least when she awoke an apparent few minutes later the sentence still hung unuttered, in her mind. She stretched, blinked, fumbled for her thoughts, then glared at the window. It was full daylight!

Frantically she bent to look at her watch. It had stopped. Then it was next day? The little clock on the bureau said “eight o’clock” and then Alice, tousle headed, in bright pink candy-striped pyjamas peeped round the edge of the door.

“Hello you! Gosh how you did sleep! Are you by any chance a descendant of the Sleeping Beauty? I phoned your hotel so they wouldn’t think you had got run over, and went in to sleep with Mother.” She pranced into the room and perched on the foot of the bed. “It’s a swell day. And things started to move again today. You’ll find your little editor chap, no doubt. Will you have your breakfast on a tray in here, milady, and go back to sleep again?”

“Goodness no! Oh, I feel fine.” Cynthia swung her feet out of bed.

It was nearly noon, however, when Cynthia sent her name to Mr. Culbert, the editor of Little Ones’ Magazine. He came out immediately, a plump little man with a round jolly face and held out both hands, beaming his welcome.

“Such a shame you landed here in the middle of the holiday. I was down in the south of France with the owner of the magazine, but got back last night. Now, my dear child, about those covers of yours, I suppose you want to get right at them. About models ... that’s going to be a bit difficult. Children, you know. ...”

“Not a bit difficult.” Cynthia’s eyes were dancing. “I’ve been working,” she said demurely. “What, not already? Well, you are a wonder! Oh, you’ve got something there? Come into the office, will you? This is just a borrowed place and I hate it. Drat these French chairs. I like a good old swivel chair I can lean back in. Shall be glad to get back to the States myself. Now let’s see. ...”

He had chatted incessantly as he led the way into a room resembling more a window display of a decorator’s shop than an office. Cynthia perched on the corner of the elaborate inlaid desk and slipped the wrapper off her drawing, the one Nono, over her second breakfast, had finished posing for, just a half hour ago.

“Here you are.” She knew it was good. Would he think so too? Gosh, he liked it! She could tell by his face.

“Sa ... ay, that’s fine. My dear child, you have certainly surpassed anything you have done yet.” He set it on the floor, propped against the wall and leaned back to squint at it.

It was nice to be praised and Cynthia felt herself getting warm and pink cheeked. Yes, she knew Nono had been her best effort ... to date. “There’ll be better ones, though,” she told the little editor. “I’m going to Brittany next week to join the Brewsters, and to paint. I’ll do you a Breton child for the issue after this one.”

Mr. Culbert got up and took her arm. “Now we’ll go and get a check made out for this. I know you can always use money in Paris. And then how about a celebration dinner tonight, some place where they have marvelous French cooking?”

Cynthia laughed. “I can do better than that, I’ve got an invitation for you, instead. We’re both invited to a really American meal. Please, do you like corned beef hash?”