emporiums--or should it be "emporia?"--of skins, peltry, fleece, hides,
and fur, and have priced the garment of our longing. We have looked at
mink-lined ones, rat-lined, rabbit-lined, and even seal-lined. We have
tried them on and talked sagely to salesmen about them. But we have
bought not, neither have we paid down in instalments. We have sighed,
jingled the quarter against the small change in our pocket, and said we
would call again soon.
The trouble is that the only coats we like are those ranging from about
four hundred up--up as far as you can see, and then some! The seal ones
we definitely gave up. No one but a former manufacturer of munitions or
an inventor of booze-substitutes should aspire to those. It isn't only
the initial expense but the way you have to live up to them--taxicabs,
diamonds, and half a dollar to the hat-boy every time he helps you on
with it.
That left mink, and mink we resolved it should be, in spite of its
scarcity. You see, the mink is a small animal of retiring nature and
celibate instincts. At least, the mink does not seem to run to large
families. The rabbit takes up fatherhood as a profession--but nothing
like that for the mink! One or two little minks, and that's all. The
mink is a sort of natural Eugenist. "Better babies" is his slogan, not
"More babies." As a result minks are hard to get, and correspondingly
expensive.
Frequently have we cast eyes of longing on mink-lined coats in fur-store
windows, as we strolled along to the office on cold mornings in our
combination raincoat and winter ulster. They have been handsome coats,
too, many of them, but there has always been something about them we
didn't like--sometimes the collar, occasionally the shell (how those
military terms will creep in even yet!), and nearly always the small tag
hanging from the upper righthand button-hole and proclaiming the price.
But one fine day during that very cold snap we finally saw the fur-coat
of our youthful vision. There it hung, or rather stood, in the window,
spreading its mink lining to the ravished gaze and ruffling its otter
collar in tantalizing beauty. That collar had been peeled off the
emperor of all the otters--or the crown prince, at the very least--and
Heaven alone knows how many minks had delivered up their fluffy
integument to furnish forth that sumptuous lining.
It was a beautiful thing, God wot, and the price was right--only two
hundred and fifty iron men, simoleons, bucks, bones, or spondulicks. Not
that we take a light view of a sum which in the old days would have
bought two thousand cocktails, and if judiciously expended on "lush"
would have enabled one to laugh at Prohibition for many happy weeks.
But what is two hundred and fifty dollars for a fur-coat which was
originally five hundred as the tag explicitly declared, and had come
down through successive stages to this absurdly inadequate figure?
We rushed right in and made a clerk drag it out of the window. He did
it a little doubtfully, it seemed--evidently unaware how many moneyed
men dress very plainly, not to say shabbily. But our enthusiasm finally
impressed him. He held it up for us, and we slipped with a sigh of
tremulous delight into its soothing embrace. Lordy, how that coat
fitted! How gently it caressed us, and how gracefully it hung upon the
angles of our frame! There is something positively sinful in such
comfort as that.
Of course, it wouldn't do to let the clerk see how delighted we were
with it--he might raise the price again. So we controlled our voice as
best we could, and asked him if the skins were all right. We even tried
to look disparaging.
"All right?" he almost shouted. "Why, if it wasn't for the stringency
and all that, this coat would be selling at three times--but you can see
for yourself. Just look at those skins--everyone of them taken in the
middle of winter!" And in his indignation at our attitude, he grabbed a
couple of minks and crumpled them up as if he were going to tear them
out of the coat and throw them away.
That's a peculiar thing about fine furs. The finer they are, the more
the connoisseur seems to abuse them. Poor skins have to be handled with
great care, we presume, but when your real expert gets hold of a good
piece of fur, he shakes it and beats it and tries to pull the hair out
of it.
It was also very nice to know that the minks had been taken in the
winter when they had all their fur on. In the summer, when the minks
are wearing nothing but their swimming-trunks, so to speak--but the
thing doesn't bear thinking of.
It was just the coat we had always wanted--the clerk said we looked
great in it--but after a hasty recollection of our bank-balance as it
appeared when we last put a dint in it, we told him we would call again.
