The House Read online

  VI

  I AM BESOUGHT TO BUY THINGS

  Alice had her talk with Uncle Si and issued therefrom with theconviction that Uncle Si was a paragon of integrity and carpenteringskill. As for Uncle Si, he must have gathered together a pretty fairgeneral idea of what Alice wanted, for he promised to return the nextday with plans and details and with an estimate of what thecontemplated improvements would cost.

  Meanwhile another complication had arisen. The people to whom thewidow Schmittheimer had rented the lower part of the house declined tovacate the premises unless we paid them a bonus of fifteen dollars.Alice indignantly protested that we had no fifteen dollars to throwaway, and I recognized the truth of this proposition. Still, a visitto the recalcitrant tenants convinced me that they were poor folk andcould ill afford to bear the expense of moving. Another circumstancethat made me feel rather kindly toward these people was that their namewas Mitchell, and, although they made no such claim, it pleased me tofancy that they were of kin to that distinguished family which hascontributed so largely to the glory of native astronomical research.

  Actuated, therefore, by the most honorable impulses, I gave thesepeople fifteen dollars which I borrowed for that purpose from my mostestimable neighbor, Mrs. Tiltman, upon the understanding that I shouldpay it back when I heard from "The Sidereal Torch," to whichpublication I had sent a carefully prepared essay on Encke's comet. Inthis wise a matter which might have caused us much delay and vexationwas quickly and amicably disposed of. I did not tell Alice of what Ihad done, for although Alice is (as I have already assured you) themost amiable of her sex, she cannot brook what she regards as animposition, and this inclination to resent seeming overbearance inothers has not unfrequently put us to expense and involved us inembarrassment.

  Another episode which is still fresh in my memory I cannot forbearrelating. Alice came to me one day not long ago--it was perhaps threeweeks since--and insisted that I should attend to having the correctname of the avenue in which we were to live put upon the lamp-posts atthe corners of that avenue. I could not guess what Alice meant untilshe informed me that, although the name of that thoroughfare had byordinance of the City Council been changed from Mush Street toClarendon Avenue, the old name of Mush Street had (by a singularinadvertence) been suffered to remain upon the lamp-posts along thathighway.

  "The idea!" cried Alice, indignantly. "Do you suppose I would liveupon Mush Street? Do you suppose I ever would have bought that houseand lot if I had suspected even for a moment that they were not inClarendon Avenue? Mush Street is just horrid--everybody else thinksso, and I know it! I won't have it Mush Street; it's Clarendon Avenue,and I 'm going to have Clarendon Avenue engraved on my cards! Reuben,you must see at once that the lamp-posts are changed."

  I confess that so far as I myself am concerned it matters not whethermy abiding place be in Mush Street or in Clarendon Avenue so long as Iam comfortably bedded and fed and my family are well provided for.Names are, at best, arbitrary things. Moreover, I was well aware (andyou will see for yourself if you consult a map of our city) that thatthoroughfare which has been renamed Clarendon Avenue is actually MushStreet, or, at any rate, a continuation of Mush Street. However, I hada regard for that sense of feminine pride which made Alice revoltagainst Mush Street. I am aware that the conspicuous characteristicsof Mush Street for many miles are goats and fortune-tellers and coalyards and rumshops and midwiveries; these glaring features are by nomeans such as the elite of our society care to affect. Conceding thatmy indifference to these idiosyncrasies should not be suffered to standin the way of the natural current of Alice's womanly pride, I promisedto do my best toward effecting what Alice required, and I am nowengaged upon a memorial to the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen prayingthat the lamp-posts in Clarendon Avenue be purged of that letteringwhich suggests the commonplace antecedents of that thoroughfare.

  I find that Alice is not alone in her wretchedness. It appears thatour friends Lawyer Miles and Mr. Redleigh and their families are atpresent engaged in the momentous task of getting the name of the streetin which they live changed from Cemetery Avenue to Sportland Place.And our other friends two blocks west of us are greatly agitated justnow because the name of their aristocratic thoroughfare has, by a whimof the municipal authorities, been changed from Alexander Avenue toOsgood Street. I have mentioned these facts to Alice, but no sense ofthat sympathy which is said to arise from the companionship of miseryseems to reconcile my dear wife to the plebeian association which themere mention of Mush Street suggests.

  The Sunday morning after we had actually bought the Schmittheimer placethe city newspapers made a record of the event in their "societycolumn," and added that it was "understood that in their beautiful newhome Prof. and Mrs. Baker would entertain lavishly." I was inclined totake exception to this item, which I regarded as a vulgar parade of ourprivate affairs; moreover, the innuendo was wholly untruthful. Aliceand I did not intend to "entertain" at all; we could not afford to"entertain." What would Mr. Black say if by chance he were to get holdof a copy of any of those Sunday morning newspapers and read thatmendacious paragraph? He would not only lament the one thousanddollars which he had just advanced; worse than that, he would forevershut down on those other acts of similar generosity which, I am free tosay, Alice and I counted among the pleasing probabilities of the nearfuture.

