Did you ever attempt to buy a lot of fifteen thousand feet at fifty
cents a foot, and build a house on it of twelve rooms, three baths, a
shower, a sleeping-porch and a small unpretentious garage for fourteen
thousand dollars? This isn't an example in mental arithmetic, but it
was a problem Will and I laboured over every March and April for three
successive springs, before deciding each year to stay on for another
twelve months in our old rented brown box, gas-lighted and tin-tubbed.
I am not going to explain how such a problem can be solved, because
frankly I don't know.
Will is a regular miracle-performer in some lines. He'll work for
hours over some knotty proposition in his laboratory, and come home
from the hospital simply glowing with enthusiasm over the successful
onslaught of a squad of his well-trained microbes upon an unruly lot of
beasts who were making life miserable for a poor man almost dying with
carbuncles. The medical journals describe Dr. William Ford Maynard's
accomplishments as miraculous. However, I can vouch that he is utterly
unable to perform any feats with wood and plaster and plumbers'
supplies. Two hours working over our house-plans used to exhaust Will
more than four days solid in his laboratory. He said there was more
hope in discovering the haunts of the wary meningitis microbe than in
finding a contractor who would build us a house at our price.
Will and I adored our first little home, of course, but then there were
disadvantages. Every time it rained I had to put a basin in the middle
of my bed--in case the roof leaked--and the fireplaces did smoke when
you first lit them, and the kitchen stove did need a new lining. The
owner was awfully disagreeable about repairs, and after we had been
vainly pleading for three months solid for a new brick or two in a
disabled chimney, which threatened to burn down the house, we began
to consider moving. We didn't intend to build. We thought it would
cost too much. We didn't even intend to buy. We simply wanted to find
something better to rent.
Rummaging about among second-hand houses is very depressing, I can tell
you. Some of the same old arks that had been on the market when we
were first married, were still without a master, like certain wrecks
of servants who haunt intelligence-offices. Dilapidated run-down old
things--I hate the very thought of them! They have a musty, dead-rat
sort of odour that's far from welcoming when you enter their darkened
halls. You always wonder if it's the plumbing and ask why the last
people left. And oh, the closets in those houses--little, black horrid
holes! I used to pull open their doors, and time and again find some
sort of human paraphernalia left behind on one of the hooks--a man's
battered straw hat, or once, I remember, a solitary pair of discarded
corsets. Spattered places in the bedrooms, paths worn on the hardwood
floors, ink spots, grease spots, and on the walls an accurate pattern
of the arrangement of the last family's pictures, actually offended
me. I've heard that robins will never take possession of a last year's
birds' nest. I know exactly how they feel about them. Oh, it isn't
inspiring to hunt for a home among other people's cast-offs. Will
and I were awfully discouraged after we had inspected the fifteenth
impossibility--a dreadful affair with high ceilings, elaborately
stencilled, and in the corners of each room little arched plaster
grooves designed for statuary. For six months Will and I searched in
vain for the sweet, clean little ready-made cottage of our dreams,
shining in a fresh coat of white paint, its perennial garden in
full-bloom, waiting for two nice home-loving people like ourselves to
open its gate, stroll up its flag-stoned walk, and claim it for our own.
On our way home from impossibility the fifteenth, we took a street
that had just been cut through some new land where little brand new
houses were springing up like mushrooms. There was one, a tiny plaster
house trimmed with light green blinds with half-moons cut in them, that
I thought was simply adorable. It wasn't completed; I could see the
workmen through the open windows. The temporary pine door stood open.
"Let's go in, for fun," I suggested, and Will helped me up the inclined
plank that led to the little front stoop.
We stayed for a whole hour in that house! It was like gazing on sweet
sixteen; it was simply refreshing; we didn't know anything so lovely
existed. There was a darling little bathroom with open plumbing, and
a shining porcelain tub. There was a marble slab for mixing in the
pantry. The bedrooms were painted white. The closets, tiny though they
were, smelled of fresh plaster. Will got into conversation with the
contractor while I amused myself by planning which room I would choose
for ours. But the house wasn't for rent. A man who ran a fish-market
was building it. I saw Will get out an old letter and begin figuring on
the back of the envelope. That place, lot and all, wasn't going to cost
that fish man but ten thousand dollars--Will told me that night that we
could own a house that cost fourteen thousand and still save money on
our rent. I was excited. We didn't look at another house to hire. We
dropped them as if they were infected. The very next Saturday afternoon
we set out to search for lots.