And we kept calling. We called about a dozen times. We simply couldn't
keep away from that fur-coat. And every time we went we brought a
friend or two with us to look it over and give us advice. We put the
coat on and walked around the store in it to show how it hung, and then
we took it off and adjourned to the nearest cigar-stand or blind-pig to
discuss the matter. The coat cost us about twenty dollars in a couple
of weeks.
Our friends all admired the coat, but curiously enough, they all advised
against us buying it--perhaps from a conscientious objection to seeing
so much money tied up in mere fur. They always warned us that if we
once wore it, we'd have to go on wearing it all the time for fear of
catching cold. They said that's the worst of fur-coats--one doesn't
dare leave them off. But naturally, if we got that coat, we intended to
go on wearing it till about the middle of June. When it got too hot to
wear it open, we'd carry it on our arm with the lining turned out.
Lately the clerk had been getting quite sniffy. The last time we were
in, he intimated that the coat was beginning to look rather used from
being worn around the store so much. We finally had to discontinue
these visits, but we hated to tear ourself away from that glorious
garment. The first thing we knew some butcher might buy it.
But perhaps some rich relative of ours, turning up rather
unexpectedly--we don't insist on any close consanguinity so long as he
is rich--may see this pathetic screed and feel that here is a chance to
help genius in distress. What's the use of erecting monuments to us
after we are dead? How much better and kinder it would be to buy that
coat and send it down to the office while we are still comparatively
alive. In fact, this is our idea in writing this article.
[Illustration: SPRING IN THE CITY]
*Spring in the City*
A thick, creamy, white lather covering that part of our countenance
which indicates strength of character, showed that we were about to
shave. It is our matutinal custom. Poised in our hand was the lethal
weapon with which we perform this painful rite.
At that moment we heard the robin! At that very instant of the morning
of Saturday, April the sixth, the voice of the robin was heard in the
block. Immediately we threw up the window, and careless of the rather
intimate nature of our habiliments, we leaned out over the ledge.
There was no robin in sight. No glimpse of red-breast gladdened our
heart. We looked in vain at each of the miniature plots of mud which
residents on our street refer to as the "lawn." Nowhere could we see
Cock Robin sturdily dragging a large, thick worm from his lair, or
waiting with dignified alertness for breakfast to poke up its head. But
his voice filled the street, clear and high and vibrant with
delight--the very voice of triumphant spring!
"Some class to that whistlin'," said someone below us.
We looked down and saw a dingy man with a bag of tools on his shoulder,
who was frankly watching us and grinning with disgusting familiarity.
Plumbers never are in a hurry.
"Makes a fella feel like chuckin' his work, don't it?" he persisted.
"It does," we burbled through the lather, and drew in our head with
reckless haste. We afterwards discovered some of our back-hair still
clinging to the lower edge of the window-frame. But not even the painful
presence of a protuberance on our skull where none had been before could
banish our joy in that robin's song.
Spring was here at last! It is true there was still much ice in our
backyard, and in our neighbor's backyard, and in the backyard beyond
his. It is true also that icicles hung from the roofs, and that the
water in our bath-tub was still of a temperature to produce curiously
mottled effects on our general complexion. But we were happy and we
sang as we splashed about, for we knew that spring was here.
Therefore did we kick into a corner with joyous abandon the thick, fuzzy
garments--warranted pure wool and unshrinkable (base deception!)--with
which we had armed ourself as with triple brass against the onslaught of
old Boreas. And from a camphored recess in our trunk we drew forth
tenuous and elastic vesture which clung to our manly form and restored
to it its summer slimness.
When the coal-man's bill arrived in the morning mail, we threw it
carelessly aside for our landlady. Our attitude towards coal-men had
suddenly changed from anxious propitiation to bored indifference. The
strike news in the papers moved not our Olympian serenity. We
sympathized with the miners. We felt that if we were a miner ourself,
we would strike at once and stay struck till the dog-days caused us to
long for subterranean coolness.
