As for Mr. Denslow, he agreed with other friends and neighbors that in our new old house we had secured a genuine bargain. But, as I have already indicated, Mr. Denslow was no day-dreamer; he had a way of viewing things that was severe in its practicality.
Now, I am in no sense a business man; you may already have suspected this truth. I am very far from being a fool, as those who have read my numerous treatises (particularly my "Essay to Prove the Probability of the Existence of an Atmosphere on the Other Side of the Moon") will testify; but, having had little to do with the operations and methods of trade and commerce, I am not (I admit it freely) an expert in what in this great, bustling city of Chicago are termed affairs of the world.
Mr. Denslow, upon the other hand, is keenly in touch with these affairs; brought hourly during the day into contact and competition with scheming—and not always scrupulous—men, he has acquired an extensive knowledge of human nature of the rapacious type, and this knowledge has made him wary, alert, prudent, and reserved. It is perhaps this wide difference in our natures and our pursuits that has attracted Mr. Denslow and me to each other; at any rate our friendship has been profitable to both. Mr. Denslow's counsel upon several important occasions has been of vast value to me, and I flatter myself that upon one occasion at least I served Mr. Denslow to excellent purpose. This was two years ago, when, as perhaps you remember, my sun-spot theory was widely discussed by the newspaper press. I then told Mr. Denslow that the recurrence of the sun spots would surely induce a drought upon this planet, thereby causing a shortage in the crops; whereupon Mr. Denslow "cornered the wheat market" (as the saying is) and realized a handsome sum of money.
Alice has long recognized Mr. Denslow's merits as a man of business; she, too, has what, in lieu of a better term, our New England people call faculty. So it was natural that after having drunk deep (so to speak) at the fountain of Mrs. Denslow's enthusiasm, we should turn for serious advice and practical counsel toMr.Denslow.
"This opportunity," said Mr. Denslow, "is one that comes only once in a lifetime. You must not let it escape you. We should go at once to Mrs. Schmittheimer and get her to sign an agreement to part with the property upon the terms specified. In order to bind the agreement we should pay her a small sum of money—oh, say one hundred dollars. The receipt, in the form of an agreement or contract signed by her, will bind the bargain in the contemplation of the law."
"But it is after dark already," said Alice. "Wouldn't it seem rather burglarious to make a descent upon the old lady at this hour?"
"And what is more to the point," said I, "the detail (trifling as it may appear) of planking down one hundred dollars is one which I happen just at this moment to be unprepared to provide for."
"The matter should be closed at once," said Mr. Denslow. "In a deal of this kind delay is too often disastrous. As for the one hundred dollars, I will lend you that amount, for a small cash payment is really necessary to bind the bargain."
My heart went out in gratitude to this noble gentleman. Never before had I felt more keenly the value of neighborly friendship.
"As this business is to be transacted in Mrs. Baker's name," said Mr. Denslow to me, "it would be better for you not to go with us to see Mrs. Schmittheimer. The presence of too many strangers might make the old lady shy of doing what we want her to do. See?"
Yes, I comprehended the intent of the suggestion, and I approved it. While it was far from my desire to take any advantage of the Widow Schmittheimer or of anybody else, I recognized the propriety of conserving our own interests to the extent of suffering no rights of our own to be either lost or jeoparded. So while Mr. Denslow and Alice went upon their business mission I remained with Mrs. Denslow and her interesting children and elucidated my theory of the ice-caps of the planet Mars. In less than an hour Mr. Denslow and Alice returned and exhibited with delight a receipt signed by Katherine Elizabeth Schmittheimer, which receipt, I was glad to see, was practically a contract to sell the property upon the terms specified in her original talk with Alice.
"The terms are certainly exceptionally advantageous!" said Mr. Denslow. "It will take some time—perhaps a week or ten days—to investigate the title; when this detail is satisfactorily disposed of you can pay down your one thousand dollars and take possession of the premises."
Pay down one thousand dollars? Ah, I had quite forgotten about that. In my enthusiasm over the prospect of a home of our own, and in the delirium induced by the delightful chatter about the paradise into which that front lawn and that old rookery (as Adah called it) were to be transformed, I had suffered all thought of the essential and inevitable first payment of one thousand dollars to slip quite out of my mind. Now this awful consideration, from which there could be no escape, took complete and exclusive possession of me. Where in the wide, wide world was I to get the one thousand dollars?
This was the question I put to Alice on the way home from the Denslows' that memorable evening. Alice knew as well as I did that my salary was sufficient only to cover the current expenses of the family. She knew as well as I did that the royalties from my books the last year were as follows:
"The Star Gamma in Leo and Its Satellite" . . . . . $1.60"Mars and Its Ice-Caps" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75"Probable Depth of the Bottle-Neck Seas asIndicated by the Spectroscope" . . . . . . . . . .30"Logarithms for the Nursery" . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.15"Alphabetical Catalogue of Binary Stars" . . . . . . .65-----Total $4.45
Alice knew, too, as well as I did, that the whole amount of money I received from my lectures before the West Side Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge did not exceed seventy dollars last year. She knew all these things, and I told her so, and then I asked her where or how she fancied we were going to raise the one thousand dollars for the first payment on "our house." To my surprise, Alice was prepared—or at least she seemed to be prepared for this question.
"Reuben," said she, "I remember having heard Mr. Black say one day during his visit to us last summer that we ought to have a home, and that if we ever decided to buy one he would try his best to help us."
