by Anne Warner
V
SUSAN CLEGG'S "IMPROVEMENTS"
There was nothing small or mean or economical about Jathrop Lathrop, nowthat he had turned out rich. He was the soul of generosity, the epitomeof liberality, the concentrated essence of filial devotion as expressedin checks and carte-blanche orders directed at his mother.
One of his earliest kind thoughts was to have Mrs. Lathrop's homecompletely modernized, and as Susan Clegg lived next door and was hismother's best and dearest friend, he decided to build her house over,too.
To that end he hunted up the highest-priced architect of whom he couldhear and asked to have designs submitted forthwith. The highest-pricedarchitect readily undertook the reconstruction of the Lathrop and Cleggdomiciles, but being too occupied to go down into the country and lookover the field personally, he delegated one of his youngest and mostpromising assistants to accomplish the task, and the young and promisingassistant forthwith packed his dress-suit case and set off.
He was an assistant of most extraordinary youth and almost unbelievablepromise, and he saw a chance to plan colleges (endowed by J. Lathrop,Esq.), palaces (to be built for Lathrop, the millionaire), possibly tobe commissioned with the overseeing of the artistic development of somenew, up-springing city (Lathropville, Alaska, or something of thatsort), if he should only succeed in at once accomplishing a close unionof feeling with the golden offspring of our old friend. His first reallyrich client is to a young debutant in bricks just what a well-hungpicture is to the budding artist, or a song before royalty is to asinger. Such being the well-known facts of life the young and promisingassistant fully intended to do himself proud in the reconstruction ofthe two houses consigned by Jathrop's benevolence to his tender mercies.
The young architect came to town and went to the hotel (at Jathrop'sexpense). He spent the next ten days in going twice each day to studyhis task, sketch its realities and idealities, and also make theacquaintance of Mrs. Lathrop and Susan Clegg, for he was a young man ofnew and novel ideas, and one of his newest and most novel ideas was tobuild a house which would really suit those who were to live in it. Hewas so young that he had no conception as to how this was to be done,nor the faintest inkling as to what a Titanic-crossed-with-Prometheanundertaking it would be to do, if even he did know how; but he felt--andmost truly--that it was a new view of the relation between house andbuilder, and he felt proud over having thought it out for himself aswell as for all time to come. Then he had another novel idea--not soaltogether his own, however--which was that a house should "express itsdweller." This latter idea was quite beyond the grasp of his presentaudience and just a little beyond his own grasp, too, but he was braveand conscientious and didn't see it that way at all.
It has taken some time to lay out all these premises, but if there isany one with whom one can desire close acquaintance it is surely the manwho comes to build over a comfortable and in-most-ways-satisfactory homeof long years' standing, so I trust that the minutes have not beenaltogether wasted.
Mrs. Lathrop and Miss Clegg received the young man and his mission insuch states of mind as were entirely compatible with their individualoutlook over life.
"I must say I'm far from altogether liking him," Susan said to herfriend, a very real note of disapproval in her voice, one day toward theend of the week. Mrs. Lathrop was rocking in her new old-gold-plushstationary rocker and listened as usual with interest. "He's on thewoodpile now, drawing a three-quarter profile of the woodshed. The wayhe perches anywhere and then goes to work and draws anything wouldsurely make an English snail pull his castle right into his house alongwith him, for I've got a feeling as there's nothing about me as hehasn't got in his book by this time, and there's many things he's drawnas I never would choose to have the world in general looking over. I'msure I don't want no view of my woodshed going down to posterity for onething. I've had to have a woodshed, but I've never admired it, and theway I've nailed anything handy over holes in it is far from my usual wayof mending. You've always mended 'hit or miss,' Mrs. Lathrop, and afteryears of such doings as was more worthy a poorhouse than a Christian,heaven has seen fit to reward your patching with a son fresh from theKlondike, but I've always darned blue with blue and brown with brown,and the only spot in my whole life that I haven't carefully and neatlymatched the stripes in is my woodshed, and now to-day when I wasthinking very seriously of using it up for the kitchen-stove nextwinter, if there isn't a young man from New York out drawing it in blackand white, and ten to one he'll print it in some unexpected Sunday papermarked 'Jathrop Lathrop's mother's friend Susan Clegg's woodshed!'That'll be a pretty kettle of fish, and you needn't tell me that therewon't be somebody to perk up and say, 'No smoke without some fire,'which will be as good as throwing it in my teeth that I'm one of thoseas use a safety pin when a button's off, when it's a thing as I've neverdone and never would do even if there is a proverb that a pin's a pinfor all that."