Then draping our light overcoat in a jaunty way over our arm, we walked
down town. It wasn't a case of going out with the avowed intention of
walking, and then sprinting after the first street-car we saw. No, we
really walked, inhaling large breaths of vernal ozone. And a lot of
other men were similarly engaged. Fellows that we used to see morning
after morning furtively slipping into a street-car--the same car that we
slipped into ourself--now swung along with their chests swelling out of
their coats and a good-to-be-alive expression on their faces. We also
noticed that they seemed to take more than the normal masculine interest
in the spring dresses which flitted by--especially those affectionate
gowns which cling so alluringly to their fair owners. Verily it was the
spring.
In a bit of ground where the mud had been pounded to the shiny
consistency of overdone chocolate blanc-mange, three very dirty and very
serious-minded urchins played marbles. Further on a spoiled darling of
fortune who possessed a top spun it with studied indifference--and with
a cord, too, of course--while a couple of other youngsters less favored
of the gods looked enviously on.
A garden patch littered with sticks and wet leaves and the water-logged
aftermath of winter held a resolute little old man with an immense rake,
who was endeavoring to introduce some order into his chaotic cosmos. He
was having a very busy time, something like a pup who had got into a
boneyard. He scratched and tugged and grunted, and here and there he
managed to get the stuff gathered into piles. He may have had some
notion of burning it, but it would take many sunny days before the stuff
would be dry enough to burn anywhere but in a very hot and active
volcano.
We leaned on the fence and sniffed the moist rich odors of the dead
leaves. They brought to mind pleasant pictures of the approaching time
of planting, when enthusiastic amateurs, heedless of the mud on the
knees of their trousers, would be jabbing holes in every available bit
of ground and sticking seeds and bulbs into them. And we reflected sadly
on the sardonic humor of fate which had made us a book-reviewer instead
of a happy farmer lad carolling to the sun as we went about the simple
and healthful duties of our husbandry. We thought of striding out to
the fields with the sun turning the frosted grass to silver filigree,
and then we noticed that the old gentleman was contemplating us with the
cold and wary eye of a disillusioned sparrow.
"Are you looking for work, young man?" he asked, "or are you merely
looking at it? Because, if you really want a job, there is one right
here that I would like...."
But we were already on our way. We suddenly recalled that the mail must
be piled up on our desk, and that our presence was urgently needed at
the office. Did we want work? And so in an instant we were brought
back from the golden meadows of dreamland, where we saw ourself
wandering a flushed young god in the morning of the world, and became
once more a middle-aged office-man, somewhat stooped from bending over a
desk.
The spring was in our blood, however, and our spirits revived at the
first park we came to. On such mornings one makes a point of walking
through the parks, and Allen Gardens lay right on our line of march.
They were a scene of joyous activity. Chief gardeners and assistant and
deputy-assistant gardeners ran about in amiable confusion. There was a
tremendous raking up of straw and mulch--mulch being the technical name
for everything that is thrown on a flower-bed, from bricks to
sardine-tins.
Around the fountain a lot of blithesome little toddlers pulled one
another's hair, or made frantic efforts to drown themselves, while the
nurse-girls exchanged confidences as to the precise tone in which "he
said" and the elegant vivacity with which "I said to him."
The benches were out and they were occupied. Perhaps it is enough to say
that the benches were out. They are never left unoccupied on a nice day
of spring. Gentlemen of shabby leisure abhor a vacant seat. One is led
to wonder where the men who sit in parks go during the winter--into
cracks in the wall, possibly, like the flies. But the day was warm and
the bench-boarders were out. There they sat blinking their eyes in
drowsy contentment and sniffing hopefully the breezes of spring.
We paused to make some of the kindly and philosophic reflections which
are dictated to us on such occasions by our whimsical genius. We looked
about us with just such a keen and humorous expression as we felt
Montaigne would have worn under similar circumstances. We were
preparing to say something rather clever to ourself about the life of
man, which is as a spring day, etc.
"Well, the long winter is over at last," said a voice at our elbow, or
rather at our left shoulder-blade. It was a melancholy voice, a voice
which intimated that the owner doubted he would ever see another spring.
But a large face of more than usual redness caused one to question the
likelihood of a demise so immediate.
"Yes," we admitted, "it seems to be over, and it is about time."
"Ah, the spring is a great season for them as is young and strong and
handsome."