  I repeat that this untruthful notoriety through the medium of the"society column" displeased me, and I am sure I should have spoken mymind very freely about it if I had not heard Alice reading the itemwith evident gusto to her sister Adah. My amazement was increased whenAlice asked me to secure a dozen extra papers for her, as she wished tosend marked copies to certain fashionable society acquaintances and toseveral other relatives in Maine! I can picture the rural astonishmentwith which Cousin Jabez Fothergill of Biddeford Pool and the Strattonsof North Moosehead will read of our good fortune. I more than halfsuspect that in a moment of triumphant revenge and in a spirit of cruelmalice Alice sent a copy of the paper to Miss Mears at Pocatapaug.Miss Mears is little to me now, but once I called her Hepsival, andeven after these many years of separation I would fain undo any act ofspite which her successful rival, Alice, might attempt.

  The Monday following the publication of this strangely malevolent itemwas an unusually busy day with me. I seemed suddenly to have becomethe target of every man who had anything to sell. I was waited upon byfruit-tree venders, lightning-rod agents, fire underwriters, plumbers,gas-fitters, painters, and an innumerable army of persons havinghorses, cows, pigs, chickens, shade trees, patent hitching posts,smoke-consumers, Pasteur filters, shrubbery, lawn statuary, fancypoultry, garden utensils, and patent paving to dispose of. I reallycannot realize how I got rid of them all, for a more affable andpersuasive lot of gentlemen I never before had met with. Come to thinkof it, I have not got rid of them. They continue to cultivate myacquaintance and on account of their attentions (polite but persistent)I have been compelled to lay aside temporarily my investigation intothe character of the atmosphere around Aldebaran, a most delicate workupon which I am hoping to rear the superstructure of my fame.

  I admit that these attentions rather flatter me; it is possible thatafter a time--say a year or two--I may weary of the courteous gentlemanwho is now seeking to sell me a dozen apple-trees, one-third cash,balance in ten years. I may, in the lapse of time, become indifferentto the blandishments of him who daily for the last two months has beentrying to convince me that I cannot reach the summum bonum of humanhappiness until I have invested four dollars in Perkins' patentautomatic garden rake and step-ladder combination. The gentleman whohas the smoke-consumer, the gentleman who deals in shrubbery, thegentleman who advocates lightning rods, and the other gentlemen whorepresent the tantamount interests of lawn statuary, fancy poultry,patent paving, etc., etc., etc.--I may, in the flight of years, becomeinsensible to their charms, for there is no change that is not renderedpossible by the capricious offices of Time. But at present I canhardly re
alize how these people can ever be other than they noware--near to me, as I know, and dear to me, as I feel.

  I did not suspect, before I became a householder, that the merepossession of property was capable of making a man an object of suchunflagging interest to his fellow creatures. I find it verypleasing--the solicitude with which these newly-made acquaintances (thevenders, agents, and other polite gentlemen) regard me, and attend uponme, and seek to gain my approval. It is sweet to be beloved.

  In the very height of this enjoyment, however, there are considerationswhich serve to cause me feelings of disquietude. My conscienceconstantly reproves me for the deception which I am practising uponthese people. It occurred to me several weeks ago that I had no rightto pose as the proprietor of our new house. The new house and itscircumadjacent real estate belong not to me, but to Alice and to herheirs and assigns forever. I have no proprietary rights in that houseor upon that expansive lawn; If I am there, it is simply as a piece offurniture, like the stove, or the clock, or the centre-table. I amsimply tolerated, perhaps as an object of ornament, perhaps as anobject of use. This is a humiliating confession; the thought that itis actually true pains me poignantly.

  I never supposed I was a moral coward, but I must be; otherwise I wouldweeks ago have called an open-air mass-meeting of the apple-treeagents, the fire-underwriters, the patent pavers and the others, andconfessed to them that their attentions were misdirected, and that Iwas not in fact _the_ fortunate being whose lot they sought to better.

  A strangely craven consideration withheld me from this manly course. Isuspected that as soon as I divulged the truth I would be forsaken bythis troupe--this retinue of unctuous courtiers. In my imaginings Ibeheld myself deserted and alone, while the vast army of my quondamattendants and flatterers tagged after and surrounded and fawned uponAlice, the real purchaser and actual owner of our new place!

  I make a candid exposition of these things, not more for the purpose ofrelieving my conscience of its long pent-up misery than for the purposeof disclosing that which may happily serve as a warning to myfellow-beings. I long ago discovered that one of the compensations ofhuman folly is the example which that folly affords for the discreetguidance of others.