Susan paused here and looked upon her friend in serious question. Mrs.Lathrop, however, merely continued to rock pleasantly. A change had comeover the spirit of her rocking since the return of Jathrop. She hadrocked for years with a more or less apologetic air, as if she knew thatthere were those who might criticize her action and yet she couldn'tpersonally feel that she really ought to give it up. But now she rockedwith a wide, free swing as if life was life and if she liked to rock,she was going to rock, and if there were those who objected, they couldobject--she didn't care. There is nothing that so quickly develops anindependent standpoint as the possession of money; there is nothing thatso fully produces a conviction that one is thoroughly justified in doingjust exactly what one pleases; there is nothing that leads to quite thesame lofty indifference as to whether what pleases one pleases ordispleases all the rest of the world.
We have but to look at Jathrop to see that this is true. Of all thetame, mild-eyed, listless young individuals, Jathrop was the worst,falling asleep on an average of three times an afternoon in school, andnever keeping conscious a whole evening. Whether a sudden change inJathrop's character was the cause of making him a financial power orwhether his Klondike-acquired bank account was the cause of hisawakening, it still is a fact that now in his quiet way he was a verylive person.
Jathrop was indifferent to a degree, also, as witness his appearancewith his Chinese boy whom everybody took to be his wife with his greatbaggy trousers and pigtail that no respectable boy, Chinese orotherwise, should wear. Of course, it must be acceded that Jathrop wasindifferent in that case from ignorance. He did not know what the worldwas saying.
Perhaps that accounts for the lofty attitude, one might say loftyaltitude, of so many of our millionaires. They are so far removed fromthe world that their ears cannot hear what is being said. People talk inwhispers about the "very rich," which makes it doubly hard for them tohear, or hearing, to think that it matters very much, else people wouldshout. However, when all is said, money does make a difference.
Mrs. Lathrop had been a silent, sat-upon, unaggressively-rocking personfor years; now Jathrop had come back from the Klondike and altered allthat; it was not that she had turned talkative, it was not that she hadso far altered the very foundations of her being as to presume ever totry to contradict any other body's opinions, but the return of Jathropand the wealth of Jathrop had found expression in his mother through theone medium of almost all expression with her. Mrs. Lathrop had ceased toconcern herself as to the length or the vigor of her rocking. It wasbeautiful to see the energy of independence with which she went back andforth, bringing her feet down with an audible clap whenever she desiredfresh impetus.
Susan Clegg did not seem to sympathize. Instead, sitting on her straightchair opposite, she shook her head severely, further discontent makingitself visible in the manner of her shake.
But Mrs. Lathrop was proof against all manifestations of disapprovalnow. She flew back and forth in the old-gold-plush stationary rockerlike the happy pendulum of some beatific clock. Jathrop was home.Jathrop was rich. Jathrop would buy her anything s
he wanted.
"I d'n know, I'm sure, Mrs. Lathrop," Susan went on, the discontentringing somewhat more distinctly in her tone, "as I'm much taken withthis idea of building us over, even if Jathrop does mean it kindly. Iknow there's a many as would nigh to go out of their senses at the veryidea of being made over new for nothing, but I was never one to go outof my senses easy, and that young man on the woodpile doesn't give meany kind of secure feeling as to what he'll make out of my house. Helooks to me like the kind of young man as will open doors square acrosswindows where the knob'll smash the glass sure if you're trying to carrya bureau out at the time of the house-cleaning. The kind of cravats he'sgot looks to me like his chimneys would be very likely not to draw, andtheir color gives me a feeling that doughnuts in his house will smell inshut-up closets a week after the frying. You know what shut-up fryingsis like after they've had no fresh air for a week, but I wasn't raisedthat way. When I have fish I have fish and done with it, and when I haveonions I have onions, and I ain't very wild over maybe boarding my fishand my onions in my best bonnet henceforth and forever.