The wistful expression with which this battered, red-faced, watery-eyed
person regarded us indicated that he thought we were all these things.
We blushed slightly, and to hide our embarrassment--we are not used to
such compliments, implied or otherwise--said in a voice of great
heartiness:
"Ho, yes--nothing like the spring! Makes a fellow glad to be alive."
"Yes, yes," he agreed still more wistfully, "it makes a handsome young
gentleman's heart expand--it makes him free-handed and generous." A
sudden cold suspicion seized our vernal ardor and strangled it. Could
it be possible that ... yes, it could! And that rubicund old scoundrel
proceeded to inform us that the "temporary loan--(the printer will
please emphasize temporary")--of half a dollar would cause him to recall
our memory with gratitude at frequent intervals for the rest of his
life.
If we had had half a dollar in our pocket, we might ... but what man who
is paid on Saturdays ever had any money to bring down to the office
Saturday morning? We hinted discreetly at our destitution, but the
red-faced man merely grunted and turned away. We fear he did not
believe us.
We regretted his distrust, of course, but, as Emerson might have said,
it is great to be misunderstood in the spring. In a few minutes we
forgot our embarrassment and remembered the ruddy one merely as a
humorous episode of the jovial day. We chuckled all the way down to the
office as we thought of the open and unabashed admiration with which he
had regarded us, till he discovered that we were a good Samaritan
without the price.
At the office everybody was glad to see us. Even the Managing Editor was
amiable. He said nothing about the hour we got in--he seemed to think
it was very nice of us to come down at all. And then he sat on the
corner of our desk and talked about the beauty of living in the country,
and waking up in the morning with the calves bleating around you and the
hens and all that, and walking out in the fields to see the fine,
healthy farmer lads turning up the sod and reaping and harrowing and
everything.
Of course, it was immediately obvious to us that the Managing Editor's
idea of country life had been gained from the reading of sentimental
verse. Unfortunately, we find it difficult to share this enthusiasm for
rural life. You see, we worked on a few farms when we were a wild lad
just out of college--we were seeking inspiration in the soil. So we
know just how a farm looks and smells in the spring when they are
enriching the ground. But we didn't disillusion the M.E.--we wanted
everyone to be happy.
* * * * *
It is true that winter rose again Sunday morning. It is true that
Monday was cold and blustery, that there was a thick covering of snow on
the ground Tuesday morning, that we had to get out our woollens once
more, that in the interval we caught a cold in the head. We knew it,
but we heeded not. Our eyes had seen the glory of the coming of the
spring.
[Illustration: MOVING DAY]
*Moving Day*
It all depends on how much or how little you have to move--the much or
little referring to the amount of impediment with which your habitat is
furnished. At either end of the scale moving is a matter involving
slight personal inconvenience. But midway toil and trouble lie.
If you live and move and have your meals in what reporters are fond of
describing as a "palatial residence," and if it occurs to you to remove
yourself and all that is yours to a still more palatial mansion, you
have only to give orders. The work and worry you leave to the 'elp,
while you and the family spend the interval gaily at Palm Beach or Monte
Carlo. When you come back everything is in readiness. You can walk
right in, chuck your grip to your valet, and jump into the new porcelain
bath-tub. When you emerge, the bath-towel is waiting for you on the
gold-plated rack to which you have always been accustomed.
And if, gentle reader, instead of a valet you should have a maid--even
among the most modern women maids are still usual--it makes no
difference in the general readiness of the new home. You trip joyously
into your boudoir, she unhooks your gown, and you--but, of course, at
this point visitors are always asked to wait in the library. But these
details are irrelevant. The main thing is that all the work has been
done for you. All the worry has been borne by someone else. It only
remains for you to accustom yourself to your new surroundings.
In the same way at the other end of the social scale, moving is equally
a matter calling for little thought and less trouble. The mover puts
his tooth-brush and his comb in his vest-pocket; he throws his other
pair of trousers into his bag along with his other shirt and the pair of
shoes he had half-soled; and then he slips quietly away while his
landlady is not looking. It is not that he is running away exactly, but
that he is sensitive and shy, and dreads the emotional strain of bidding
farewell. Parting is such sweet sorrow that she might not let him go
without keeping his grip as a souvenir--just to remind her of that "ten"
he promised to give her at the end of the week.