Now that Alice spoke of it I, too, recalled that friendly remark of Mr. Black's. A man who is drowning will catch at a straw. A man who has bought a house with nothing to pay for it is also predisposed to clutch. Our old friend Mr. Black now loomed up as my only sure salvation.
Mr. Black is upward of seventy years of age. He and my father went to school together in Maine, and subsequently they lived near each other in Cincinnati. Mr. Black had been a merchant; he had retired from business rich. After my father's death, while I was still a boy, this kind old friend was good to me, taking an interest in my work and my welfare. He had no children of his own, and, if he did not regard me almost as a son, I certainly grew to regard him almost as a father. Mr. Black knew the value of money and respected it. He gave freely, but only where he was assured it was deserved and would do actual good. A prudent, careful, economical man himself, he encouraged prudence and thrift in others. He never quite condoned what he regarded as extravagance upon my part in buying my fifty pieces of mediaeval armor, although it is to his munificence that I am indebted for the six-foot telescope with which I am wont to scan the face of the heavens.
The upshot of talks with Alice and Adah and the Denslows—to say nothing of other neighbors with whom I confidentially consulted—the upshot of these talks was that I determined to go to Cincinnati to confer with Mr. Black upon the propriety of his advancing to me the money wherewith Alice should make the first payment upon her—I mean our house. To make short of a long story (for if there is one thing that I despise above all others it is prolixity), I went to Cincinnati and unfolded my business to my aged friend. Mr. Black appeared to be in no indecent haste to satiate my craving. He is not, and never was, a man of exuberant enthusiasms. I was rather pained when, upon learning of the unparalleled bargain we had secured in the Schmittheimer place, he did not go into raptures as did Mrs. Denslow, and Mrs. Baylor, and Mrs. Tiltman and the rest of our neighbors at home. So far from being carried away by any whirlwind of enthusiasm, Mr. Black maintained a placidity of demeanor amounting to stoicism; he plied me with questions about "titles," and "abstracts," and "indentures," and "mortgages," and "liens," and "incumbrances," and other things that I actually knew no more about than the veriest Bushman knows about the theory of Nebulae.
To add to my embarrassment he solicited explicit information about the Schmittheimer place, in what subdivision it was located, and in what township. Had I been a veritable human encyclopaedia I could hardly have satisfied that man's greed for information touching that particular spot. What knew I of tracts, of townships, of quarter sections or of subdivisions? Were I filled with a knowledge of these humdrum commonplaces, should I know aught of that enthusiasm which thrills the being who, after many and long years of weary hoping and waiting, sees the object of his desires just within his grasp? Should Moses just in sight of the promised land be expected to give the dimensions of that delectable spot, and to locate it and bound it and map it off with the accuracy of a Rand & McNally township guide?
I suppose that this conservatism is natural with some people—this lack of fervor, this absence of enthusiasm. Still I will admit Mr. Black's tranquillity—nay, his glacial composure—under the circumstances surprised and grieved me. I did not understand why the prospect and the promise of "our house" did not set Mr. Black—and, for that matter, all the rest of humanity—into the selfsame transports of delight which I experienced. Mind you, now, I am not complaining of nor am I finding fault with Mr. Black. I am simply chronicling happenings and observations. Mr. Black is a benevolent and beneficent man. He said to me at last: "Well, you can tell Alice that I will send her a draft for the money she needs, and within a fortnight I shall run up to take a look at your purchase."
I was in Cincinnati three days. I should have been there but two. A curious happening detained me. As I was going to the railway station from Mr. Black's house the evening of the second day I saw a man with a reflector telescope selling views of the moon at five cents apiece. The night was so auspicious for this diversion that I could not resist the temptation. Thus seduced, the time sped so quickly and the intoxication of the enjoyment was so complete that two hours slipped away before I awakened to a realization of my folly, which cost me somewhat over a dollar and a half, and compelled me to postpone my departure for home to the next day.
Alice and I supposed that as soon as we made that first payment upon the old Schmittheimer place we should take possession of it. We had hastened negotiations because naturally enough we were anxious to share the delights of the Eden which was to be ours. It transpired all too early in the proceedings, however, that the processes of the law are exceedingly exacting and provokingly tedious. With the one thousand dollars which Mr. Black gave us we fancied that we should be able to say to the widow Schmittheimer: "Here is your money; now let us move in."
It seems that the business is not done in that business-like way. As soon as the widow Schmittheimer contracted to part with her property at a stated price and upon stated terms she awoke to a realization of the fact that she ought to have the coöperation and counsel of a lawyer—although for the life of me I cannot see what there was left for a lawyer to do. With a magnanimity and generosity which bespoke the largeness of his nature, Mr. Denslow volunteered his services as counsellor to the wary widow, and I confess that I should have interposed no objection to having this versatile friend serve in this capacity. But the widow chose to decline the gratuitous services of Mr. Denslow, and to pay fifty dollars for the professional advice of a certain Lawyer Meisterbaum, not a bad fellow, but one of those carping, superficial people who pretend to a conscientiousness and a prudence and a zeal which they actually do not possess.
After repeated meetings and the most annoying delays, Alice plainly told this Lawyer Meisterbaum that he had more than earned his fee by his puerile interferences with a prompt and amicable adjustment of the affair. Alice and Mr. Denslow and I agreed that, if we had been left to ourselves, we could have settled the business with the widow Schmittheimer in half a day. However, I suppose that the lawyers must have a chance to make a living, and I can readily understand how a really conscientious lawyer might have the lingering remnant or suggestion of a desire to impress his client with the suspicion that he was earning his fee.