"Mrs. Brown was telling me yesterday as she heard of some city woman ashad a system of ventilation put into her house, and the rats and miceused it so freely that you couldn't sleep nights. They nested in it, andthey fought in it, and they died in it, all as happy and gay as youplease, and the family had to have it picked out of the walls in the endand all new paper put on. That's the kind of ideas young men call modernimprovements, and that young man on the woodpile is about as modern andimproving as they make 'em, I take it.
"I can't say what it is about that young man that I don't like, but,being as I'm always frank and open with you, I will remark that so far Iain't found one thing about him as I _do_ like. He's been down cellarhammering on the wall wherever the wind blew him to listeth to hammer,and I had to sit up-stairs and listen without no chance to blow myself.I caught him down on all fours this morning peeking under my frontporch, and he didn't even have the manners to blush. As to the way hemakes free with the outside of _your_ house, I wouldn't waste breathwith trying to tell you, but my own feeling is that an architect learnshis trade on a tight-rope to judge from that young man's manner, andfrom what I've seen while he was swinging by one arm from your premises,I wouldn't feel safe to take a bath even on top of a chimney, myself."
Susan rose at this and went to the window and looked out; from herexpression as she turned, it was plain to be seen that the artist wasstill at his task.
"I don't know, Mrs. Lathrop," she said, coming back to her seat, "I d'nknow, I'm sure, as I'm took with this idea a _tall_. I never was one forfavors either given or asked, and although I know this isn't no favor,but just a evidence of what I've been through with you first and last,still it's done in spite of me and I've got no feeling that I'm going toenjoy it. There's something about kindness as is always most trying tothe people who've got no choice but to stand up and be tried. People whoget freely given to is in the habit of getting what they don't want andcan't use, but I ain't. I'm very far from it. There's nothing in methat's going to be pleased with getting a green hat when I needed a pinkcoat--no, sir.
"And I don't need nothing. Or if I do, I can buy it. I know Jathropmeans it kindly, but Jathrop can't enter into my ways of thinking.Jathrop is looking into life from the Klondike gold-fields and I'mlooking at it from my back stoop. That young man was out swishing hispocket handkerchief about and sucking his thumb and holding it up allyesterday afternoon, and about the time I'd made up my mind to bolt himout of the kitchen for a lunatic, he come in and told me he reallythought there was wind enough in your back yard and my back yardtogether to run a windmill, in which case a water system could be easyinaugurated. I told him I didn't know you could inaugurate anything buta president, but he said anything as you hadn't had before and thoughtwas going to work fine and be a great improvement could be inaugurated.I told him I supposed I could stand a windmill if you could.
"What do you think--what _do_ you think, Mrs. Lathrop, if that young mandidn't ask if he might go and look up the parlor fireplace! Well, I toldhim he could, and I give him a newspaper to shake his head on after hewas done looking, too. He's been in my garret until I bet he knows everytrunk label by heart, and I must say I feel as if I'd have very littleof my own affairs to tell on Judgment Day if he gets dressed and out ofhis grave quicker than I get dressed and out of mine. But that isn'tall, whatever you may think. There's a many other things about him as Idon't like and don't like a _tall_.
"For one thing, he's got a way of looking around as if it was my housethat was the main thing and I was the last and smallest piece ofcross-paper tied in the kite's tail. To my order of thinking, that's afar from polite way for a young man as Jathrop's hiring and boarding tolook on a woman whose house he may thank his lucky stars if he may getthe chance to build over. Mrs. Macy says Mrs. Lupey says architects isall like that, but I'm far from seeing why. I don't consider that youngman superior a _tall_. I consider his brains as very far from beingequal to my own. When he asks me to hold the other end of his tape-lineand does it just as if a pin would do as well, only I was handier at themoment, I'm very far from feeling flattered. I never saw just such ayoung man before, and when I think of being delivered up to him--houseand all--for the summer, I'm also very far from feeling easy. I d'nknow, I'm sure, what will be the end of this, but I do know that itlooks to me like a pretty bad business."