We weren't very particular at first. Any little square of ground that
we looked at with the idea of possible ownership seemed perfectly
lovely to me; anything with a tiny glimpse of horizon, and a place
in the back for a garden, was like a little piece of heaven. We were
both awfully easily pleased the first month. There were so many pretty
places to build on, we simply didn't know which one to choose. Then one
day the agent sent us up to look at some land that had just been put on
the market at sixty cents a foot. Of course it was more than we could
pay, and we went to inspect it simply out of idle curiosity. The result
was that the next day among that whole townful of open spaces and green
fields, there was only one solitary spot that Will and I wanted for our
own. You see after we had once climbed up on to that expensive little
hilltop and looked off and seen the view--a round bowl of a lake with
a clump of pines beside it, and beyond, a hill with a long ribbon of
road leading up to a real New England white farmhouse with a splash
of red barn beside it, we couldn't think kindly of any other spot in
town. After we had sat down on the stone wall that ran right square
through the back of the lot, and watched a glorious sunset reflected
in the lake below, Will said, "By Jove, we'll have this!" There were
six old apple-trees on the lot, a wild cherry and a dear little waif of
a pine-tree. Will and I made a solemn vow to each other that we would
build a cheap house, and get along a while longer with one maid for the
sake of that lovely sunset every night when we ate supper. I said I'd
as soon live in a lean-to. Will said we'd live just where we were for
another year until we could afford to put up even a lean-to. We bought
the darling of our hearts seven days later. It used up over two-thirds
of our fourteen-thousand-dollar house fund.
We ate picnic suppers on our stone wall, and winter-times drank hot
coffee there boiled over a tiny bon-fire built in the rocks, for three
solid years before we began to dig the cellar of our lean-to. I had
hollyhocks and a whole row of Canterbury-bells flowering in our garden
for two springs before there was a door and some steps to lead out to
it. It's all very well to vow you'll build a cheap house, but it's
another thing to do it. Of course we had to have plumbing and heat;
electric light fixtures seemed a necessity too, as well as a few doors
here and there.
Will and I literally laboured over those plans. They had to undergo a
dreadful series of operations. Every spring when it seemed to us as if
we couldn't endure another summer cooped up in our noisy, stone-paved,
double-electric-car-tracked street, I'd haul down the architect's
blue-prints and stretch them out on a card-table. We amputated so
much from those plans I wondered they held together. Of course the
shower-baths and the garage, oak floors, and a superfluous bathroom
came off as easily as fingers; but when we began cutting out partitions
here and there, a treasured fireplace or two, two closets, and even the
back stairs, I tell you it was ticklish! Even when we'd shaved off two
feet from the length of the living-room, four from the dining-room,
and squeezed our hall so that it was only nine feet wide, even then
we couldn't find a generous-hearted builder who would even try to be
reasonable in his charges.
Our house wasn't, by the way, anything like the fish man's. It wasn't
a plaster house with light green blinds, with half-moons cut in them.
It seemed to our architect (and to me too, as soon as he suggested
it) that the most New England type of house possible--flat-faced,
clapboarded, painted white, a hall in the centre and a room on each
side, would fit in with those apple-trees better than anything quaint
or original. Oh, ours was just the housiest house possible, with
nothing odd about it like oriel windows, or diamond trellises, or
unexpected bays and swells.
The first day the plans arrived I did some measuring, and cut out of
cardboard on the same scale as the plans, patterns of our furniture.
That night Will and I moved into our paper house, shoving the
furniture around the rooms with lightning speed, shifting hall-clocks,
davenports, and grand pianos from parlour to bedroom with surprising
little effort. Why, I rearranged my rooms time and time again before I
ever stepped foot in them. If you'll believe me, I made a complete new
bedroom set for the nursery, and a little crib which I placed between
the windows, when the real room was only a square block of air above
the apple-trees.
You can imagine how excited we were when at the end of three years
we finally signed the contract with McManus & Mann, Contractors
and Builders. We were simply house-crazy by that time. I wanted to
celebrate the important occasion somehow, so I went down to Mr.
McManus's office and ordered several bundles of six-foot-length laths,
such as are used in plastering a room, to be sent up to our lot on
Saturday morning. Will and I always spend Saturday afternoons together,
and, provided with the roll of plans, a yard-stick, a hatchet and my
lunch-basket packed with tea and sandwiches, we started out about two
P. M. to lay out our house, life size, with the laths on the very
spot where it was so soon now to stand. By five o'clock I was serving
tea before the fireplace in the living-room, and apple-blossom petals
were blowing through the kitchen and hall partitions into the very
cream-pitcher by my side.
It was just when the water over my alcohol stove had begun to boil
that our first guests arrived. Dr. Van Breeze is married now, and his
wife, Alice, and I are very good friends. For the three years that Will
and I had been working on house-plans she had followed the changes in
them as if they were hers. So I 'phoned her that I should be delighted
if she and George (George is Dr. Van Breeze) would take tea with us
Saturday afternoon at four-thirty in our new house. When they appeared
in their touring-car at the foot of our hill, I saw that dear Dr.