For fully a fortnight after my return from Cincinnati we were harassed by the delays of the law, or, more exactly speaking, by the exasperating crochets of the lawyer. Meanwhile there came letters of anxious inquiry from our munificent friend Mr. Black, for that estimable person, being aware of my predilection for ancient armor and other curios, found it difficult to disabuse his mind of the suspicion that his one thousand dollars might have been diverted from its original purpose, and misappropriated to what he esteemed the uses of folly. So it was with a feeling of great relief that finally I apprised our generous friend by telegraph that the transaction had been closed.
This end had not been reached, however, until Alice had put her signature and her seal to a curiously-phrased document which served (as I was told) as security to the widow Schmittheimer in case of "default in payment of interest or principal." This instrument is called, as I remember, a deed of trust, which seems to be another and a more polite name 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 and prosperity. But Mr. Denslow assured us that the proceeding was wholly proper and businesslike, and Alice paid no heed to my expostulations. Never before had I had any experience in matters or with instruments of this kind, and I will admit that I have not even now any idea of what the purport of the document in question is, further than a distinct intuition that its involved syntax and complex and cloudy phraseology bode no good.
As soon as the transaction was closed the widow Schmittheimer burst into tears and loudly bewailed having parted with her home. I then learned that for the last ten days she had been almost constantly besieged by old friends of hers—the same who had been wont to consume her coffee and her kuchen and who now regaled her (in compensation, as it were, for her past hospitality) with reproachful assurances that she had been virtually swindled out of her beautiful property. The grief of this lonely and amiable woman touched me to the core, and I sought to assuage her melancholy by telling her that we should expect her to visit us, to which she replied amid tears and seeming gratitude that she would be sure to call every September and March, these being the months (as I afterward learned) in which the semi-annual interest, so called, fell due.
As you may suppose, while Alice and I, under the direction of Mr. Denslow, were worrying ourselves nearly to death over the miserable details of "closing" this transaction, our neighbors and Adah (Alice's sister) busied themselves with planning improvements in and for our new home. It was during this period that Adah met with one of those sorrows which benumb the sensitive feminine heart. In a moment of vandalism ever to be deprecated, little Erasmus discovered and took possession of that copy of "The National Architect" which contained the picture of the plutocratic villa at Narragansett Pier. This precious relic was put by the heedless boy to the base use of serving as a tail to a kite, and during one of the high winds the kite blew away, and there was an end to Adah's most precious possession! Thus perished the link that united Adah to the sweetest dream of her maturer years.
However, this mishap did not wholly abate Adah's interest in our affairs. In answer to Adah's solicitation a long letter had come from Maria, bearing the blissful promise that a carefully made plan of Maria's house of St. Joe (drawn by Maria herself upon a fly leaf excerpted from Maria's favorite volume, "The Life of Mary Lyon") would soon be forwarded for our enlightenment and delectation. Maria felt kindly toward us, and her sympathies had been awakened to their very depths by a tender souvenir Adah had sent her—a leaf plucked from one of the lilac bushes on the old Schmittheimer place. Both Adah and Maria belong to that old-school class of proper feminine folk who never pick but always pluck flowers.
Well, Adah and the neighbors kept as busy as a bee in a bottle planning changes that they deemed necessary in our house. When we got through with that dilly-dallying, shilly-shallying Lawyer Meisterbaum, Alice and I found out that Adah and the neighbors had left little for us to do except to approve their plans and pay for the execution thereof.
There had been a kind of tacit understanding all along that such changes as we made in the Schmittheimer house should be superintended by an architect-carpenter who was cordially recommended by Mrs. Denslow. This important person's name was Silas Plum, and he had a shop in Osgood Avenue, opposite one of our most fashionable and most prosperous cemeteries. Mrs. Denslow always called him Uncle Si, and this circumstance rather prejudiced me in favor of him. The facts, too, that Uncle Si was not overcrowded with business, that he was considerate in his charges, and that he was of so great versatility that he could boss the plumbing as well as the carpentering—these facts confirmed us in the opinion that Uncle Si was just the man for our needs.
I went with Mrs. Denslow to call upon this gifted and honest son of toil. His modest place of business was indicated to the passer-by by this insinuating sign:
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 dead to the subtle influences of the more delicate sentiments, will probably sympathize with me when I admit that Mr. Plum's sign did not inspire me with that enthusiasm which is at least comforting to the possessor. The reference to Mr. Plum's "speciality" was what cast a temporary gloom over me, but Mrs. Denslow was not one of those who suffer a detail so insignificant as this to stand in her way; so I was bounced into Uncle Si's shop and presented to Uncle Si in propria persona.
Uncle Si impressed me as being a very trustworthy man. He looked not unlike myself; his gaunt, sinewy frame betokened severe practicability, and his calm blue eyes and large straight mouth combined to give his face an unmistakable and convincing expression of candor. Of speech he was monosyllabic, and this peculiarity pleased me, for I have always admired and always cultivated directness and terseness, there being nothing 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 upon a pine board a fairly correct plan of the Schmittheimer house as it now stood. I gave him to understand that numerous and important changes were required, and that I desired to secure from him an estimate as to the cost of those changes.
"I can't tell how much it will be till I know what you want," said Uncle Si.
