The House Read online

  V

  WE NEGOTIATE A MORTGAGE

  Alice and I supposed that as soon as we made that first payment uponthe old Schmittheimer place we should take possession of it. We hadhastened negotiations because naturally enough we were anxious to sharethe delights of the Eden which was to be ours. It transpired all tooearly in the proceedings, however, that the processes of the law areexceedingly exacting and provokingly tedious. With the one thousanddollars which Mr. Black gave us we fancied that we should be able tosay to the widow Schmittheimer: "Here is your money; now let us movein."

  It seems that the business is not done in that business-like way. Assoon as the widow Schmittheimer contracted to part with her property ata stated price and upon stated terms she awoke to a realization of thefact that she ought to have the cooeperation and counsel of alawyer--although for the life of me I cannot see what there was leftfor a lawyer to do. With a magnanimity and generosity which bespokethe largeness of his nature, Mr. Denslow volunteered his services ascounsellor to the wary widow, and I confess that I should haveinterposed no objection to having this versatile friend serve in thiscapacity. But the widow chose to decline the gratuitous services ofMr. Denslow, and to pay fifty dollars for the professional advice of acertain Lawyer Meisterbaum, not a bad fellow, but one of those carping,superficial people who pretend to a conscientiousness and a prudenceand a zeal which they actually do not possess.

  After repeated meetings and the most annoying delays, Alice plainlytold this Lawyer Meisterbaum that he had more than earned his fee byhis puerile interferences with a prompt and amicable adjustment of theaffair. Alice and Mr. Denslow and I agreed that, if we had been leftto ourselves, we could have settled the business with the widowSchmittheimer in half a day. However, I suppose that the lawyers musthave a chance to make a living, and I can readily understand how areally conscientious lawyer might have the lingering remnant orsuggestion of a desire to impress his client with the suspicion that hewas earning his fee.

  For fully a fortnight after my return from Cincinnati we were harassedby the delays of the law, or, more exactly speaking, by theexasperating crochets of the lawyer. Meanwhile there came letters ofanxious inquiry from our munificent friend Mr. Black, for thatestimable person, being aware of my predilection for ancient armor andother curios, found it difficult to disabuse his mind of the suspicionthat his one thousand dollars might have been diverted from itsoriginal purpose, and misappropriated to what he esteemed the uses offolly. So it was with a feeling of great relief that finally Iapprised our generous friend by telegraph that the transaction had beenclosed.

  This end had not been reached, however, until Alice had put hersignature and her seal to a curiously-phrased document which served (asI was told) as security to the widow Schmittheimer in case of "defaultin payment of interest or principal." This instrument is called, as Iremember, a deed of trust, which seems to be another and a more politename for a mortgage.

  I protested against Alice's putting her signature to this document,which I still recognize as a covert foe to our happiness andprosperity. But Mr. Denslow assured us that the proceeding was whollyproper and businesslike, and Alice paid no heed to my expostulations.Never before had I had any experience in matters or with instruments ofthis kind, and I will admit that I have not even now any idea of whatthe purport of the document in question is, further than a distinctintuition that its involved syntax and complex and cloudy phraseologybode no good.

  As soon as the transaction was closed the widow Schmittheimer burstinto tears and loudly bewailed having parted with her home. I thenlearned that for the last ten days she had been almost constantlybesieged by old friends of hers--the same who had been wont to consumeher coffee and her kuchen and who now regaled her (in compensation, asit were, for her past hospitality) with reproachful assurances that shehad been virtually swindled out of her beautiful property. The griefof this lonely and amiable woman touched me to the core, and I soughtto assuage her melancholy by telling her that we should expect her tovisit us, to which she replied amid tears and seeming gratitude thatshe would be sure to call every September and March, these being themonths (as I afterward learned) in which the semi-annual interest, socalled, fell due.

  As you may suppose, while Alice and I, under the direction of Mr.Denslow, were worrying ourselves nearly to death over the miserabledetails of "closing" this transaction, our neighbors and Adah (Alice'ssister) busied themselves with planning improvements in and for our newhome. It was during this period that Adah met with one of thosesorrows which benumb the sensitive feminine heart. In a moment ofvandalism ever to be deprecated, little Erasmus discovered and tookpossession of that copy of "The National Architect" which contained thepicture of the plutocratic villa at Narragansett Pier. This preciousrelic was put by the heedless boy to the base use of serving as a tailto a kite, and during one of the high winds the kite blew away, andthere was an end to Adah's most precious possession! Thus perished thelink that united Adah to the sweetest dream of her maturer years.

  However, this mishap did not wholly abate Adah's interest in ouraffairs. In answer to Adah's solicitation a long letter had come fromMaria, bearing the blissful promise that a carefully made plan ofMaria's house of St. Joe (drawn by Maria herself upon a fly leafexcerpted from Maria's favorite volume, "The Life of Mary Lyon") wouldsoon be forwarded for our enlightenment and delectation. Maria feltkindly toward us, and her sympathies had been awakened to their verydepths by a tender souvenir Adah had sent her--a leaf plucked from oneof the lilac bushes on the old Schmittheimer place. Both Adah andMaria belong to that old-school class of proper feminine folk who neverpick but always pluck flowers.