Graham and Mrs. Graham were in the back seat, and I dashed through the
living-room wall and down to the road to meet them. Ten minutes later
the Omsteds arrived strolling up the hill from their house which is
the nearest one to ours. Will had already arranged boulders for chairs
around the fireplace, and my dainty little sandwiches and tiny cream
puffs were laid out neatly on plates covered with fresh napkins. The
tea was hot and strong and fragrant; the decorations of six trees full
of apple-blossoms, lovely to behold; the illumination of a pink and
blue sunset, reflected in the lake below, more beautiful than a hundred
electric lights.
After we had drank tea and eaten the last cream puff, I invited my
guests to inspect the house. Every one entered into my little game.
Dr. Omsted made us all respect the partitions as if they existed;
George Van Breeze insisted on walking up the front stairs; and dear
Dr. Graham found a grasshopper somewhere and exclaimed chuckling, "Oh,
my dear Pandora" (he still calls me that silly name), "what of your
housekeeping? I saw dozens of these in your pantry!"
Oh, it was just the nicest house-warming in the world. I like every
one of Will's friends; they may be awfully learned, but they seem just
plain natural and unpretentious to me. They stayed until nearly six
o'clock. We waved them good-bye from our front door. When they all had
disappeared over the brow of the hill, Will drew me into our hall and
kissed me, just as if there had really been walls. Then he came into
the living-room and helped me clear up.
I haven't mentioned yet the thorn I keep hidden in my heart and carry
everywhere I go. I don't like to talk of it because Will doesn't like
to have me, but it robs every joy I have of completeness. As Will and I
strolled home that night perhaps we ought to have been very happy. We
had the best and pleasantest friends in the world--I granted it; ground
for our dream-house was to be broken on Monday morning; we had been
married four years, and loved each other more than ever.
"Oh, Will, four years--four long years," I exclaimed, and sighed.
"Pshaw," he replied, and changed the subject.
Ever since Madge's little baby was born, I've wanted one of my own. I
didn't care before that, but when I held the warm little thing in my
arms for minutes at a time, dressed it, cared for it when the nurse was
out, and listened to its poor pitiful little cry in the middle of the
night, something seemed to spring open in me that I can't close.
I want a little daughter-companion of my very own! I want to wash her,
and dress her and take her out with me. I want her to sit with me rainy
afternoons in her little rocking-chair and play while I sew. I want her
to tell me all her secrets, and I want to give her all the love, all
the good times and pretty things a little girl wants. When Madge brings
over her Marjorie, and I see her clinging to her mother's knee when I
come into the room, I'd give anything in the world to have some little
girl cling to _me_ like that! Will has always loved children; he has
wanted them even longer than I, though he never told me. Will affects
indifference on the subject, but he doesn't deceive me in the least. I
know the lurking hunger is always in his heart as it is in mine.
Why I was so especially down-hearted to-night as we walked home from
our tea-party on the hilltop was on account of a remark of Alice Van
Breeze's thrown off in her quick, careless fashion. I think Will kissed
me in the hall to soothe a little of the hurt of Alice's unconscious
words. People who have babies of their own don't guess how many times
they stab those who haven't.
"What an ideal place this is for children!" Alice had exclaimed. "Such
air! Such sunshine! If you don't mind, Lucy," she had caught herself
up, "I shall bring Junior up here often to get some tan in your
adorable garden."
"Do," I had said, looking away.
"How is the little chap?" Will had asked her kindly. Will can't even
talk about a child without a little note of tenderness in his tone.
"Oh, he's perfect!" Alice had laughed. "The very world revolves about
him. Why, we're prouder of that little bundle of bones and flesh than
of his father's latest book!"
I didn't look at Will and Will didn't look at me. We're so filled with
pity for each other at such moments (and there are many of them) that
we can't bear to gaze upon the hurt look in the other's face.
Our whole sad little story can be traced in our house-plans. When we
first decided to build, we talked bravely _then_ about the nursery
on the sunny side; it looked out towards the south and east; it was
large and airy, with four big windows, and a fireplace for chilly
nights. When the first sketches arrived the room was plainly labelled
in printed letters, and I remember that the mere word gave me a queer
thrill of joy. I had, as you know, immediately made patterns of the
nursery furniture, placed the paper crib in position, and estimated the
number of steps from my bed to the baby's. I had had it beautifully
planned for contagious diseases: Will could move into the guest-room,
and I and the sick children could be absolutely isolated from the
rest of the house, in two lovely rooms with a bathroom of our own.