I recognized the justness of this remark, yet at the same time I felt bitter toward Uncle Si for not knowing without being told. To tell the truth,Ididn't know. I had heard Alice and Adah talking in a general way about "closets" and a "new hall," and "hardwood floors" and—and—and things of that kind; I remembered having heard some discussion of a prospective "addition," and—yes—I now recalled that the front porch would have to be rebuilt. Hoping to conceal my utter ignorance, I told Uncle Si that we wanted "lots of changes," but this would 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 only really distinct idea Mrs. Denslow had of the transformation contemplated by Alice was one concerning the front lawn, and involving gravel walks between flower beds and under umbrageous trees; exotics perennially in bloom; Swiss tree boxes, from which the lark carolled by day and the nightingale warbled at night; an artificial lake, in which goldfishes swam and upon whose translucent bosom majestic swans glided gracefully—I assure you that Mrs. Denslow has the soul of a poet!
But these delightful fancies did not interest Uncle Si, because they did not concern him or his trade. So we compromised the matter by appointing an hour that evening for Uncle Si to call and talk it all over with Alice. This was, seemingly, the only way out of the dilemma. All I knew was what I didn't want, or, rather, whatwedidn't want. Our many and long and earnest conversations with the neighbors had determined numerous important points. We didn't want a roof like the Baylors' roof; nor water-pipes like the Rushes'; nor backstairs like the Tiltmans'; nor plastering like the Denslows'; nor dormer-windows like the Carters'; nor a kitchen sink like the Plunkers'; nor smoky chimneys like the Bollingers'; nor a skimpy little conservatory like the Mayhews'—in fact, there were so many things wedidn'twant that it seemed to me that if Uncle Si had been moderately ingenious or had given his imagination full rein, he might have guessed what wedidwant, 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 be expected of him. I am the last man in the world to discourage what is ordinarily regarded and accepted as reasonable precaution against embarrassment and adversity.
Alice had her talk with Uncle Si and issued therefrom with the conviction that Uncle Si was a paragon of integrity and carpentering skill. As for Uncle Si, he must have gathered together a pretty fair general idea of what Alice wanted, for he promised to return the next day with plans and details and with an estimate of what the contemplated improvements would cost.
Meanwhile another complication had arisen. The people to whom the widow Schmittheimer had rented the lower part of the house declined to vacate the premises unless we paid them a bonus of fifteen dollars. Alice indignantly protested that we had no fifteen dollars to throw away, and I recognized the truth of this proposition. Still, a visit to the recalcitrant tenants convinced me that they were poor folk and could ill afford to bear the expense of moving. Another circumstance that made me feel rather kindly toward these people was that their name was Mitchell, and, although they made no such claim, it pleased me to fancy that they were of kin to that distinguished family which has contributed so largely to the glory of native astronomical research.
Actuated, therefore, by the most honorable impulses, I gave these people fifteen dollars which I borrowed for that purpose from my most estimable neighbor, Mrs. Tiltman, upon the understanding that I should pay it back when I heard from "The Sidereal Torch," to which publication I had sent a carefully prepared essay on Encke's comet. In this wise a matter which might have caused us much delay and vexation was quickly and amicably disposed of. I did not tell Alice of what I had done, for although Alice is (as I have already assured you) the most amiable of her sex, she cannot brook what she regards as an imposition, and this inclination to resent seeming overbearance in others has not unfrequently put us to expense and involved us in embarrassment.
Another episode which is still fresh in my memory I cannot forbear relating. Alice came to me one day not long ago—it was perhaps three weeks since—and insisted that I should attend to having the correct name of the avenue in which we were to live put upon the lamp-posts at the corners of that avenue. I could not guess what Alice meant until she informed me that, although the name of that thoroughfare had by ordinance of the City Council been changed from Mush Street to Clarendon Avenue, the old name of Mush Street had (by a singular inadvertence) been suffered to remain upon the lamp-posts along that highway.
"The idea!" cried Alice, indignantly. "Do you suppose I would live upon Mush Street? Do you suppose I ever would have bought that house and lot if I had suspected even for a moment that they were not in Clarendon Avenue? Mush Street is just horrid—everybody else thinks so, 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 whether my abiding place be in Mush Street or in Clarendon Avenue so long as I am comfortably bedded and fed and my family are well provided for. Names are, at best, arbitrary things. Moreover, I was well aware (and you will see for yourself if you consult a map of our city) that that thoroughfare which has been renamed Clarendon Avenue is actually Mush Street, or, at any rate, a continuation of Mush Street. However, I had a regard for that sense of feminine pride which made Alice revolt against Mush Street. I am aware that the conspicuous characteristics of Mush Street for many miles are goats and fortune-tellers and coal yards and rumshops and midwiveries; these glaring features are by no means such as the élite of our society care to affect. Conceding that my indifference to these idiosyncrasies should not be suffered to stand in the way of the natural current of Alice's womanly pride, I promised to do my best toward effecting what Alice required, and I am now engaged upon a memorial to the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen praying that the lamp-posts in Clarendon Avenue be purged of that lettering which suggests the commonplace antecedents of that thoroughfare.
I find that Alice is not alone in her wretchedness. It appears that our friends Lawyer Miles and Mr. Redleigh and their families are at present engaged in the momentous task of getting the name of the street in which they live changed from Cemetery Avenue to Sportland Place. And our other friends two blocks west of us are greatly agitated just now because the name of their aristocratic thoroughfare has, by a whim of the municipal authorities, been changed from Alexander Avenue to Osgood Street. I have mentioned these facts to Alice, but no sense of that sympathy which is said to arise from the companionship of misery seems to reconcile my dear wife to the plebeian association which the mere mention of Mush Street suggests.
