MOVING
So we began our search for the Quiet Life and the spot wherein to live
it. It must be out-of-town, yet not so far but that the Angel and I
could get to town for an occasional feast of music or the theatre.
We asked those of our friends who were commuters to exploit the glories
of their own particular towns, but to our minds there was always some
insuperable objection.
So one day I took down the telephone-book and looked over the names of
the towns. Jersey was tabooed on account of its mosquitoes, and both
Aubrey and I cared nothing for the seashore. But the Hudson, with its
beauty and the delight of its hills rising in such a profusion of
loveliness back of it, seemed to draw us irresistibly.
"Anything within an hour of New York," said Aubrey.
The telephone-book should answer. I resolved to read until I got a
"hunch." That is not good English, but with me it is good sense, which
is better.
Finally I found a number--97 Clovertown--Bucks, Miss Susan. Peach
Orchard. The hunch was very distinct. I could fairly see my
note-paper with Peach Orchard, Clovertown, stamped on it, for I
instantly made up my mind that Susan must be asked to rent Peach
Orchard for a term of years and go abroad. I felt sure that Europe
would do her good. The more I thought of these names, the more sure I
felt that we had arrived.
My next step was to look feverishly through the Clovertown names for a
real estate agent. I found one, and without saying a word to the
Angel, I called him up.
"Hello, Central. Give me Long Distance. Hello, Long Distance. Give
me sixty-five Clovertown, please! Yes! All right. Is this Close and
Murphy? Well, this is New York. I want to ask you if Peach Orchard is
to let. What? I say, I would like to know if Miss Bucks would like to
let Peach Orchard? She would? Well, how large is it? Four? Oh,
five? Is there a good house on the place? And a stable? That's nice.
I see. Yes. Well, I would like to see it to-day if I could, but it is
snowing here. Not snowing there? Well, we might try. What time does
a train leave 125th Street? In forty minutes? Well, my husband and I
will be on that train. Oh, that's very nice. Our name is Jardine--Mr.
and Mrs. Aubrey Jardine. Yes, I understand. Very well. Good-bye."
I hung up the receiver, and rushed into the dining-room.
"Hurry with luncheon, Aubrey!" I said. "I've rented a place in
Clovertown, and we go out to take possession to-day. We leave in forty
minutes!"
Aubrey looked up with interest.
"I heard you at the telephone. You are a crazy little cat," he said,
but I could see that he was charmed. We love to do crazy things.
"He's going to meet us at the station with a carriage," I explained as
I struggled into my coat with Mary's help, and Aubrey pawed madly
around in the dark closet for overshoes for both of us.
Mary flew about like a distracted hen until she saw us safely started.
Most people would have gone mad at our erratic proceedings, but nothing
ever disturbed Mary's equanimity. In fact, crises fairly delighted
her. In an emergency she rose to the heights of Napoleon.
Finally we started, caught the train, and arrived. The gallant Mr.
Close met us, true to his word, and in five minutes we were on our way
to Peach Orchard.
As we drove into the grounds, Mr. Close clapped his hand to his
forehead with an exclamation.
"What is it?" I said, with a sinking heart.
"I've forgotten the key!"
"Never mind," I said, blithely. "We can easily get in through a
window. My husband used to be a burglar."
It never occurred to me that the poor man would take such an idiotic
remark seriously, so we neither of us looked at him until we had
examined every door and window to find if haply one had been left
unlocked. Nor did we notice that we were doing all the work until
Aubrey selected the back hall window as the loosest, and opening his
knife--the wickedest looking pocket-knife I ever saw, by the way--he
proceeded deftly to turn the lock of the window and then to raise it.
I was so proud of his cleverness that I turned to ensure the admiration
of Mr. Close also, but the look I encountered froze the smile on my
lips and the words on my tongue, for the good man was viewing both
Aubrey and me with the liveliest horror and distrust.
Aubrey turned also at my sudden silence, and the light dawned upon us
both in the same instant.
Mr. Close had the grace to look quite sheepish to see us both sit down
abruptly on the top step and shriek with laughter. But I am sure, in
my own mind, that he dismissed the idea of burglars in favour of
lunatics.
