WRITING BACK HOME

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2146, 19 April 1928, Page 7

WRITING BACK HOME

A COUNTRY GIRL IN NEW YORK. The following amusing yet interesting letter on life and conditions in New York, ostensibly written by a country girl recently arrived in the city to her chum in Idaho, appeared in a contemporary just to hand from Chicago:— New York, March 2. Dearest Louisa: Oh, I'm so thrilled! Must tell you, but don't tell Ma. You remember that man I said asked me for a stamp and lived in the next room? He's my thrill. I'm not crazy about him or anything like that, though he's nicer than the man I met on the train, but the man next door knows so much. He's wonderful. We see a lot of each other and I don't go out so much now. Anyway, there's nothing to see anymore in this Times Square. I'd rather sit in my room and look out of the window waiting for the man next door to come in or call me. Either he's in here with me or I'm in his room nearly all the time. He knows so much and talks so funny. Half of the time I can't understand him, but I know he isn't saying bad for he never gets fresh. But he talks like this: "Babe, you'd be a beaut if you had scenery ,and I'll show these muggs around this dump a real meal ticket. I'm going to take you along and bring you through, honey, for regular dough." His 'honey,' Louisa, doesn't mean a thing, but don't tell Ma. He just says, 'honey' all the time, naturally I guess. I asked him what that sweet smell is I smell all the time. He only laughed and said, "Hop, kid. You'll get on it in time." I didn't say anything but I don't know yet what it is. Sometimes I can't understand him. He seems to be. thinking of me and always for my good. Yesterday he told me I'd make a great looker on the stage, and that I'm there but the best way to start is at the bottom, and he thinks I should take a job as a waitress in a cafeteria. I never thought I'd come to New York to be a waitress, but he says to be one in a cafeteria is a mark of distinction in Times Square. I must listen, he says, to the conversation of the men at the tables, and if I hear anything important repeat it to him. I asked him how I would know what was important and he said I'd soon find out. He wanted to know if lie got a tip on the market could I wire home for money? When I asked him what market, he made me memorize a long list of names with figures like 76i and 109 after them.

Then he said when I heard of one of those names to tell him and what the people said about them. "What has that got to do with waiting on table?" I asked him, and he only said: "The bigger beaut the bigger dumb. Just a little side line, honey, that waiting gag," and it left he knowin' as much as I did before. But I l m going to the cafeteria with him in the morning. He says the job is swell for me and he thinks it is best I go there first because to go anywhere else, he says, looking for work, would mean that I would have to buy some clothes. He's so funny. Says I mustn'.t make dates, but let the men talk to me, and he is teaching me how to smile. Don't tell Ma.

And to walk, too. It's hard to follow him when he teaches. He says, "Loosen up your pan, honey, and open that trap more," or "Put the swingalong over Babe," when I'm walking. I finally found out that he meant by swingalong that I have to walk half sideways, with something of a swing to my hips. Wish I could see myself doing it, but he says that "stuff like that cops the money guys."

I asked the landlady who he was, but I can't get any satisfaction. All she said was: "Better shy off that bird, bimbo, or you'll land with the nuts."

So you see it's not so easy when you get away from your own home town set.

But I like the idea of going to work even if it is only waiting. And he says that many a big shot started lame. Will write again about the job. Lots of love. ADDIE.

p. s.—He says I'll have to wear a nifty uniform showing my gams and that will do the trick. Can't imagine the uniform, but don't tell Ma.