II

_Paper-hanging is not a natural gift_

One day I measured up our walls, and the next I went to town and bought

the paper that was to cover them. I think it generally pays to do that,

provided you can get somebody to hang it. There is a very pretty margin

in wall-paper, and when you get a good deal of it that margin gnaws into

one's substance. Shopping around the department stores, picking up

remnant bargains, is the thing. I ran onto a lot of bedroom paper of a

quaint chintzy pattern at four cents a roll, or about one-fifth what it

would have cost in the regular way. I took enough of it for all the

upper rooms, with some to spare, and was sorry there were not more

rooms, so I could take it all. Then I found a gorgeous remnant of the

glazed-tile variety for the kitchen, and still another for our

prospective bath-room. A dull-green cartridge-paper for our living-room,

"best" room, and my tiny study behind the chimney cost me eighteen cents

a roll. The total bill was sixteen fifty-nine, and I got at least twice

the pleasure out of the size of that bill that I would have had in

earning double the sum in the time I spent. Figure out the profit in

that transaction if you can. Whatever it was, it was satisfactory, and

indeed few things in life are sweeter than the practice of our pet and

petty economies. We all have them. I once knew a very rich man who would

light a match and race from one gas-jet to another until he burnt his

fingers, lighting as many as he could before striking a second match. He

would generally say something when his fingers began to smoke, but to

have lighted all the jets at both ends of his long room was a triumph

that made this brief inconvenience of small account. I have also seen

him spend more time, and even money, utilizing some worn-out appliance

than a new one would cost. He was not a stingy man, either, not by any

means, but those things were ingrained and vital. They helped to

provide his life with interest and satisfaction--hence, were worth

while.

To go back to the papering: I bought some tools--that is to say, a

paste-brush, and a smoothing-down brush, and a long pair of scissors,

for I had a suspicion that my painters would be at their fall farming

presently, in which case Westbury, who I was satisfied could do

anything, had agreed to beautify our walls.

As a matter of fact, I hung most of that sixteen dollars and fifty-nine

cents' worth of paper myself. When I got back, my painters were about to

begin cutting their corn. Westbury came, but at the end of the first

day, when one of the up-stairs rooms was about finished, he also

developed a violent interest in corn-cutting. I was thus abandoned to

fate, also quite deserted. My carpenters were cutting corn; Luther

Merrill, my handsome plowman, was cutting corn; Old Pop and Sam were

cutting corn; while Elizabeth had gone to the apartment in town to begin

preparations for moving, and to put the Pride and the Hope into school.

I was alone--alone with sixteen dollars' worth of paper, a big, flat

paste-brush, and my bare, bare walls.

Meantime I had trimmed some of the strips for Westbury and had given

some slight attention to his artistic method. It looked rather easy, and

there was still half a pail of paste. In some things I am impulsive,

even daring. With a steady hand, I measured, cut off, and trimmed a

strip of the pretty chintzy paper, laid it face down on the

papering-board which Westbury had made, slapped on the paste with a free

and business-like dash, folded up the end just as Westbury did, picked

it up with an easy, professional swing, and started for the wall.

[Illustration]

Being a tall man, I did not need the step-ladder. In those low rooms I

could quite easily stand on the floor and paper from the ceiling down.

Certainly that was an advantage. I discovered, however, that a

step-ladder is not all of a paper-hanger's gifts. When I matched that

piece of paper at the ceiling and started down with it, I realized

presently that it was not going in the direction of the floor. At least

not directly. It was slanting off at a bias to the southeast, leaving a

long, lean, wedge-shaped gap between it and the last strip. I pulled it

off and started again, shifting the angle. But I overdid the thing. This

time it went biasing off in the other direction and left an untidy

smudge of paste on Westbury's nice, clean strip. I reflected that this

would probably dry out--if not, I would hang a picture over it. Then I

gave the strip I was hanging a little twitch, being a trifle annoyed,

perhaps, by this time, and was pained to see that an irregular patch of

it remained on the wall, while the rest of it fell sloppily into my

hands. It appeared that wall-paper became tender with damp paste on it

and should not be jerked about in that nervous way. In seeking to remove

the ragged piece from the plaster, holding up the mutilated strip

meanwhile, something else occurred, I don't quite know what, but I

suddenly felt a damp and gluey mess on my face, and then it was around

my neck, and then I discovered that a portion of it had in some way got

tangled up with my legs, upon which I think I became rather positive,

for I seem to have wadded up several gooey balls of chintzy decoration

and hurled them through the open window, far out upon the sun-flecked

yard.

I went below and washed up, and for a time sat under the maple shade and

smoked. When more calm I said: "This is nothing--it is only a first

lesson. Paper-hanging requires probationary study and experiment. It is

not a natural gift, an extempore thing like authorship and song. I have

paper enough to afford another lesson. This time I shall consider deeply

and use great care."

I went back and prepared another strip, humbly and without any attempt

at style. This time, too, I did not consider the line of the ceiling,

but conformed to the vertical edge of Westbury's final strip, allowing

my loose section to dangle like a plumb-line several moments before

permitting it to get its death-grip on the wall. I will not say that

this second attempt was an entire success, but it was a step in that

direction. With a little smudging, a slight wrinkle or two, and a small

torn place, it would do, and I was really quite pleased with myself when

I observed it from across the room and imagined a kindly bureau just

about in that spot.

I hung another strip, and another. Some went on very well, some with

heavy travail, and with results that made me grateful for our pictures

and furniture. Yet it became fascinating work; it was like piecing out

some vast picture-puzzle, one that might be of some use when finished. I

improved, too. I was several days finishing the up-stairs, and by the

time I got it done I had got back some of the dash I started off with. I

could slap on the paste and swing the strip to the wall so handily that

I was sorry Elizabeth was not there to observe me.

I went below and papered the kitchen. There were a lot of little shelves

and cubby-nooks there, but they were only a new and pleasant variation

to the picture-puzzle. I did the small room off the kitchen, including

the ceiling, which was a new departure and at first discouraging. I was

earning probably as much as a dollar and a half a day and I was

acquiring at least that much in vanity and satisfaction, besides

learning a new trade which might come handy in a day of need. I had some

thought of proposing to Westbury a partnership in general paper-hanging

and farming, with possibly an annex of antiques.