The Sunday morning after we had actually bought the Schmittheimer place the city newspapers made a record of the event in their "society column," and added that it was "understood that in their beautiful new home Prof. and Mrs. Baker would entertain lavishly." I was inclined to take exception to this item, which I regarded as a vulgar parade of our private affairs; moreover, the innuendo was wholly untruthful. Alice and 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 hold of a copy of any of those Sunday morning newspapers and read that mendacious paragraph? He would not only lament the one thousand dollars which he had just advanced; worse than that, he would forever shut down on those other acts of similar generosity which, I am free to say, Alice and I counted among the pleasing probabilities of the near future.
I repeat that this untruthful notoriety through the medium of the "society column" displeased me, and I am sure I should have spoken my mind very freely about it if I had not heard Alice reading the item with evident gusto to her sister Adah. My amazement was increased when Alice asked me to secure a dozen extra papers for her, as she wished to send marked copies to certain fashionable society acquaintances and to several other relatives in Maine! I can picture the rural astonishment with which Cousin Jabez Fothergill of Biddeford Pool and the Strattons of North Moosehead will read of our good fortune. I more than half suspect that in a moment of triumphant revenge and in a spirit of cruel malice 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, and even after these many years of separation I would fain undo any act of spite which her successful rival, Alice, might attempt.
The Monday following the publication of this strangely malevolent item was an unusually busy day with me. I seemed suddenly to have become the target of every man who had anything to sell. I was waited upon by fruit-tree venders, lightning-rod agents, fire underwriters, plumbers, gas-fitters, painters, and an innumerable army of persons having horses, cows, pigs, chickens, shade trees, patent hitching posts, smoke-consumers, Pasteur filters, shrubbery, lawn statuary, fancy poultry, garden utensils, and patent paving to dispose of. I really cannot realize how I got rid of them all, for a more affable and persuasive lot of gentlemen I never before had met with. Come to think of it, I have not got rid of them. They continue to cultivate my acquaintance and on account of their attentions (polite but persistent) I have been compelled to lay aside temporarily my investigation into the character of the atmosphere around Aldebaran, a most delicate work upon which I am hoping to rear the superstructure of my fame.
I admit that these attentions rather flatter me; it is possible that after a time—say a year or two—I may weary of the courteous gentleman who 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 indifferent to the blandishments of him who daily for the last two months has been trying to convince me that I cannot reach the summum bonum of human happiness until I have invested four dollars in Perkins' patent automatic garden rake and step-ladder combination. The gentleman who has the smoke-consumer, the gentleman who deals in shrubbery, the gentleman who advocates lightning rods, and the other gentlemen who represent the tantamount interests of lawn statuary, fancy poultry, patent paving, etc., etc., etc.—I may, in the flight of years, become insensible to their charms, for there is no change that is not rendered possible by the capricious offices of Time. But at present I can hardly realize how these people can ever be other than they now are—near to me, as I know, and dear to me, as I feel.
I did not suspect, before I became a householder, that the mere possession of property was capable of making a man an object of such unflagging interest to his fellow creatures. I find it very pleasing—the solicitude with which these newly-made acquaintances (the venders, agents, and other polite gentlemen) regard me, and attend upon me, and seek to gain my approval. It is sweet to be beloved.
In the very height of this enjoyment, however, there are considerations which serve to cause me feelings of disquietude. My conscience constantly reproves me for the deception which I am practising upon these people. It occurred to me several weeks ago that I had no right to pose as the proprietor of our new house. The new house and its circumadjacent real estate belong not to me, but to Alice and to her heirs and assigns forever. I have no proprietary rights in that house or upon that expansive lawn; If I am there, it is simply as a piece of furniture, like the stove, or the clock, or the centre-table. I am simply tolerated, perhaps as an object of ornament, perhaps as an object of use. This is a humiliating confession; the thought that it is actually true pains me poignantly.
I never supposed I was a moral coward, but I must be; otherwise I would weeks ago have called an open-air mass-meeting of the apple-tree agents, the fire-underwriters, the patent pavers and the others, and confessed to them that their attentions were misdirected, and that I was not in factthefortunate being whose lot they sought to better.
A strangely craven consideration withheld me from this manly course. I suspected that as soon as I divulged the truth I would be forsaken by this troupe—this retinue of unctuous courtiers. In my imaginings I beheld myself deserted and alone, while the vast army of my quondam attendants and flatterers tagged after and surrounded and fawned upon Alice, the real purchaser and actual owner of our new place!
I make a candid exposition of these things, not more for the purpose of relieving my conscience of its long pent-up misery than for the purpose of disclosing that which may happily serve as a warning to my fellow-beings. I long ago discovered that one of the compensations of human folly is the example which that folly affords for the discreet guidance of others.
The result of the numerous conferences between Alice and Uncle Si was rather surprising to me. It involved the expenditure of somewhat more than three thousand dollars. However, a letter had been received from our beneficent friend, Mr. Black, in which that estimable gentleman expressed the conviction that we ought not to try to live in a house that did not have the ordinary conveniences of a modern city home, and that we should add whatever improvements we deemed necessary to our comfort; these pleasing expressions of opinion were supplemented by the still more pleasing intimation that Mr. Black would advance us whatever sum was necessary to the provision of the changes and innovations we deemed expedient. It was evident that Mr. Black was most kindly disposed toward us; at the same time our munificent patron took occasion to caution us against extravagance and to impress upon us a sense of the necessity of constant and rigorous economy—"especially and particularly in the direction of those vanities which simply gratify an individual whim, and are of no practical value whatsoever."
