Heaven bless Murphy!
When my wife was a little girl with braids down her back, Murphy used to
see her in the excited crowd in front of the neighbor's door, as he
toted a grand piano to the waiting van. Many a time Murphy has started
to give that little girl a penny because she was so cute. Many a time he
has reconsidered and kept the penny himself!
It was Murphy who moved us. He is anywhere from seventy to ninety years
old now--a stalwart, steel-muscled young fellow who runs his own wagon
and lifts his end of the heaviest burden with a heart as light as his
chest is deep and his back broad. His beard is long and white.
How we tore up our old rooms and saw our furniture hustled out, how we
looked regretfully back at the den we had papered and fixtured
ourselves, with its rich red base and green forest over that, and the
light sky--that is all another story. It is another story, too, how
mother-in-law bustled here and there helpfully and every now and then
added something of her own to our belongings, and how Mamie telephoned
every one she knew that we were moving to That House I Bought! These
are things we think of, but do not write.
Murphy was indefatigable. We thought we had a load more than Murphy made
it, what with shifting this and changing that, and substituting
something and stuffing small truck under tables and empty boxes that we
wanted for our conservatory. My wife watched him in admiration.
"Mr. Murphy," she said, "you would be invaluable to the United Railways
as a conductor on the Druid Hill avenue line!"
When the last load was about to leave my wife rushed to the door.
"Oh, Mr. Murphy, couldn't you take that couch upstairs and drop it off
at----"
Murphy smiled and glanced at the wagon, with things tied on over the
wheels, and the china closet swinging perilously far out on the tail
piece.
"I can do it," he said, "if I carry the china closet on my lap."
Murphy intended that as a jest.
My wife hadn't thought of the possibilities of Murphy's lap. The instant
he mentioned it, she darted back into the house, quickly to reappear
with a double armful of odds and ends that she couldn't get into the
suit cases and trunks.
"It's mighty kind of you," she said, with the sort of a smile that
nailed me fifteen years ago. "If you can just carry these little things
in your lap----"
Murphy is a game one.
When he drove away Murphy's lap looked like the market burden of a
suburbanite. And because he was so cheerful about it, and so willing to
do so much for so little, and because he is such a good citizen, again I
say:
"Heaven bless Murphy!"
After Murphy had moved us in our real troubles began. I should have said
our real joys, for, believe me, the infant troubles of owning your
castle are so refined and glorified by the pride of possession that they
appear only as strengthening alloy in the pure gold of content.
It was on Thursday and Friday that Murphy moved us. On Saturday I went
to the house, and the lady who will hereafter listen for the tinkle of
the door and telephone bells met me, brimming over with cheerfulness and
almost as proud of herself as I was of the lord of the manor who
strutted like a peacock, as for the first time he showed his feathers in
his own front yard.
Never praise your wife too much, or she will dominate you.
But as this is to be a truthful chronicle, be it said that my wife is
the most wonderful woman in the world. How on earth she ever got the
chairs and tables, the china closet and dishes, the cooking hardware and
beds and mattresses and my desk and revolving bookcase, and Heaven knows
what, all in place in one day is beyond me.
There were pictures on the walls--old friends in new places, looking
down to greet me. A foolish Billiken laughed out loud as I held up my
hands in amazement.
"Step high and easy," said my wife. "You'll scratch the hardwood floor,"
and she rubbed my heelprint from the polish with the hem of her working
skirt. Then we started around testing the push-buttons. We pushed every
button there was, and pulled down the curtains to try the effect in the
parlor and dining-room. She hauled me around and showed me the marvelous
gas range that she was going to do wonders with. That refrigerator, that
was yet to have its first load of ice and provisions--it made me hungry
just to look at it! We went upstairs and downstairs. I opened and closed
every window and made wise-foolish observations on the proper care of a
home.
A man can be a fearful idiot when his chest is out.
I chucked my coat and cuffs and collar and went to work on little odds
and ends of chores about the place. Hasn't a fellow a right to whistle
and sing when he comes home from foraging and finds the lady bird
dancing around the new nest?
There was a thermometer on top of the furnace in the basement, and
beside it a round thing to tell how much water we were catapulting into
the radiators. When there is too much water it overflows from a tank
upstairs; when there isn't enough you turn some in downstairs. So I
started a march up and down stairs, first turning some on and then
scooting skyward to listen to the overflow, and after making this trip
about ten times I had an appetite like a typhoid convalescent.
O the tintinnabulation of the bells!
There are church bells and wedding bells, bells that cry the joy of a
new birth or toll the sorrow of the huddled family, bells that ring
victory in war and bells that scream the hilarity of la fiesta! But for
the bell that speaks the common language of all men, I name the dinner
bell! The first biscuits were piping hot on the plate.
"Are they as good as your mother used to make?" asked my wife.
"My mother," I said, "was a piker at biscuit making!"
And she beamed with pleasure when I slandered my honored mother!
After the dinner we went out on the porch--the big, wide porch for
which we had planned a swing on chains, and sat rocking and digesting,
digesting and rocking, in a perfect picture of resident domesticity. In
the house across the street there were lights. The people had just moved
in--that is, they had moved in several days before and were just
beginning to find the trouble with things and why the gas company could
afford to pay considerable dividends on wind. I say, we were sitting
there as cumfy as possible, when my wife caught my hand in a convulsive
grip.
With the other hand she pointed across the street to the second parlor
blind. I followed her, and felt like a Peeping Tom. There on the blind
was a great picture in silhouette--a picture of two figures standing,
and the tall, masculine figure was holding both shoulders of the other
and looking square into her eyes.
"It's the daughter!" my wife almost whispered. "I know her by her hair
ribbon; it's too young for the mother! Look, look, they are going to
ki----"
She finished the word with a little gurgle, for they had done it! Not
only that, but the kiss was followed by an embrace, and another, and
then the lights went out.
A confounded belt had slipped at the powerhouse, I learned afterward.
I think corporations should be heavily penalized for such breaks in the
service. There should be some sort of appliance to keep belts from
slipping. More than once the belt has slipped and left that whole
residence district in darkness.