But Peach Orchard was well named, for the old house was set down in the
very midst of it. Trees were everywhere, and, indeed, they grew so
close to the house, and they were so tall, that we could not see the
house properly. The short winter afternoon was drawing to a close and
it looked for a moment as if we would have to come again, when on a
shelf, good Mr. Close, whose business instincts were keener than his
sense of humour, found an old lamp with about three inches of oil in
it. A feverish search for matches resulted in the discovery that his
match-box was empty, and Aubrey's held only one.
Right here, let me ask just one question of all the smokers all over
the world. Why is it, that, needing them more than you need anything
else on earth,--home or friends or wife or mother or money or position
or religion or your hope of heaven,--why is it that you never have any
matches?
Aubrey's one, which he had been saving, as he told me afterward, to
light a cigarette on the return drive, proved friendly, and the lamp
smoked instead. Armed with this rather unsatisfactory torch, we
explored, and as we went up and down, in and out of the queer old
place, built a hundred years ago (Mr. Close said!), we decided to take
it, and most unwisely said so, thereby paying, as usual, the top price
for something which we could have got at a bargain if we had waited.
But such is the perennial foolishness and precipitancy of the Jardines.
Evidently Mary had humoured our going out to Clovertown that afternoon
as one of our mad excursions only, and had not fathomed the possibility
of our deciding to live there, for when we came home and gaily
announced that we had rented Peach Orchard, Mary's jaw fell and her lip
pouted sulkily.
This lasted during dinner. We could both see that she intended us to
notice it and question her, and when the coffee had been served and we
said she might go, she saw that she must open the ball herself, so she
fingered her apron and said:
"Missis, I shall be sorry not to go with you to Clovertown, but of all
the towns along the Hudson, that is the one I can't bear to go to!"
"Why, Mary?" I said, for the first time in my life suspecting her of
the tricks which we afterward came to know were a part of her.
"Because my oldest sister was killed by the railroad right at the
station at Clovertown, and I was the one to take her away!"
For about the ten thousandth time Mary held the trump. I felt crushed.
I could fairly picture the scene, and I knew that no one could face
such harrowing memories. As I gazed at her and she saw I was touched,
tears began to gather in her eyes, brim over and run down her pink
cheeks. I felt fairly faint and sick to think of parting with Mary.
Then something told me to probe the matter.
"When was your sister killed, Mary?" I said.
"Just twenty-two years ago come Washington's Birthday, Missis dear,"
whimpered Mary, with her apron at her eye.
I began to laugh heartlessly.
"And wasn't that the sister you fought with and hated--the one you have
told me a dozen times you were glad to know was dead?" I went on.
Mary nodded, rather sheepishly. I saw she was weakening, so I became
firm.
"Now, Mary," I said, and it was the first time I ever had spoken
sternly to her, "put that apron down, and don't let me hear another
word about your not going to Clovertown. Of course you are going! Any
grief, no matter what, could be cured in twenty-two years,--let alone a
grief which never was a grief. And you did _not_ see her after she was
dead--you told me you wouldn't go. And what made you the maddest was
having to pay the funeral expenses when she had a husband who could
have paid them if he would only work. So now, you can just stop those
onion tears," I said, marching haughtily toward the door, followed
somewhat sheepishly by the Angel, who longed to turn back and mitigate
my sternness.
The longing finally conquered him.
"Besides, Mary," he said, pacifically, turning back at the door, "we
couldn't possibly get along without you. You are absolutely necessary
to us. Who, I ask you, would do up my white waistcoat and duck
trousers if _you_ left?"
Mary beamed at this seductive flattery, and bridled visibly.
"Tell me all about it, Boss dear," she said.
And in so doing she and we both forgot that she had suggested going,
and nothing more was ever said about it.
Seldom can I look back, however, and recall an instance when we
obtained more feverish and thrilling joy than from those next few days
when we mentally improved and furnished Peach Orchard.
With what excitement did we lay rugs and place furniture in our mind's
eye! How we appealed frantically to each other to decide whether there
were three or four windows in the library, and with what complacency
did we discover that, owing to a shrewd forethought of my own in
furnishing the smoking and living rooms in our apartment with similar
curtains, we now had enough for the great, light, airy sitting-room at
Peach Orchard.