Alice read this last sentence aloud to me several times, for it expressed exactly her opinion of my fondness for mediaeval armor. I am making no complaint of the sly satisfaction which Alice seemingly takes in twitting me with my weakness. I expect to have a glorious revenge by and by when we move into our new house, and when Alice discovers how very appropriate and ornamental my mediaeval armor will be, set up against the walls and in the corners of the front hall.
Fortified by the letter from Mr. Black, we had little difficulty in planning the most charming improvements. I make use of the plural personal pronoun, although if I were testifying upon oath I should feel compelled to admit that I myself had precious little to do with the planning. It grieved me considerably to observe that while the neighbors generally, and Mrs. Denslow particularly, were diligently consulted as to every detail of the new house, an expression of my wishes, views, and advice was not only not solicited, but, when volunteered, seemed to be regarded as an impertinence. It occurred to me at such times that prosperity by no means improved Alice's temper, but I should perhaps have taken into consideration the circumstance that this particular period was one of exceptional excitement, and that had the same sense of responsibility which burdened Alice been put upon me, I, too, should have exhibited an irritability wholly foreign to my nature under normal conditions and environments.
It was determined to reconstruct certain parts of the old Schmittheimer residence and to build an addition of two stories, the first-floor room to be devoted to the purposes of a library or living room, and the room in the second story to be Alice's bed-chamber. A vast number of closets were contemplated, for, as you are presumably aware, woman-kind are passionately fond of closets, and happy, thrice happy, is the husband who is accorded the inestimable boon of suspending his Sunday suit from a nail therein. As for myself, I have always regarded the average closet as an ingenious device of the evil one for the propagation and encouragement of moths.
Among other contemplated innovations were a butler's pantry and a conservatory. I approved of the latter, but not of the former. I foresaw in that butler's pantry a pretext, if not a reason, for the purchase of china, crockery, and glassware, to be used only when we had company and to be hidden away at other times until broken by careless servants.
A conservatory had for years been one of my most pleasing desires. Although I know little of them, I am fond of flowers, particularly of those which others care for and which do not breed or abound in creeping things. But the use to which I was ambitious to put my—or our—conservatory was that of an aviary. I love all pet birds, and one of my sweetest day dreams has been that which possessed me of a large glass room or bower well stocked with canaries, linnets, bullfinches, robins, wrens, Java sparrows, love birds, and paroquets. I have often pictured to myself the delight I should experience in entering into this heaven of song and in caressing these feathered pets, in feeding them and in teaching them pretty tricks and games. I recall those pleasant boyhood days when a pet crow, and a flock of pigeons, and two baby hawks afforded me rapture and solicitude combined. Then followed an experience with a matronly hen and her brood of chicks.
I am not ashamed to say that I loved these friends of my youth and that I still reverence their memories. Nor am I ashamed to tell you that for several years after I reached maturity a particular object of my affections was a wee canary bird that sang sweet songs to me and played daintily with my finger whenever I thrust it into the little rascal's cage. Alice insists that I actually cried when that silly little creature died; may be I did, for I am a very, very foolish fellow.
One of the things I have never been able to understand is why Alice, with all her gentleness and tenderness, has so violent an antipathy to bird and brute pets. Alice actually seems to dislike birds and dogs with the same zeal with which I love them. At times—you will hardly believe it—Alice has exhibited Neronian cruelty and hardness of heart. I remember that on one occasion she caught a harmless, innocent little blue mouse in the pantry. She fully intended to drown the helpless creature—as if this world were not big enough for mice and men to live and be happy in! I had great difficulty in rescuing the tiny rodent from his captor, and I remember the satisfaction I had in giving him his liberty under the kitchen porch of neighbor Rush's house next door.
At first Alice was kindly disposed toward the conservatory scheme, but in an unguarded moment one day I chanced to breathe a suggestion that a combination conservatory-bird cage would do very nicely, and that settled the fate of my pleasant dreamings forever.
But I seldom argue these things with Alice. The conservatory is now a shattered dream, and the butler's pantry is inevitable. The graceful alcove, which was to have been the conservatory (with aviary features), is to be provided with a permanent, stationary seat which Adah is to upholster in a pattern which Maria has promised to send from St. Joe. Whenever I think of it there rise up before my mind's eye visions of stolen meetings in that alcove, and whispered interviews, in which I fancy I see our daughter Fanny figuring as an active participant, and then I devoutly pray that little Erasmus' vigilance may be increased a thousand-fold.
I was informed in good time that the library was to be virtually the living-room for the family. It was here that casual callers were to be received and entertained; here the errand boys who delivered packages from the downtown shops were to leave their goods and get their receipts; here the laundryman was to wait every Monday morning while Adah gathered up my hebdomadal bundle of linen for the wash; here were the children to gather for a frolic every evening after the humble vesper meal.
I am wondering whether Alice and Adah and the neighbors will approve of my dearly cherished plan to have one of the tall clocks stationed in one corner, and my very old Suffolk oak table in another corner, and in still another the curious old sofa which Aunt 'Gusty has promised to send me from Darien, Georgia. I am painfully aware that Alice and Adah and the neighbors regard the beautiful furniture in which I delight as "old trumpery."