But I needn't have planned on children's contagious diseases. There
will never be any little children with measles, or chicken-pox, or
whooping-cough in our house, to take care of. I am sure of it now. On
the last roll of plans which our architect submitted to us the word
printed across the face of the southeast room had been changed from
Nursery to Chamber! I think Will must have requested it and I knew then
with awful finality that even Will had given up hope. I never asked how
or why the room's name had been changed. I simply understood without
asking and cried it out by myself in my room. The next day I burned the
nursery paper furniture--the crib, the folding yard, the toy-case like
Edith's--in the kitchen stove, with a pang as big as if they had been
real.
After that I called the southeast chamber, "Ruth's room." I had always
secretly hoped that Ruth would live with me if ever I had a house of
my own. I had hoped it ever since Alec had married Edith. It hadn't
come to pass--it never would. Ruth is so fastidious. But she has spent
a night with me very often so I decided to make over the room that no
little child seemed to want to occupy, for my only sister. It really
was easier to refer to the room as Ruth's. I was glad, after the first
shock, that Will had made the change. The evident question and pity
in people's eyes when we had called it by its old name had become
unpleasant for both Will and me.
I grew very philosophical about my disappointment as time went on.
I didn't mean to allow it to shadow my whole life. There was lots
else to be thankful for. But that night after our little tea-party my
philosophy seemed to leave me. It always does when I'm a little tired
and need it most. I couldn't keep up any kind of conversation at dinner
that night. I tried, but I couldn't. My thoughts got to travelling
the wellworn path that they will stray away to every once in a while
in spite of me, and it's always Will who comes to my rescue and pulls
them back on to safe sure ground, before they lose themselves in utter
dejection.
"Let's play some cribbage!" he suggested lightly after dinner.
I laid down my useless embroidery and listlessly drew up to the
table. We played three games without an interruption. I won them all.
Then just as Will was dealing for a fourth game I had to get out my
handkerchief and wipe my eyes.
"Oh, my dear girl!" said Will accusingly.
"I know it, but I can't help it!" I replied. "It seems _too_ cruel!
I simply can't bear not to use the room we built the house around. I
wish we could find a little child somewhere that we could--borrow. You
see, Will, a woman, to be really happy, seems to require a family to
take care of, unless she's a genius--an artist or a poet, or something
like that, which I'm not. Why, Will," I broke out, "I'm getting so I
don't like to hear about other people's children--or see them or want
them around. When Alice spoke about bringing her baby into my garden it
seemed as if I'd simply have to find _somewhere_ a little creature of
our own to play with the flowers I've planted. Don't I _know_ it's a
perfect place for children? Don't I know it? And does she think we also
wouldn't be prouder of a little child than of your discoveries? Oh,
Will, I know how disappointed you are. You won't say it but I know it's
awfully hard for you too."
"Nonsense," Will scoffed. "What's hard about it? I've got you, haven't
I? You and I are the two best children at playing games in a garden
that _I_ ever saw. _I'm_ perfectly satisfied. Come ahead, cut the
cards. I'm about to beat you now at five games of crib."
I shook my head and looked away.
"You're mistaken," Will went on, "if you think _I'm_ envying anybody
anything. I've yet to meet two people happier than we. Children are
pleasant enough incidents in life," Will went on, "but don't you
draw any wrong conclusions that happiness is dependent on them. It
isn't. Look at Dr. and Mrs. Graham. They never had any, and two more
congenial, more contented, happier people never existed--except perhaps
ourselves. Dr. Graham has too much sound thought to allow the denial
of any _one_ of the supposed blessings of life to disturb his peace.
And so have we, Bobbie, don't you think? Some of the very best people
in the world, some of those who have accomplished the most effective
work, never had children. It isn't the first question we ask about a
great man or a good woman. I might have reason to complain if I didn't
have my health or a good sound mind, or if after these few precious
years together, I lost _you_. But as it is--well, please don't ever
say again, young lady, that our present conditions are hard for me.
Hard--Nonsense!"
Dear Will! I'd heard this same little speech of his dozens of times
before. When he tries so hard to cheer me it seems too bad not to
respond; so I smiled now.
"Will Maynard," I said, "you don't deceive me for one minute by all
this talk! Don't think you do! _I_ know--_I_ understand. But I'll say
this--and I've said it a hundred times before--you certainly _are_ the
kindest man I ever knew."
"Bosh!" he laughed.
"Yes, you are--yes, you are. And I guess if I've got you I'd better
not complain." I put away my handkerchief. "It's all over now," I
announced, "and I'm ready to beat you at those five games of crib."
He dealt the cards and for five minutes we played in earnest; then
suddenly Will reached across and took my hand.
"Who says you and I aren't perfectly happy?" he asked.