Then we took a long breath and fell with fresh avidity into the subject
of improvements. Mr. Close was of the opinion that Susan would do
nothing--could do nothing rather, as she had a consumptive brother who
must live in the Adirondacks, and her resources were few. Therefore,
we recklessly decided that if she would give us an option on the place
for another year, we would make the improvements ourselves. Fools!
Yet why fools! Never have we so enjoyed spending money, and as Anthony
Hope says that "economy is going without something you want, for fear
that sometime you'll want something which probably you won't want," we
felt upheld and strengthened in the knowledge that we were never, by
any means, economical.
But the Angel was prospering. Those who frankly predicted that we
would starve or be divorced were now glad to sit at our well-set table
and smoke the Angel's good cigars and sip his excellent wines. And
feeling that we might branch out a _little_, we promptly branched out a
great deal, and nearly went to smash in consequence.
But God watches over children and fools, and we were saved, and sped
upon our way in a manner so like a special dispensation of Providence
that no lesson was learned to teach us to be more careful next time.
In fact, it encouraged us in our recklessness, for in our darkest hour
the Angel's first play was accepted, and, being staged, was so
instantaneously a success that he gave up novels altogether and began
to devote himself to the drama. He devoted to it, I mean to say, all
the time he could spare from the improving of Peach Orchard.
Those days, the first of our prosperity and the first of our
housekeeping in a real house, were the happiest we had ever known.
Susan had been persuaded to let the place for a term of years with an
option to buy, so we felt as if we owned it already. But that is a
peculiarity of the Jardines.
We tore out the old plumbing, we put in two new bathrooms. We made a
laundry out of the storeroom. We cut doors and threw rooms together
which never had associated before, and we turned all the windows which
gave upon the porches into doors, so that we could step out-of-doors at
will. We ordered our porch screened entirely, and planned to furnish
it as a study for Aubrey. We put paper-hangers, painters, gas,
telephone, and electric men at work all over the house, and made them
promise, yea, even swear, to finish their work by a certain time.
But, having, as we thought, learned wisdom by experience, we put no
faith in their promises, but engaged Mr. Close in person to go every
day to superintend things.
As the day drew near to move we became most agitated as to ways and
means. It seemed a gigantic task to crate and barrel everything and
move from one town to another, and while we discussed hiring a car,
Mary interrupted.
"Excuse me, Boss and Missis dear, for putting in my two cents, but you
surely aren't thinking of sending all the furniture by freight, when
vans are so much more convenient?"
"Vans?" we cried. "Will vans move us thirty miles?"
"Fifty, if you like," said Mary, promptly.
"From one town to another?"
"From one State to another, and without taking the pins out of the
cushions or the sugar out of the bowls."
At once the idea of the sugar-bowls and pincushions fascinated me. I
begged Aubrey to investigate, and he agreed with enthusiasm to do it
the very next day.
"If I might suggest," said Mary again, "all Boss will have to do is to
telephone to two or three different companies to come and estimate the
cost. He won't have to run after 'em any farther than the telephone."
We followed her suggestion, and to our delight discovered that all she
said was true and more. They agreed to insure against breakage,
thieves, and fire; to pack all the stuff in vans one day, take them to
their warehouse for the early part of the night, and start at one
o'clock for Clovertown,--agreeing to make the whole distance, unload,
place the furniture, and unpack the china before leaving that night.
We need not lift a hand. All we had to do was to go to a hotel for one
night, and take a train for Clovertown the next morning.
It was almost too easy. I reflected what "moving" meant to people who
live in small towns where such conveniences do not exist. Verily, New
York might be noisy, but she was a city of superb conveniences. Only
Paris excels her in her purveying shops, for in Paris one can buy the
wing of a chicken only, and that just around the corner, while in New
York one must buy at least the whole fowl (and pay the price of a house
and lot in Louisville, let me pause to remark!), but in justice I must
also add that such luxuries are also "just around the corner."