When we first looked at the Schmittheimer place Alice exclaimed, upon being ushered into one of the rooms: "Now this is just the room for Reuben and his old trumpery!" It is twenty-two feet long and eighteen feet wide, and there are windows to the north, west, and south. Curiously enough, the chimney runs up through the middle of this room, presenting an appearance at once novel and grotesque. Alice assures me that this will prove a unique and charming feature, for she intends to put innumerable shelves around the chimney, and place thereon the interesting and valuable curios, the purchase of which has kept me involved in financial embarrassment for the last twenty years.
Alice has settled it in her own mind just where in my new room each bit of my beloved furniture shall be located—the mahogany chest of drawers, the old secretary, the four-post bedstead, the haircloth trunk, the oak book-case, the corn-husk rocker, the cuckoo clock, the Dutch cabinet—yes, each blessed piece has already had its place assigned to it, even to the old red cricket which Miss Anna Rice sent me from her Connecticut home twelve years ago. I am indeed the most fortunate of men; for who but my Alicecouldbe so sweet and self-abnegatory as to take upon her own dear little shoulders the burden of responsibilities that elsewise would weigh upon her husband?
At the regular April meeting of the Lake Shore Society of Antiquarians I met my old and valued friend, Belville Rock, and told him of the important venture which Alice had made. He seemed greatly pleased at the prospect of our having a home of our own, and after making careful inquiries into the extent and character of the improvements we contemplated he bade me tell Alice that he wanted to pay the bill for the painting of the exterior of the house. "I desire to do somewhat toward beautifying your premises," said he, "and I don't know that I can do better than to paint the house. You understand, of course, that my long and intimate acquaintance with you and Alice warrants me in proposing as a friendly act what elsewise might be regarded as an impertinence."
I hastened to assure Mr. Rock that both Alice and I knew him to be utterly incapable of any word or deed that could by any means be misconstrued into an impertinence. We had known this amiable gentleman for the period of twenty years. It was he who proposed me for membership of the Lake Shore Society of Antiquarians, and it was he who provided the means wherewith I published my first book, entitled "A Critical View of the Causes of Eclamptic and Traumatic Idiocy."
This was at the time in my career when I supposed I had good reason to believe that all human mental and physical ills are directly traceable to the influence of the moon, which theory was suggested to me by the discovery that cabbages thrive when planted in the first quarter of the moon and invariably pine when planted in the full of the moon. I am still more or less of a believer in this theory, and it is my purpose to renew my investigations and experiments in this direction, particularly so far as cabbages are involved, for I mean to have a kitchen garden (with Alice's permission) as soon as we move into our new place in Mush Street—pardon me, I mean Clarendon Avenue.
Belville Rock has always exhibited a friendly interest in me and my welfare. He is president of a savings bank and is concerned in numerous mercantile and speculative enterprises. He belongs to many clubs and social organizations, and is president of the Sons of Vermont, the Sons of New York, the Sons of Rhode Island, the Sons of Michigan, and the other Sons who have effected formal organizations in this city. He is treasurer of most of the current enterprises and he is recognized as a leader of distinct influence in the several political parties which control public affairs locally.
Mr. Rock commands the happy faculty of divorcing himself wholly from business during those hours which he has dedicated to sociability. He declines to discuss monetary matters outside his room at the bank. I recall how, upon several occasions when I have approached him upon the delicate subject of negotiating a trifling temporary loan, he has dismissed the matter by reminding me that he had certain days which he set apart for business of this character, and that at other times he devoted himself exclusively to the consideration of other things.
I recall, too, that after persistent inquiry (having, possibly, selfish ends in view), I learned from Cashier Bolton, who is Mr. Rock's marble-hearted alter ego, that Mr. Rock's hours for the consideration of all applications for personal accommodations were from 7.55 to 8 a.m., every other Thursday. This may strike the average person as a unique singularity, but I find it easy to understand how a man so numerously interested in affairs as Mr. Rock is should find it imperative to regulate his business and social conduct with the most methodical and most exacting system.
You can depend upon it that I lost no time in apprising Alice and Adah and our neighbors of Mr. Rock's munificent proposition, and I hardly need assure you that by all Mr. Rock's generosity was warmly applauded. The incident gave rise to a new phase in the sequence of events, for immediately a discussion arose as to the color which we ought to paint our new house, and this discussion continued with increasing vigor for several days. Adah was characteristically earnest in her advocacy of a soft cream yellow, that being the shade adopted by Maria when she repainted her St. Joe domicile—a soft cream yellow, with the blinds in a delicate brown, that was Adah's choice as inspired by her memory of Maria's habitation. The Baylors suggested a poetic grayish tint, which they insisted would look specially pretty through the foliage of the fine old trees in the front yard. The Tiltmans preferred a light brown, and the Rushes a bright yellow. As for Mrs. Denslow, she raised her voice in favor of "white, with green blinds," for, as she wisely argued, it was not possible to find a more appropriate combination for a house that had been a farmhouse and that would retain (even after we had rehabilitated it) the most salient characteristics of a farmhouse.
Alice and I agreed with Mrs. Denslow (as we generally do), and our determination was confirmed when we subsequently learned, upon inquiry of Mr. Krome, the painter, that white paint was as expensive a paint as could be selected. It was our desire, in our choice of paint, to do nothing likely to lessen or to detract from the lustre of the princeliness of Mr. Rock's liberality. Mr. Rock had set no limitations to his munificence; far be it from us to do that which might be construed wrongfully as inappreciation of that munificence. It was the part of friendship to premise that Mr. Rock's intentions were large, and then it behooved us to see that those intentions were carried out upon a scale of equal scope. We decided, therefore, that the paint should be white, and that it should be carriage paint.
