"HADN'T you better give your landlord notice to-day, that we will
move at the end of the year, Mr. Plunket?"
"Move! For heaven's sake, Sarah, what do we want to move for?"
"Mr. Plunket!"
"Mrs. Plunket!"
"It's a very strange way for you to address me, Mr. Plunket. A very
strange way!"
"But for what on earth do you want to move, Sarah? Tell me that. I'm
sure we are comfortable enough off here."
"Here! I wouldn't live in this miserable house another twelve
months, if you gave me the rent free."
"I don't see any thing so terribly bad about the house. I am well
satisfied."
"Are you, indeed! But I am not, I can tell you for your comfort."
"What's the matter with the house?"
"Every thing. There isn't a comfortable or decent room in it, from
the garret to the cellar. Not one. It's a horrid place to live in;
and such a neighbourhood to bring up children in!"
"You thought it a 'love of a house' a year ago."
"Me! Mr. Plunket, I never liked it; and it was all your fault that
we ever took the miserable affair."
"My fault! Bless me, Sarah, what are you talking about? I didn't
want to move from where we were. _I never want to move_."
"Oh, no, you'd live in a pigstye for ever, if you once got there,
rather than take the trouble to get out of it."
"Mrs. Plunket!"
"Mr. Plunket!"
Wise from experience, the gentleman deemed it better to run than
fight. So, muttering to himself, he took up his hat and beat a hasty
retreat.
Mrs. Plunket had a mother, a fact of which Mr. Plunket was perfectly
aware, particularly as said relative was a member of his family. She
happened to be present when the above spicy conversation took place.
As soon as he had retired, she broke out with--"Humph! just like
him; any thing to be contrary. But I wouldn't live in this old
rattle-trap of a place another year for any man that ever stepped
into shoe-leather. No, indeed, not I. Out of repair from top to
bottom; not a single convenience, so to speak; walls cracked, paper
soiled, and paint yellow as a pumpkin."
"And worse than all, ma, every closet is infested with ants and
overrun with mice. Ugh! I'm afraid to open a cupboard, or look into
a drawer. Why, yesterday, a mouse jumped upon me and came near going
into my bosom. I almost fainted. Oh, dear! I never can live in this
house another year; it is out of the question. I should die."
"No one thinks of it, except Mr. Plunket, and he's always opposed to
every thing; but that's no matter. If he don't notify the landlord,
we can. Live here another twelvemonth! No, indeed!"
"I saw a bill on a house in Seventh street yesterday, and I had a
great mind, then, to stop and look at it. It was a beautiful place,
just what we want."
"Put your things on, Sarah, right away, and go and see about it.
Depend upon it, we can't do worse than this."
"Worse! No, indeed, that's impossible. But Mr. Plunket!"
"Pshaw! never mind him; he's opposed to every thing. If you had
given him his way, where would you have been now?"
Mrs. Plunket did not reply to this, for the question brought back
the recollection of a beautiful little house, new, and perfect in
every part, from which she had forced her husband to move, because
the parlours were not quite large enough. Never, before nor since,
had they been so comfortably situated.
Acting as well from her own inclination as from her mother's advice,
Mrs. Plunket went and made an examination of the house upon which
she had seen the bill.
"Oh, it is such a love of a house!" she said, upon her return.
"Perfect in every respect: it is larger than this, and is full of
closets; and the rent is just the same."
"Did you get the refusal of it?"
"Yes. I told the landlord that I would give him an answer by
to-morrow morning. He says there are a great many people after it;
that he could have rented it a dozen times, if he had approved the
tenants who offered. He says he knows Mr. Plunket very well, and
will be happy to rent him the house."
"We must take it, by all means."
"That is, if Mr. Plunket is willing."
"Willing! Of course, he'll have to be willing."
"Oh, it is such a love of a house, ma!"
"I'm sure it must be."
"A very different kind of an affair from this, you may be certain."
When Mr. Plunket came home that evening, his wife said to him, quite
amiably--"Oh, you don't know what, a love of a house I saw to-day up
in Seventh street; larger, better, and more convenient than this in
every way, and the rent is just the same."
"But I am sure, Sarah, we are very comfortable here."
"Comfortable! Good gracious, Mr. Plunket, I should like to know what
you call comfort. How can any one be comfortable in such a miserable
old rattletrap of a place as this?"
"You thought it a love of a house, you remember, before we came into
it."
"Me? Me? Mr. Plunket? Why, I never liked it; and it was all your
fault that we ever moved here."
"My fault?"
"Yes, indeed, it was all your fault. I wanted the house in Walnut
street, but you were afraid of a little more rent. Oh, no, Mr.
Plunket, you mustn't blame me for moving into this barracks of a
place; you have only yourself to thank for that; and now I want to
get out of it on the first good opportunity."
Poor Mr. Plunket was silenced. The very boldness of the position
taken by his wife completely knocked him _hors du combat_. His
fault, indeed! He would have lived on, year after year, in a log
cabin, rather than encounter the horrors of moving; and yet he was
in the habit of moving about once a year. What could he do now? He
had yielded so long to his wife, who had grown bolder at each
concession, that opposition was now hopeless. Had she stood alone,
there might have been some chance for him; but backed up, as she
was, by her puissant mother, victory was sure to perch on her
banner; and well did Mr. Plunket know this.
"It will cost at least a hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars to
move," he ventured to suggest.
"Indeed, and it will cost no such thing. I'll guaranty the whole
removal for ten dollars."