By implicitly following Mary's advice we saw everything safely placed
in the vans and move majestically from our door. Then we betook
ourselves to the Waldorf, with our "glad rags," as Jimmie had
commanded, in our suit-cases, and dined in state, and went to Weber and
Fields afterward. Jimmie wanted me to hear Weber persuade Lillian
Russell to invest in oil.
Now at that, the Angel and Mrs. Jimmie simply smiled indulgently.
While Jimmie and I reeled in our seats and clutched each other's
sleeves and shrieked (in as ladylike a manner as we could), while tears
poured down our cheeks and our ribs cramped and our breath failed.
That is the way Jimmie and I enjoy things. That is also why we can
stand it to travel in the same party, and not come home hating each
other.
But all the time, even in the midst of the fun, my mind turned lovingly
toward the warehouse where our precious furniture reposed, safely
packed in those huge red vans.
Jimmie noticed my preoccupation, and said:
"If you could take your mind off coal-scuttles long enough, I would
like to ask you what you thought of Prince Henry? Aubrey says you met
him last week."
"We did, we met him the same day we bought the ice-box," I answered.
"Ye gods!" growled Jimmie, in deep disgust. "Think of remembering a
royal prince by the day you bought the ice-box!"
"What most impressed you, dear?" inquired Mrs. Jimmie, sweetly.
"The price!" I answered, cheerfully. "It was a slightly damaged
article, so we got it for less than half the original cost of it. You
know I do love a bargain, Mrs. Jimmie."
"I meant the prince, dear," said Mrs. Jimmie.
"However, if she prefers to discuss ice-boxes," said Jimmie, politely,
"by all means, let us bring the conversation down to her level. It
will not be the first time I have had to do it."
"I don't care!" I said, stoutly. "It was far more interesting than
seeing the prince. This, you must remember, was our _first_ ice-box.
The other one was built into the apartment, and we didn't own it."
"I do wish Bee could hear you!" jeered Jimmie. "Gee, but you will be a
trial to Bee."
"I always have been," I said. "She got mad at me just before I was
married about a thing as foolish as anything _I_ ever heard of. I had
calls to pay, and I asked Bee to go with me. She said she'd go if I'd
get a carriage, so I said I would, and told her to order it. But it
seems that all the good ones were engaged for a funeral, and they sent
us a one-horse brougham with the driver not in livery. We didn't
notice it until we opened the front door. Then Bee sailed in. 'Why
are you not in livery?' she demanded. 'I shall certainly report you to
Mr. Overman. He ought to be ashamed to send out a driver without a
livery!' 'If you please, ma'am,' said the man, 'I'm Mr. Overman, and
rather than disappoint you ladies, as all my men are out, I thought I'd
drive you myself.' Well, that was too much for even Bee. So she
thanked him, and in we got. The first house we went to was that of a
haughty society dame of whose opinion Bee stood much in awe.
Personally, I thought her an illiterate old bore. She was newly rich,
and laid great emphasis upon such things as maids' caps, while tucking
her own napkin under her chin at dinner. She followed us to the door
in an excess of cordiality which amused me, considering everything, and
there, to our horror, we saw poor old Overman half-way under the horse,
examining one of its hoofs! Poor Bee! I gave one look at her face and
giggled. That was enough. She was so enraged that she wouldn't pay
another call. She took me straight home as if I were a bad child, and
the next day I paid my calls alone."
"And yet," said Jimmie, musingly, "can you or any of us ever forget the
night that Bee did the skirt dance in Tyrol?"
"Dear Bee!" said Mrs. Jimmie, softly. "How charming she is!"
"Yet she wouldn't approve of your going to Clovertown," said Jimmie.
"She hates the bucolic. Idyls and pastorals are not in it with our rue
de la Paix Bee. I'll bet she will never come to see you at Peach
Orchard."
"Let us hope for the best," said Aubrey. "It is dangerous to prophesy."
"We're going to keep a cow, Jimmie!" I said, rapturously.
"Well, don't gurgle about it. You act as if keeping a cow put the
stamp of the Four Hundred on you. Did Mary say you might?"