Gentlemen who make these periodical migrations do not worry much about
it. Even if they did pay their bills, they would still grow tired of
staying in the same place. So they pack up and move, suddenly and with
light-hearted unconcern. They don't call it "moving." They refer to it
as "making a getaway."
It is not our intention, however, to treat of either the wealthy or the
"stony broke" in this serious consideration of the crises in the affairs
of house-holders known as "moving-days." The wealthy don't move often
enough, the "busted" move too often, and both move too easily to make
the operation an important factor in their lives. But the fellow on a
one-cylinder salary who uses a fifty-dollar-a-month house for purposes
of domicile--he is the man to whom moving is all that General Sherman
declared war to be. It is a revolution, a cataclysm. He dates
important events as occurring in "the year we moved" from this house to
that other. Moving-days mark off periods of existence the way the
Olympian games served for the ancient Greeks.
Why then do people do it? Sometimes because they can't help it.
Landlords have a way of handing over their property to syndicates to
build apartment-houses on the site. At other times landlords, whose
actions no man can foretell, decide to raise the rent. Or they may
object to the playful ways of the tenant's children--perhaps the little
dears have dug a cave or two in the wall of the living-room, or have in
childish glee filled the plumbing with half-bricks and gunny-sacks.
Then there are landlords who have acquired the please-remit habit to
such an extent that a trifling delay of a couple of months with the rent
leads to intense unpleasantness. They won't even take it in
kind--except Scotch, perhaps. And that, of course, is too good for
landlords. In fact, there are a thousand and one things which may cause
friction between the man who lives in the house and the man who merely
owns it. As the landlord generally refuses to leave, the tenant has to.
This explains a good many movings, but not all, nor even the greater
number of them. Most people, as a matter of fact, move for the simple
reason that hope springs eternal, and man never is but always to be.
Every house has its faults and drawbacks. Even the palaces which cost
eighty-five dollars a month serve to remind their occupants that there
are beauties and comforts which even their comparative affluence cannot
command. And naturally the lower one drops in the financial scale the
truer this truism--the truth of truisms is our chief objection to them.
Man wants but little here below--just a nice, twelve-room house,
hot-water heating, lawn all around, commodious shed where he can stow
the lawn-mower and the spade during the period of hibernation, enamel
bath, electric lighting, and such other necessities of the simple life
as improved by Edison. But he wants that little a long time before he
gets it--for fifty dollars a month. Therefore he moves.
Probably the house he already lives in has a hot-air furnace that goes
into a state of coma on cold nights, the kind of plumbing that has to be
operated on every few days by a surgeon in over-alls, and a roof that
permits every thunderstorm to come right down and jump into bed with
him. Probably the girl next door plays "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows"
till midnight every night of the week, except Sunday when she plays
hymn-tunes. But he has hopes. He feels that the next house is going to
possess all the beauty and comfort of Aladdin's fairy palace, and that
the landlord will be one of those dear old boys with white whiskers, who
will answer every complaint with, "Just have the work done and send the
bill to me." There is no such landlord, but the tenant keeps on looking
for him. He moves. And lo, in another little while he moves again. He
keeps right on moving, poor chap, till that final move when they put
plumes on the moving-van.
Your old experienced mover starts in early. He makes a real occasion of
it. After he and his wife and the baby-carriage have strolled around
town for about six weeks, they finally select a prospective residence.
It is just about the same as the old house--they are lucky, in fact, if
it isn't worse. But they see the new one through pink spectacles.
Everything looks like a sunset-scene in a musical comedy.
"Oh, how happy we're all going to be!"
Exit dancingly. Then they go home and start packing up.
The first thing you always do when you pack is to take up the carpets
and oil-cloths. You don't bother picking up the tacks. They are picked
up in instalments by members of the family in the early morning and late
at night. No electro-magnet ever had half the allurement for a tack that
a bare foot exerts. A defenceless big toe will draw them right across a
room.