The Little Red Chimney | Page 7

and is foolishly depressed by it.
Starting from the Y.M.C.A. corner, walking up the avenue a block,
then turning south, you came in a few steps to a modest grey house
with a grass plat in front of it, a freshly reddened brick walk, and
flower boxes in its windows. It was modest, not merely in the sense of
being unpretentious, but also in that of a restrained propriety. You felt
it to be a dwelling of character, wherein what should be done to-day,
was never put off till to-morrow; where there was a place for
everything and everything in it. Yet mingling with this propriety was an
all-pervading cheer that appealed strongly to the homeless passerby.
The grey house presented a gable end to the street, and stretched a wing
comfortably on either side. In one of these was a glass door, with
"Office Hours 10-1," which caused you to glance again at the sign on
the iron gate: "Dr. Prudence Vandegrift."
The other ell, which was of one story, had a double window, before
which a rose bush grew, and when the blinds were up you had

sometimes a glimpse of an opposite window, indicating that it was but
one room deep. From its roof rose a small chimney that stood out from
all the other chimneys, because, while they were grey like the house
and its slate roof, it was red.
Strolling by in a leisure hour the Candy Man had remarked it and
wondered why, and found himself continuing to wonder. Somehow that
little red chimney took hold on his imagination. It was a magical
chimney, poetic, alluring, at once a cheering and a depressing little
chimney, for it stirred him to delicious dreams, which, when they faded,
left him forlorn.
It was to Virginia he owed enlightenment. Virginia was the long-legged
child who had fished Miss Bentley's bag from beneath the Candy
Wagon, the indomitable leader of the Apartment House Pigeons, as the
Candy Man had named them.
The Apartment House did not exclude children, neither did it encourage
them, and when their individual quarters became too contracted to
contain their exuberance, they perforce sought the street. Like pigeons
they would descend in a flock, here, there, everywhere; perching in a
blissful row before the soda fountain in the drug store; or if the state of
the public purse did not warrant this, the curbstone and the wares of the
Candy Wagon were cheerfully substituted. By virtue no doubt of her
long legs and masterful spirit, Virginia ruled the flock. Under her
guidance they made existence a weariness to the several janitors on the
block.
As in defiance of law and order they circled one day on their roller
skates, down the avenue and up the broad alley behind the Y.M.C.A.,
round and round, Virginia issued her orders: "You all go on, I want to
talk to the Candy Man."
Being without as yet any theories, consistently democratic, she
regarded him as a friend and brother. A state of society in which the
position of Candy Man was next the throne, would have seemed
perfectly logical to Virginia.

[Illustration: VIRGINIA]
"You don't look much like Tim," she volunteered, dangling her legs
from the carriage block. Her hair was dark and severely bobbed; her
miniature nose was covered with freckles, and she squinted a little.
"No?" responded the Candy Man.
"Tim was Irish," she continued.
During business hours conversation of necessity took on a disjointed
character. Unless you had great power of concentration you forgot in
the intervals what you had been talking about. When a group of High
School boys had been served and had gone their hilarious way Virginia
began again. "You know the house with the Little Red Chimney?" she
asked.
The Candy Man did.
"Well, a nice old man named Uncle Bob lives there, and I asked him
why that chimney was red, and he said because it was new. A branch of
a tree fell on the old one. The tree where the squirrel house is, you
know."
The Candy Man remembered the tree.
"He said the doctor was going to have it painted, but he kind of liked it
red, and so did her ladyship."
"And who might her ladyship be?" the Candy Man inquired.
"That's what I asked him, and he said, 'You come over and see,' and
then he said--now listen to this, for it's just like a story." Virginia lifted
an admonishing finger. "He said, whenever I saw smoke coming out of
that Little Red Chimney, I might know her ladyship had come to town.
You'd better believe I'm going to watch. And what do you think! I can
see it from our dining-room window!" she concluded.
"Most interesting," said the Candy Man politely, without the least idea

how interesting