"Mary has given her consent," said Aubrey. "But I'm wondering how that
old woman will behave with other servants. Of course she was all right
while there was no one else and she was boss of the ranch, but we must
have two or three now at Peach Orchard, and she is so jealous, I wonder
if she will let us live with her!"
Well might we have wondered. Trouble began the very next day. As we
went out on the train I noticed that Mary had on her best dress and
hat. She had no bag with her, so I wondered how she meant to "settle"
in such clothes. The Angel and I had on our worst.
I comforted myself with the reflection that there would not be very
much dirty work to do. This would in reality be a kid-glove moving,
for Mr. Close had telephoned the day before that everything was ready
for us to move in. I had even sent a cleaning woman for floors and
windows.
I had taken the precaution to bring a few silver knives, forks, and
spoons in my bag. Then as we got off the train I stopped at a grocery
and bought a loaf of bread, a tin of devilled ham, one of sardines,
some butter, and a dozen eggs, so we were at least sure of our luncheon.
We jumped out of the carriage almost before it had stopped, and, while
Aubrey paid the man, I ran up the steps and into the house.
Such a sight of confusion met my eyes! The old paper was piled in the
middle of each floor, and not a new strip on any wall. One ceiling
only in the whole house was finished. Not a hardwood floor had been
laid. The lumber was piled in the hall. Not a chandelier was up. The
ragged wires projected from their various holes in ceilings and walls.
Where was my cleaning woman? Where were our workmen? Above all, where
was the perfidious Mr. Close?
There was no furnace fire, and the water was not turned on. I ran back
and Aubrey shouted for the carriage, just turning out of the grounds,
to come back.
"Go to the plumbers!" I said, incoherently, "and to the electric light
men, and to the agents, and see where the men are, and bring some
brooms and buckets and send me a grocer's boy."
He turned away, breathing vengeance. I felt sorry for Mr. Close.
"And to the telephone company!" I cried, after the departing carriage.
"And to--" but the driver lashed his horses, and I had to give up.
I went back to Mary in her best dress.
"Finished, is it?" she said, sniffing with indignation. "I suppose the
agent thought we were flies, and could move in on the ceiling--as
that's the only thing I can see about the house that's finished!"
"Wait until Mr. Jardine sees the agent!" I said, ominously. "Then
something else will be finished, besides the ceiling."
"I hope he'll kill him!" said Mary, pleasantly.
It was a real pleasure to witness the dismay in Mr. Close's face when
Aubrey returned, bringing him, mentally, by the scruff of the neck. I
have seen terriers yanked back to look at things they have "worried" in
much the same manner that Mr. Close was fetched to Peach Orchard.
"Just look, Mr. Close, if you please," I said, ominously polite. "You
telephoned me yesterday and said you had been here personally and seen
with your own eyes that everything was finished and the house in
perfect readiness for us to move in."
Mr. Close refused to meet my accusing eye. He turned green.
There are more ways than one of calling a man a liar. And some are
safer than others.
"Did you really have the smoke test put through the plumbing as you
said you did?" I asked.
Mr. Close eagerly produced the bill.
Plumber's bills are conclusive evidence.
"Did you have the range cleaned and the water-back examined?" demanded
Aubrey.
Mr. Close swore that he did. Aubrey led him captive around the house
and showed him the confusion thereof, Mary grimly following. I think
Close preferred Aubrey to me, and me or anybody to Mary, for Mary's
very spectacles were bristling with anger. She could see herself, in
her best dress, having to clean up that mess so that the furniture
could be moved in.
Then Aubrey's men began to arrive. The man with the chandeliers. The
carpenters to lay the floors. The man from the water office. My negro
cleaning woman and the grocer's boy. Fortunately, the cleaning woman
had brought a broom, a mop, and a bucket.
As there were no fires, Aubrey and Mr. Close made one in the furnace;
Mary and the grocer's boy--or rather the grocer's boy under Mary's
direction--built one in the range, while I set the woman to sweeping
one floor for the carpenters to begin on.
Suddenly I heard hurried feet running up the cellar stairs. The water
man had turned the water on from the street, and it was gaily pouring
into the cellar. Mr. Close is a fat man, but he ran like a jack-rabbit
to that water main, and shut it off. Then without daring to
face--Mary, he started to town for a plumber.
