The House Read online

  THE HOUSE

  I

  WE BUY A PLACE

  It was either Plato the Athenian, or Confucius the Chinese, orAndromachus the Cretan--or some other philosopher whose name Idisremember--that remarked once upon a time, and the time was manycenturies ago, that no woman was happy until she got herself a home. Itreally makes no difference who first uttered this truth, the truth itselfis and always has been recognized as one possessing nearly all thevirtues of an axiom.

  I recall that one of the first wishes I heard Alice express during ourhoneymoon was that we should sometime be rich enough to be able to builda dear little house for ourselves. We were poor, of course; otherwiseour air castle would not have been "a dear little house"; it would havebeen a palatial residence with a dance-hall at the top and a wine-cellarat the bottom thereof. I have always observed that when the money comesin the poetry flies out. Bread and cheese and kisses are all well enoughfor poverty-stricken romance, but as soon as a poor man receives awindfall his thoughts turn inevitably to a contemplation of theprobability of terrapin and canvasbacks.

  I encouraged Alice in her fond day-dreaming, and we decided between usthat the dear little house should be a cottage, about which the roses andthe honeysuckles should clamber in summer, and which in winter should bebanked up with straw and leaves, for Alice and I were both of New Englandorigin. I must confess that we had some reason for indulging thesepleasing speculations, for at that time my Aunt Susan was living, and shewas reputed as rich as mud (whatever that may mean), and this simile wasby her neighbors coupled with another, which represented Aunt Susan asbeing as close as a clapboard on a house. Whatever her reputation was, Ihappened to be Aunt Susan's nearest of kin, and although I never so farlost my presence of mind as to intimate even indirectly that I had anyexpectations, I wrote regularly to Aunt Susan once a month, and everyfall I sent her a box of game, which I told her I had shot in the woodsnear our boarding-house, but which actually I had bought of a commissionmerchant in South Water Street.

  With the legacy which we were to receive from Aunt Susan, Alice and I hadit all fixed up that we should build a cottage like one which Alice hadseen one time at Sweet Springs while convalescing at that fashionableMissouri watering-place from an attack of the jaundice. This cottagewas, as I was informed, an ingenious combination of Gothic decadence andNorman renaissance architecture. Being somewhat of an antiquarian bynature, I was gratified by the promise of archaism which Alice's pictureof our future home presented. We picked out a corner lot in,--well, nomatter where; that delectable dream, with its Gothic and Norman features,came to an untimely end all too soon. At its very height Aunt Susan upand died, and a fortnight later we learned that, after bequeathing thebulk of her property to foreign missions, she had left me, whom she hadcondescended to refer to as her "beloved nephew," nine hundred dollars incash and her favorite flower-piece in wax, a hideous thing which forthirty years had occupied the corner of honor in the front spare chamber.

  I do not know what Alice did with the wax-flowers. As for the ninehundred dollars, I appropriated it to laudable purposes. Some of it wentfor a new silk dress for Alice; the rest I spent for books, and I recallmy thrill of delight when I saw ensconced upon my shelves a splendid copyof Audubon's "Birds" with its life-size pictures of turkeys, buzzards,and other fowl done in impossible colors.

  After that experience "our house" simmered and shrivelled down from theNorman-Gothic to plain, everyday, fin-de-siecle architecture. Weconcluded that we could get along with five rooms (although six would bebetter), and we transferred our affections from that corner lot in theavenue which had engaged our attention during the decadent-renaissancephase of our enthusiasm to a modest point in Slocum's Addition, alocality originally known as Slocum's Slough, but now advertised andheralded by the press and rehabilitated in public opinion as ParadisePark. This pleasing mania lasted about two years. Then it was foreverabated by the awful discovery that Paradise Park was the breeding spot oftyphoid fever, and, furthermore, that old man Slocum's title to theproperty was defective in every essential particular.

  Alice and I did not find it in our power either to overlook or to combatthese trifling objections; with unabated optimism we cast our eyeselsewhere, and within a month we found another delectable bidingplace--this time some distance from the city--in fact, in one of the newand booming suburbs. Elmdale was then new to fame. I suppose theycalled it Elmdale because it had neither an elm nor a dale. It wasfourteen miles from town, but its railroad transportation facilities wereunique. The five-o'clock milk-train took passengers in to business everymorning, and the eight-o'clock accommodation brought them home againevery evening; moreover, the noon freight stopped at Elmdale to take uppassengers every other Wednesday, and it was the practice of every othertrain to whistle and to slack up in speed to thirty miles an hour whilepassing through this promising suburb.

  I did not care particularly for Elmdale, but Alice took a mighty fancy toit. Our twin boys (Galileo and Herschel, named after the astronomers ofblessed memory!) were now three years old, and Alice insisted that theyrequired the pure air and the wholesome freedom of rural life. Galileohad, in fact, never quite been himself since he swallowed the pincushion.

  We did not go to Elmdale at once; we never went there. Elmdale wassimply another one of those curious phases in which our dream of a homeabounded. With the Elmdale phase "our house" underwent another change.But this was natural enough. You see that in none of our other plans hadwe contemplated the possibility of a growing family. Now we had twouproarious boys, and their coming had naturally put us into pleasingdoubt as to what similar emergencies might transpire in the future. Soour five-room cottage had acquired (in our minds) two more rooms--sevenaltogether--and numerous little changes in the plans and decorations of"our house" had gradually been evolved.

