PHILIP'S LETTER
DEAREST MOTHER:--You remember I told you I had found a pig's ear and
was going to make a silk purse out of it despite the scepticism of the
neighborhood. Behold the purse! I call it the Villa Chantecler. It has
taken me the whole week, but the result--well, Kathleen says I have
added poetry to the island, and I suspect she is authority on poetry,
although that too is hidden in one of the locked rooms I've told you
about. She gives just enough of herself to each person to fit every
occasion; but the way she took the first view of the Villa yesterday
was like everything else she does; perfection. I didn't know I was
going to write that. I didn't know I thought it. That's the beauty of
having some one to whom you can think aloud. You find out what you do
think; but she and I touch only on the high places and when we leave
the island we shall fly apart for the whole winter again; with pleasant
memories, however. She has a positive talent for letting people alone.
I love such people!
Now, to tell you how I did my little trick. I could never have done
it but for New England tenacity and thrift. They never throw anything
away in this part of the world; and even importations like Aunt Isabel
collect some lumber-room outcasts rather than injure the scenery by
throwing them over the bank.
Jane Foster, adorable landlady and Lady Bountiful that she is, turned
me loose in her attic, and told me to help myself. So, first of all,
I made the hen-house shine with cleanliness. Then Cap'n James helped
me drag up its dejected piazza which had capsized in the neighboring
field. We nailed it to the house and painted it white.
Aunt Isabel had discarded a Crex rug, which I took for my studio, also
a three-legged divan and chairs whose cane seats had surrendered. These
I mended and cushioned. In Miss Foster's attic, I found what I should
think were all the potato sacks that had ever been used in the Foster
family. These made my hangings and cushions, although the poverty they
implied nearly reduced Jane to tears. She implored me to use turkey red
and found enough in the attic to begin on. The stuff smelled so new,
I'm nearly certain the dear woman bought it and placed it there.
I found an old spinet under the eaves. Its voice had long departed;
but its charming legs and framework were intact. I placed some boards
across that and used my green bathrobe for a cover. I took a straight
length of pipe, fixed it into a wooden stand, topped it with a spool,
bronzed the whole thing, and behold, a stunning candlestick in which
stands a tall wax candle.
Among the refuse I had carried out of the place, I had found charming
old plates, heavy as lead, crackled with age, and cream and gray in
color. These I disposed variously, and I am perfectly sure Cap'n James
and Jane Foster have laid their heads together in order to condole
over the fact that so pleasant a young man should have so gloomy and
unpicturesque a taste when he expects to get his living by that same
lame faculty. In fact, Cap'n James unburdened his mind one day. He
said:--
"Ain't you goin' to have anything cheerful 'round here? It looks to me
more fit for hens than it does for folks right now."
Under the house I found lengths of drain-pipe. These I used on my
terrace at the back of the Villa, overlooking the sea. When I had
placed these pillars at each end of the railing and crowned them with
the polished bay that grows luxuriantly here, I had a quite Italian
effect, I assure you.
Jane looks at me with pitiful eyes, and yesterday came down to the
Villa with a framed chromo from her parlor wall.
"I just as lieves you'd use it as not," she said, "and anyway you might
put it up till the folks have seen the place. Your own paintin's can go
up later." I almost kissed her, she pitied me so, and I could see that
she agreed with Cap'n James, who said the place gave him the "Injun
blues."
There is a rough stairway that leads to the half-floored room above.
I took a drain-pipe to make a newel post for that. It is surmounted
with a bronze Mercury on a pedestal. The pedestal is a small, rusty tin
wash-basin that I found under the house. I covered it with varnish and
rolled it in sand, inverted it, and behold! I also gave an appearance
of advanced age to the Mercury; so the general appearance is as of a
treasure from Pompeii.
If only you and father could see and feel the beauty and the heavenly
quiet of the place. I have a kitchen, too. The door was a wreck, and I
tacked upon it a dark ornate window shade which tones in with all the
rest.
Sometimes I feel as if I were only living to see you again. I know it's
what I'm working for anyway; and I well know that you are working for
me every day of your dear life.
I love you.
PHIL.