  Well, Adah and the neighbors kept as busy as a bee in a bottle planningchanges that they deemed necessary in our house. When we got throughwith that dilly-dallying, shilly-shallying Lawyer Meisterbaum, Aliceand I found out that Adah and the neighbors had left little for us todo except to approve their plans and pay for the execution thereof.

  There had been a kind of tacit understanding all along that suchchanges as we made in the Schmittheimer house should be superintendedby an architect-carpenter who was cordially recommended by Mrs.Denslow. This important person's name was Silas Plum, and he had ashop in Osgood Avenue, opposite one of our most fashionable and mostprosperous cemeteries. Mrs. Denslow always called him Uncle Si, andthis circumstance rather prejudiced me in favor of him. The facts,too, that Uncle Si was not overcrowded with business, that he wasconsiderate in his charges, and that he was of so great versatilitythat he could boss the plumbing as well as the carpentering--thesefacts confirmed us in the opinion that Uncle Si was just the man forour needs.

  I went with Mrs. Denslow to call upon this gifted and honest son oftoil. His modest place of business was indicated to the passer-by bythis insinuating sign:

  SILAS PLUM, CARPENTER & BUILDER. COFFIN BOXES A SPECIALITY.

  I am not a superstitious person. I think I have already told you so.Still I have instincts and intuitions; and you, who are not wholly deadto the subtle influences of the more delicate sentiments, will probablysympathize with me when I admit that Mr. Plum's sign did not inspire mewith that enthusiasm which is at least comforting to the possessor.The reference to Mr. Plum's "speciality" was what cast a temporarygloom over me, but Mrs. Denslow was not one of those who suffer adetail so insignificant as this to stand in her way; so I was bouncedinto Uncle Si's shop and presented to Uncle Si in propria persona.

  Uncle Si impressed me as being a very trustworthy man. He looked notunlike myself; his gaunt, sinewy frame betokened severe practicability,and his calm blue eyes and large straight mouth combined to give hisface an unmistakable and convincing expression of candor. Of speech hewas monosyllabic, and this peculiarity pleased me, for I have alwaysadmired and always cultivated directness and terseness, there beingnothing else more distasteful to me than the prolixity, diffuseness,pleonasm, amplification, redundance, and copia verborum of some people.I told Uncle Si all about the new
purchase we had made, and I drew upona pine board a fairly correct plan of the Schmittheimer house as it nowstood. I gave him to understand that numerous and important changeswere required, and that I desired to secure from him an estimate as tothe cost of those changes.

  "I can't tell how much it will be till I know what you want," saidUncle Si.

  I recognized the justness of this remark, yet at the same time I feltbitter toward Uncle Si for not knowing without being told. To tell thetruth, _I_ didn't know. I had heard Alice and Adah talking in ageneral way about "closets" and a "new hall," and "hardwood floors"and--and--and things of that kind; I remembered having heard somediscussion of a prospective "addition," and--yes--I now recalled thatthe front porch would have to be rebuilt. Hoping to conceal my utterignorance, I told Uncle Si that we wanted "lots of changes," but thiswould not satisfy the exasperating man; he insisted upon particulars,upon "specifications," as he termed them.

  Of course I was unable to give them; so was Mrs. Denslow. The onlyreally distinct idea Mrs. Denslow had of the transformationcontemplated by Alice was one concerning the front lawn, and involvinggravel walks between flower beds and under umbrageous trees; exoticsperennially in bloom; Swiss tree boxes, from which the lark carolled byday and the nightingale warbled at night; an artificial lake, in whichgoldfishes swam and upon whose translucent bosom majestic swans glidedgracefully--I assure you that Mrs. Denslow has the soul of a poet!

  But these delightful fancies did not interest Uncle Si, because theydid not concern him or his trade. So we compromised the matter byappointing an hour that evening for Uncle Si to call and talk it allover with Alice. This was, seemingly, the only way out of the dilemma.All I knew was what I didn't want, or, rather, what _we_ didn't want.Our many and long and earnest conversations with the neighbors haddetermined numerous important points. We didn't want a roof like theBaylors' roof; nor water-pipes like the Rushes'; nor backstairs likethe Tiltmans'; nor plastering like the Denslows'; nor dormer-windowslike the Carters'; nor a kitchen sink like the Plunkers'; nor smokychimneys like the Bollingers'; nor a skimpy little conservatory likethe Mayhews'--in fact, there were so many things we _didn't_ want thatit seemed to me that if Uncle Si had been moderately ingenious or hadgiven his imagination full rein, he might have guessed what we _did_want, and so have gone ahead without fear of incurring our displeasure.

  It was perhaps better, however, that, before undertaking his task,Uncle Si should require some hint or intimation of what would beexpected of him. I am the last man in the world to discourage what isordinarily regarded and accepted as reasonable precaution againstembarrassment and adversity.