"My dear," I said, "if you had quarreled and if you were making up on a
moonlight night, would you bother about wasting kilowatts of
electricity?"
She wrinkled her forehead.
"But the moonlight is on the outside of the house."
"That's just where you're mistaken," I ventured. "It _was_ all outside,
but they're getting all they need of it through the cracks on the sides
of the curtain."
She sighed.
"And moreover," I added, "I'm going to bed."
And I did; and there were no Silhouettes. At midnight or worse my wife
said:
"I don't know much else about that man, but I know one thing."
"What's that?" I asked.
"He's stingy," was her reply; and I'll admit, myself, that he might have
turned up the lights just a little while.
But all this is foreign to the House. We awoke next morning to a busy
experience, for our friends descended upon us. You know there is one
stage through which you will have to pass when you buy a house, and for
the sake of a name we'll call it the Inspection of Your Intimates.
The ink is hardly dry on the deed, or mortgage, or agreement, or
whatever your instrument of conveyance may be, before you are on the
telephone inviting them out to look at you. You want all your friends
to see your new house--to make faces at it and chuck it under the chin,
to talk baby talk to it and admire your pantry.
The first crack out of the box Mrs. Smith walks in, sizes up the
exterior with a sweeping glance as she enters, sniffs the atmosphere
laden with fresh smells and as you stand at judgment remarks:
"H'm!"
Now, "H-m!" may mean any one of twenty-seven things. You stand on one
foot and wait.
"My goodness, what small rooms!" is the next remark, which is somewhat
softened by the addition, "but the wall paper is very pretty," and the
reservation damns the praise again, "in places."
All this time you are alternating flushes and chills. Your spinal column
is a sort of marathon track for emotions. You go through the house with
her and show the bathroom with its shower, over which she enthuses, and
you are in the seventh heaven of satisfaction. But the minute she
reaches the third floor, which is a sort of three-quarter floor, your
heart sinks again, because she remarks:
"I suppose you will just use these little rooms for storage!" And you
had fondly thought of occupying them yourself and renting the second
floor to help out your investment.
Mrs. Smith thinks your piano is too brilliant on the hardwood floor, and
when she has gone home you shove a rug under it. Mrs. Jones comes next
day and says it sounds dead on the rug, and you put it back on the
floor. Mrs. Brown gets you to try it both ways in her presence and
concludes that it lacks elevation and would sound better if you took it
upstairs; while Mrs. Harris conceives the novel idea of turning the
conservatory into a music-room for the benefit of the base tiling.
Your prides-in-chief are the linen closet, the big closets in each
room, the gas range, the refrigerator built into the wall and the
plumbing fixtures. And you are a bit peeved when Mrs. Johnson passes
every one of these features by with calm indifference and raves over an
unimportant railing you've had hammered onto the back porch. Nearly
every one of your Intimates comments on the fact that your yard looks
like a quarry, but you assure each one that William is going to put on a
top soil and seed it down and you are going to plant a turnip and
substitute a peach tree for the oak that was struck by lightning. You
work yourself up into a human catalogue of advantages as you describe
your wonderful plans, and then your Intimate shakes her head smilingly.
"My dear," she says, like a blooming icicle, "John and I had all these
plans when we owned a house, and we never did get our yard fixed. You
have no idea of the work and the expense and the disappointments! And
don't plant any Government seeds. They never come up."
It's an odd coincidence that your Congressman has just supplied you with
a lot of radish, onion, lettuce, and other seeds, and that you have been
lying awake nights passing resolutions of thanks to the Agricultural
Department.
But there is one who comes--Heaven bless her!--who goes into seven fits
of joy and envies you your happiness. You love her because of it--and
because she is your mother.