He had not been gone half an hour when the water-back blew up.
Fortunately, no one was in the kitchen at the time, but the cleaning
woman turned from black to a dirty gray with fright, and without
further ado went home. I can't say that I blamed her. Aubrey was busy
putting out the furnace fire and bailing out the cellar, so he did not
know of that defection.
However, a culmination of such calamities, instead of smiting me to the
earth, aroused every drop of fighting blood in my whole body.
I went out on the porch to think it over, and as I thought I began to
laugh. I laughed until Aubrey heard me and thought I was crying. He
came hurrying out, with a face full of anxiety, saying, before he saw
me:
"Never mind, dear! I know this is hard on you, but--"
"Well, I'll be--!"
Both of those remarks were Aubrey's. He was much relieved, however, to
discover that I was not cast down by all these disasters. In fact, our
moving partook more of the delights of camping out than orthodox
housekeeping, and I soon discovered expedients.
The only fire which did not bid fair to blow our heads off was one in
the grate in the hall. On this we boiled water and made tea, and for
that first luncheon we satisfied ourselves with sardines and devilled
ham sandwiches. But as we were obliged to cook on that grate for six
days, I may as well record now that we grew into expert cooks,
attempting eggs in all forms, batter-cakes, hoe cakes, fried mush,
bacon, ham, chops, toast, and fried potatoes,--in fact, no woman knows
how much she can cook on a common little hard coal grate until three
hungry people are dependent on it for three meals a day.
We supplemented this by the chafing-dish. Aubrey says that I should
say the grate fire supplemented the chafing-dish, for nobody knows what
can be done with one--in real, urgent housekeeping, I mean, such as
ours, until one has tried. It makes a perfect double boiler, and as
for a _bain Marie_, well, I used to cream potatoes in the top part, and
when they were all done but the simmering of the cream to thicken it, I
used to put tomatoes in the bottom part to stew, and put the potato
part back on the tomatoes for a cover and to keep hot. Did you ever
try that?
The kitchen range was discovered to be ruined, the pipes being
completely full and solid with rust. It is a miracle that some of us
were not killed by the explosion. Mary cheerfully declared her regret
that Mr. Close had not been bending over the stove with his lie in his
throat when the water-back remonstrated. Mary is quite firm in her
ideas of making "the punishment fit the crime--the punishment fit the
crime."
But we enjoyed it--that is, Aubrey and I enjoyed it. Mary wanted us to
go to an hotel and stay until things were in order, and send the bill
to Mr. Close. But even though her suggestion was made at two o'clock
in the afternoon and no vans had yet appeared, I was firm in my
decision to sleep in Peach Orchard that night.
My courage had in the meantime been buoyed up by the fact that the
telephone had been put in, and my friend, the grocer's boy, had brought
me reinforcements in the shape of plates, tumblers, pots, pans, brooms,
buckets, and supplies, and had further completed my rapture by
promising me a kitten.
About three o'clock, I, as lookout, descried the big red vans, each
drawn by four horses, at the foot of the hill.
Now Clovertown is not full of hills, rather it consists of hills. It
is not quite as bad as Mt. St. Michel, for that is all one, but
Clovertown consists of a series of small Mt. St. Michels, equally
steep, precipitous, and appalling to climb, also equally lovely and
bewitching when once you have climbed.
The moving men seemed to realize their steepness, for they put all
eight of the horses to one van and bravely started up the hill. But
alas, they were New York horses, and only capable of dodging elevated
pillars and of keeping their footing on icy asphalt. They were not
used to climbing trees, as we afterward discovered Clovertown horses to
be quite capable of doing. So, after straining and pulling and being
cruelly urged to a feat beyond their strength, we had our first taste
of the neighbourliness of the people on the next estate. Their head
man, called familiarly Eddie Bannon, came to our rescue.
"Take all them horses off," he said, "and I'll pull you up the hill
with my team of blacks."
We were grateful, but politely incredulous. What! One pair of horses
accomplish a feat which eight had been unable to do.