Uncle Si had advised us to have plenty of light and air admitted to "the addition" by means of numerous windows. According to the rude plan he submitted for Alice's approval, "the addition" when completed would have looked like a collection of windows of every size and shape. This was before Mr. Rock offered to paint the house. After Mr. Rock's proposal was made to and accepted by us it occurred to us that it would result in a considerable saving to us if we were to limit the number of windows and devote the space (thus economized) to clapboarding. This would involve a larger expense upon Mr. Rock's part, but it could not be denied that Mr. Rock could better afford paying for paint than we could afford paying for window frames and glass.
I think it likely that I should have called on Mr. Rock to learn his preference in the matter had the "every other Thursday" been nearer at hand. But Mr. Krome, the painter, and Uncle Si, the boss carpenter, required a speedy decision, and so we went ahead without consulting our munificent friend. Mr. Krome thereupon volunteered to do our painting by the square yard, instead of by the square foot (as is the customary proceeding); he admitted, with a candor rarely met with in his profession, he could as well afford to do our house in white carriage paint by the square yard as other rival painters could afford to do it in common white lead by the square foot. I assured Mr. Krome of my determination to spare no pains to coöperate with him in every honest and ambitious endeavor at Mr. Rock's expense.
So now, the widow Schmittheimer having vacated the premises, the work of rehabilitation began in earnest. Men with wheelbarrows and spades and picks made their appearance and started in to demolish walls and to excavate sand at a marvelous rate. Presently a cavernous space yawned where it was proposed to locate the cellar where the steam-heating apparatus was to stand. The sand taken from this spot was harrowed out and dumped in a pile over the horse-radish bed in the back yard.
This was the first piece of vandalism I noticed, and I protested against it. Not long thereafter I discovered that the workmen engaged at battering down the partitions in the upper part of the house were piling up the refuse scantling and laths on the currant and gooseberry bushes in the side yard. I protested again, and so I kept on protesting, for hardly a day passed that I did not detect the workmen about that house at some piece of lawlessness jeoparding the cherry trees, or the lilac bushes, or the tulips, or the roses, or the peonies, or the asparagus bed.
Cui bono—to what good? With as much effect might the wild man of Borneo rail at Capella because her silvery, twinkling light is seventy-one years in reaching this distant planet.
I am unalterably opposed to the wanton destruction of life. Moreover, it seems to me that the trees, the shrubbery, the vines and the flowers on the Schmittheimer place have certain rights which the invaders ought to respect. At any rate, I spent the better part of two days transplanting a number of the currant and gooseberry bushes, and although I had a stiff neck and a very lame back for a considerable time thereafter I felt more than compensated therefor by the conviction that I had saved the lives of friends who would duly give me practical proof of their gratitude.
There were certain acts of lawlessness that I could neither prevent nor repair. One grieved me particularly. The plumber hitched his horse to a tree in the front yard one morning, and, before the damage he had done was discovered, the herbivorous beast had eaten up a white lilac bush and a snowball bush, thus completing a destruction for which there would seem to be no compensation. Upon another occasion a stray cow invaded the premises and laid waste the tulip bed and chewed off the tender buds on the choicest of the rose bushes.
But the most extensive and the most hideous depredations were committed by human beings under pretext of necessity and of interest in my behalf. I refer now to those remorseless men who came first and tore up the beautiful lawn and cut away the roots of trees and digged a deep, long pit in which to lay sewer pipes; who came again and committed another similar atrocity under plea of laying a water-pipe; who came still again and for the third time abused and seared and seamed and blighted that lawn for the alleged purpose of laying a gas-pipe! O civilization! what crimes are committed in thy name!
These experiences sobered and saddened me to a degree that was strangely new to me. At times I felt embittered against all the world. But as there is no cloud that has not its silver lining, so there were pleasant little happenings which ever and anon seemed to relieve my despondency. On one occasion Uncle Si said to me cheerily: "We 're going to have good luck from this time on." "What do you mean?" I asked. "Come along with me and see for yourself," said he.
Uncle Si led the way into the house and down into the basement. He pointed to an old valise that, spread open, lay under the stairs amid the débris which the masons had left.
"That 's what I mean," said Uncle Si, "and it brings good luck every time!"
I saw that the old and abandoned valise contained a tabby cat at whose generous dugs six wee kittens were tugging industriously. The widow Schmittheimer had left her home and gone elsewhere, but faithful tabby remained behind, true to that instinct which makes the feline unalterably loyal to locality.
I never before liked cats; I have always positively disliked them because they kill birds. Yet, do you know, I actually felt my heart go out in tenderness to this particular mother tabby and her mewing kits. It occurred to me, as she lay there, blinking and purring in apparent amiability and in evident pride, that here at least was a cat that would not kill birds; if so, I would adopt her, and as for the kittens—yes, I would adopt them, too.
I made up my mind that I would name the kittens after my most intimate neighbors; one should be Baylor, another Tiltman, another Rush, a fourth Denslow, the fifth Browe, and the sixth Roth. I am sorry there are not two more, for I should like to honor my two munificent patrons, Mr. Black and Mr. Rock. But there must be a limit to human possibilities. As for the mother cat herself, there was but one thing for me to do; I had to name her Alice, of course.