  As I now remember, it was about this time that Alice made up her mindthat the reception-room should be treated in blue. Her birth hadoccurred in December, and therefore turquoise was her birth-stone and theblue thereof was her favorite color. I am not much of a believer in suchthings--in fact, I discredit all superstitions except such as involveblack cats and the rabbit's foot, and these exceptions are whollyreasonable, for my family lived for many years in Salem, Mass. But Ihave always conceded that Alice has as good a right to her superstitionsas I to mine. I bought her the prettiest turquoise ring I could afford,and I approved her determination to treat the reception-room in blue. Irather enjoyed the prospect of the luxury of a reception-room; it hadground the iron into my soul that, ever since we married and settleddown, Alice and I had been compelled in winter months to entertain ourcallers in the same room where we ate our meals. In summer thishumiliation did not afflict us, for then we always sat of an evening onthe front porch.

  The blue room met with a curious fate. One Christmas our beneficentfriend, Colonel Mullaly, presented Alice and me with a beautiful andvaluable lamp. Alice went to Burley's the next week and priced one (nothalf as handsome) and was told that it cost sixty dollars. It was atall, shapely lamp, with an alabaster and Italian marble pedestalcunningly polished; a magnificent yellow silk shade served as thecrowning glory to this superb creation.

  For a week, perhaps, Alice was abstracted; then she told me that she hadbeen thinking it all over and had about made up her mind that when we gotour new house she would have the reception-room treated in a delicatecanary shade.

  "But why abandon the blue, my dear?" I asked. "I think it would be sopretty to have the decoration of the room match your turquoise ring."

  "That 's just like a man!" said Alice. "Reuben, dear, could you possiblyimagine anything else so perfectly horrid as a yellow lampshade in a blueroom?"

  "You are right, sweetheart," said I. "That is something I had neverthought of before. You are right; canary color it shall be, and when wehave moved in I 'll buy you a dear little canary bird in a lovely goldcage, and we 'll hang it in the front window right over the lamp, so thateverybody can see
our treasures from the street and envy our happiness!"

  "You dear, sweet boy!" cried Alice, and she reached up and pulled my headdown and kissed her dear, sweet boy on his bald spot. Alice is an angel!

  I fear I am wearying you with the prolixity of my narrative. So let mepass rapidly over the ten years that succeeded to the yellow-lamp epoch.Ten hard but sweet years! Years full of struggle and hopes, touched withbereavement and sorrow, but precious years, for troubles, like those wehave had, sanctify human lives. Children came to us, and of thesepriceless treasures we lost two. If I thought Alice would ever see theselines I should not say to you now that from the two great sorrows ofthose years my heart has never been and never shall be weaned. I wouldnot have Alice know this, for it would open afresh the wounds her dear,tender mother-heart has suffered.

  Galileo and Herschel are strapping fellows. They have survived theirjuvenile ambitions to be milkmen, policemen, lamp-lighters, butchers,grocerymen, etc., respectively. Both are now in the manual-trainingschool. Fanny, Josephine and Erasmus--I have not mentioned thembefore,--these are the children that are left to us of those that havecome in the later years. And, my! how they are growing! What changeshave taken place in them and all about us! My affairs have prospered; ifit had n't been for the depression that set in two years ago I shouldhave had one thousand dollars in bank by this time. My salary hasincreased steadily year by year; it has now reached a sum that enables meto hope for speedy relief from those financial worries which encompassthe head of a numerous household. By the practice of rigid economy infamily expenses I have been able to accumulate a large number ofblack-letter books and a fine collection of curios, including some fiftypieces of mediaeval armor. We have lived in rented houses all theseyears, but at no time has Alice abandoned the hope and the ambition ofhaving a home of her own. "Our house" has been the burthen of her songfrom one year's end to the other. I understand that this becomes amonomania with a woman who lives in a rented house.

  And, gracious! what changes has "our house" undergone since first dearAlice pictured it as a possibility to me! It has passed through everycharacter, form, and style of architecture conceivable. From five roomsit has grown to fourteen. The reception parlor, chameleon-like, haschanged color eight times. There have duly loomed up bewildering visionsof a library, a drawing-room, a butler's pantry, a nursery, alaundry--oh, it quite takes my breath away to recall and recount thepossibilities which Alice's hopes and fancies conjured up.

  But, just two months ago to-day Alice burst in upon me. I was in mystudy over the kitchen figuring upon the probable date of the conjunctionof Venus and Saturn in the year 1963.

  "Reuben, dear," cried Alice, "I 've done it! I 've bought a place!"

  "Alice Fothergill Baker," says I, "what _do_ you mean!"

  She was all out of breath--so transported with delight was she that shecould hardly speak. Yet presently she found breath to say: "You know theold Schmittheimer place--the house that sets back from the street and haslovely trees in the yard? You remember how often we 've gone by thereand wished we had a home like it? Well, I 've bought it! Do youunderstand, Reuben dear? I 've bought it, and we 've got a home at last!"

  "Have you _paid_ for it, darling?" I asked.

  "N-n-no, not yet," she answered, "but I 'm going to, and you 're going tohelp me, are n't you, Reuben?"

  "Alice," says I, going to her and putting my arms about her, "I don'tknow what you 've done, but of course I 'll help you--yes, dearest, I 'llback you to the last breath of my life!"

  Then she made me put on my boots and overcoat and hat and go with her tosee her new purchase--"our house!"