I grew feverishly excited in watching the exchange. It was a picture
to see the incredulity on the countenances of the van men. They tried
not to show it, for that would have been impolite, but Eddie Bannon saw
it, and grinned at their unbelief.
When the blacks were in the traces, Bannon took the reins. One of the
men offered him a long wicked-looking whip, but he spurned it.
"No," he said, "if the blacks won't pull for love, they won't for a
beating."
So then he spoke to them. Willing hands started the wheels. The
gallant little blacks, looking like a pair of ponies before the huge
van, seemed to lie flat on their bellies as they strained forward,
digging their sharp little hoofs into the hillside. The van gave an
inch--two! A foot! Then urged by their master's voice, and for very
pride of home and race and breed, the gallant blacks pulled for dear
life, and in a quarter of an hour the van was at our door, and they
were switching their tails and stamping their hoofs and shaking their
intelligent heads in the pride of victory.
As for Bannon, he stroked and praised them in an ecstasy of
self-vindication, and was refusing the van man's offer to buy them at
"a hundred dollars apiece more than they cost."
Those horses pulled our three vans up our hill, if you will believe it,
and seemed rather to enjoy the grind they had on the other horses, so
that, in a fever of appreciation, I had to go and feed apples and sugar
to all ten of them, and to remind the blacks that the New York horses
had been pulling those vans since midnight, all of which I begged them
to take into consideration, while not in the least depreciating their
own glorious achievement.
The initiated need not be told how, when hardwood floors are being
laid, furniture is moved from room to room to accommodate the
carpenters, and the uninitiated will not be interested at the recital.
It must be experienced to be appreciated.
We lived through it. We learned not to object when the ice-box was set
up in the hall so near the grate that the drip-pan had to be emptied
every hour, and the iceman had to come twice a day. We learned to step
over rolls of rugs and to bark our shins on rocking-chairs and to trip
over hidden objects with only a pleasant smile.
We screened one porch entirely, and furnished it as a study for Aubrey.
We had now papered and painted the house from top to bottom. We had
put in gas, telephone, and electric light, and when we could no longer
think of any further way to spend money, we turned our attention to the
garden.
I longed for old Amos, my uncle's gardener and coachman in Louisville.
His experience would be invaluable, and as the estate had been divided
and no one had any use for the old grizzled negro, they let me have
him. I adored Amos. It was he who had attended to all my childish
pleasures on the plantation when I went there to visit, and, in turn,
he thought "Miss Faith honey" could do no wrong. It is a comfort to
have some one in one's childish memory who thinks one can do no wrong,
even if it is only a servant.
So old Amos came and made flower-beds, and persuaded us to buy a pair
of horses in addition to the one we had hitherto modestly used, and
thus, with the aid of friends' and judicious servants' advice, we were
by way of being landed proprietors, and came to look upon Peach Orchard
as an estate.
Then the grocer's boy gave me the promised kitten, a common tiger
kitten, which we named Mitnick, and soon afterward we acquired not only
one cow, but several, our especial pride being an imported Guernsey,
which figures quite prominently in my narrative further on. And as
Aubrey's unwonted prosperity continued, we endeavoured not to let our
riches increase too fast, by spending every cent upon which we could
lay our hands on the place. But who, who owns a country place, can
help it? Or who would help it if he could?
We raised our own flowers and vegetables regardless of expense. We
could have ordered American Beauties from New York every day for what
our hollyhocks and clove pinks and common annuals cost us. We planted
five bushels of potatoes and dug three and a half, which made them come
to a dollar a bushel more than if we had bought them at the grocer's.
And as to our milk and cream--I once heard the Angel say to Jimmie when
they came out for a visit:
"Which will you have, old man? A glass of champagne or a glass of
milk? They both cost the same!"
But what of it? Weren't they _our_ cows which gave the milk? And
weren't they _our_ potatoes which rotted in the ground, and _our_
chickens which died before we could kill them? It was the pride of
ownership which ate into our lives and made us quite sickening to our
friends whose tastes ran to pink teas and hotel verandas, while we,
poor fools, lived each day nearer to the soil, and loved more dearly
the earth which nourished us.