"It cost over a hundred last year."
"Nonsense! it didn't cost a fifth of it."
But Mr. Plunket knew he had the best right to know, for he had paid
the bills.
From the first, Mr. Plunket felt that opposition was useless. A
natural repugnance to change and a horror of the disorder and
discomfort of moving caused him to make a feeble resistance; but the
opposing current swept strongly against him, and he had to yield.
The house in Seventh street was taken, and, in due time, the
breaking up and change came. Carpets were lifted, boxes, barrels,
and trunks packed, and all the disorderly elements of a regular
moving operation called into activity. Every preparation had been
made on the day previous to the contemplated flight; the cars were
to be at the door by eight o'clock on the next morning. In
anticipation of this early movement, the children had been dragged
out of bed an hour before their usual time for rising. They were, in
consequence, cross and unreasonable; but not more so than mother,
grandmother, and nurse, all of whom either boxed them, scolded them,
or jerked them about in a most violent manner. Breakfast was served
early; but such a breakfast! the least said about that the better.
It was well there were no keen appetites to turn away with
disappointment.
"Strange that the cars are not here!" said Mr. Plunket, who had put
himself in going order. "It's nearly half an hour past the time now.
Oh, dear! confound all this moving, say I."
"That's a strange way for you to talk before children, Mr. Plunket,"
retorted his wife.
"And this is a much stranger way for you to act, madam; for ever
dragging your husband and children about from post to pillar. For my
part, I feel like Noah's dove, without a place to rest the sole of
my foot."
"Mr. Plunket!"
"Mrs. Plunket!"
A war of words was about commencing, but the furniture-cars drove up
at the moment, when an armistice took place.
In due time, the family of the Plunkets were, bag and baggage, in
their new house. A lover of quiet, the male head of the
establishment tried to refrain from any remarks calculated to excite
his helpmate, but this was next to impossible, there being so much
in the new house that he could not, in conscience, approve. If Mrs.
Plunket would have kept quiet, all might have gone on very smoothly;
but Mrs. Plunket could not or would not keep quiet. She was
extravagant in her praise of every thing, and incessant in her
comparisons between the old and the new house. Mr. Plunket listened,
and bit his lip to keep silent. At last the lady said to him, with a
coaxing smile, for she was not going to rest until some words of
approval were extorted from her liege lord--"Now, Mr. Plunket, don't
you think this a love of a house?"
"No!" was the gruff answer.
"Mr. Plunket! Why, what is your objection? I'm sure we can't be more
uncomfortable than we have been for a year."
"Oh, yes, we can."
"How so?"
"There is such a thing as going from the frying-pan into the fire."
"Mr. Plunket!"
"Just what you'll find we have done, madam."
"How will you make that appear, pray?"
"In a few words. Just step this way. Do you see that building?"
"I do."
"Just to the south-west of us; from that quarter the cool breezes of
summer come. We shall now have them fragrant with the delightful
exhalations of a slaughter-house. Humph! Won't that be delightful?
Then, again, the house is damp."
"Oh, no. The landlord assured me it was as dry as a bone."
"The landlord lied, then. I've been from garret to cellar half a
dozen times, and it is just as I say. My eyes never deceive me. As
to its being a better or more comfortable house, that is all in my
eye. I wouldn't give as much for it, by fifty dollars, as for the
one we have left."
Notwithstanding Mrs. Plunket's efforts to induce her husband to
praise the house, she was not as well satisfied with it as she was
at the first inspection of the premises.
"I'm sure," she replied, in rather a subdued manner, "that it is
quite as good as the old house, and has many advantages over it."
"Name one," said her husband.
"It is not overrun with vermin."
"Wait a while and see."
"Oh, I know it isn't."
"How do you know?"
"I asked the landlord particularly."
"And he said no?"
"He did."
"Humph! We shall see."
And they did see. Tired but with a day's moving and fixing, the
whole family, feeling hungry, out of humour, and uncomfortable,
descended to the kitchen, after it had become dark, to overhaul the
provision-baskets, and get a cold cut of some kind. But, alas! to
their dismay, it was found that another family, and that a numerous
one, already had possession. Floor, dresser, and walls were alive
with a starving colony of enormous cockroaches, and the baskets,
into which bread, meats, &c. had been packed, were literally
swarming with them.
In horror, man, woman, and child beat a hasty retreat, and left the
premises.
It would hardly be fair to record all the sayings and doings of that
eventful evening. Overwearied in body and mind, the family retired
to rest, but some of them, alas! not to sleep. From washboards and
every other part of the chamber in which a crevice existed, crept
out certain little animals not always to be mentioned to ears
polite, and, more bold than the denizens of the kitchen, made
immediate demonstrations on the persons of master, mistress, child,
and maid.
It took less than a week to prove satisfactorily to Mrs. Plunket,
though she did not admit the fact, that the new house was not to be
compared with the old one in any respect. It had not a single
advantage over the other, while the disadvantages were felt by every
member of the family.
In a few months, however, Mr. Plunket began to feel at home, and to
settle down into contentment, but as he grew better and better
satisfied, his wife grew more and more desirous of change, and is
now, as the year begins to draw to a close, looking about her for
bills on houses, and examining, every day, the "to let" department
of the newspapers with a lively degree of interest. Mr. Plunket
will, probably, resist stoutly when this lady proposes some new
"love of a house," but it will be of no use; he will have to pull up
stakes and try it again. It is his destiny; he has got a moving
wife, and there is no help for him.