Susan paused again and looked at her friend, but Mrs. Lathrop justrocked onward. Life had widened so tremendously for her that shecouldn't possibly be perturbed in any way or by anything. If the rooffell in, Jathrop would buy her another, and if she were smashed by it,Jathrop would have her put together again. Why worry?
The young man remained ten days in all, and when his visit ofinvestigation was completed, he returned to New York. Jathrop took himto the Lotus Club to wash and to the Yacht Club to lunch and toClaremont in the afternoon (in his motor), and they talked it all over.The young man had his sketches, ideas, ideals, and plans all tied into aneat patent cover with cost-estimates lightly glued in the back. Jathropwas deeply interested, and the young man expounded the inmost soul ofall his measurements and proposed altitudes and alterations. The youngman reminded Jathrop of his pertinent hypothesis that a house shouldexpress its owner. Jathrop's own view of "express" was that if youcould pay the bill, it beat freighting all out of sight, but he feltthat perhaps the young man meant something different, so he merely gavehim a cigar.
The young man took the cigar and proceeded to elucidate his hypothesisby explaining that, having carefully studied both Mrs. Lathrop and MissClegg, he should suggest that Miss Clegg's house express her by beingseverely Doric and that Mrs. Lathrop's should be rambling and Queen Annewith wide, free floor spaces. He further suggested a hyena-headeddoor-knocker for Miss Clegg and an electric button to press, so that thedoor opened of itself for Mrs. Lathrop. Also a roofless pergola toconnect the two houses. Jathrop liked all his ideas and sketches verymuch, but as he was really good-hearted and had not the least desire topresent green hats to those who wanted pink coats, he had the whole booksent down to his mother and begged her to carefully inspect it incompany with Susan Clegg. They inspected it.
"Well," said Susan, "all I can say is I'll have to carry this book homeand sit down and try and make out what he _does_ mean. He's done it veryneat, that I will say, but between crosses and dotted lines and yourhouse behind mine like two Roman emperors on a cameo pin, I can't makehead or tail of what's going to be done to either of us. I can't evenfind my own house in this plan on some pages, and as for this bird-cagewalk that I'm supposed to run back and forth in like a polar bear in acircus all day long, my own opinion is that if it's got no roof, it'sgoing to be very hard indeed about the snow in winter, for I'll have tocarry every single solitary shovelful to one end or the other so as tothrow it out of either your kitchen window or mine. That's all the goodthat will do us."
Mrs. Lathrop swung to and fro, totally unconcerned. No sort ofpropositio
n could disconcert her now. If the house when built overproved a failure, Jathrop would build her another.
Susan took the prettily-bound portfolio home with her and spent theevening over it. She studied it profoundly and to some purpose, for thenext morning when she brought it back to Mrs. Lathrop, it held but fewsecrets, other than those of a purely technical character, for her.
"I've been all through it," she said to her friend, "and now I can'treally tell what I think a _tall_. But this I _do_ know, if we everreally get these houses, I will be running back and forth from dawn todark through that wire tunnel in a way as'll make the liveliest polarbear that ever kept taking a fresh turn look like a petrified treebeside me. Why, only to keep the conveniences he's got put in scouredbright would take me all of every morning in my house, to say nothing ofwiping up the floors, for Jathrop isn't intending to buy us no carpetsever. We're to sit around on cherry when we ain't on Georgia pine, andhe's got every mantelpiece marked with the kind of wood we're to burn init, and he's been kind enough to tell us what colored china we're touse in each bedroom. We're to shoot our clothes into the cellar througha hole from up-stairs and wash 'em there in those two square boxes as wecouldn't make out. That thing I read 'angle-hook' is a 'inglenook,' andso far from sitting in it to fish we're to set in it to look at thefire, if we can get any mahogany to burn in that particular fireplace.
"Those fans are stairs, we're to go up 'em the way the arrow points, andheaven knows where or how we're to get down again. What we thought wasbeds is closets, and what we thought was closets is beds, and it'sevident with all his hopping and hanging he didn't really charge hismind with us a _tall_, for he's got a bedroom in your house marked 'Mr.Lathrop,' when the last bit of real thought would have made him just_have_ to remember as you're a widow. He's give me a sewing-room when hemust have seen that I always do my mending in the kitchen, and he's giveus each enough places to wash to keep the whole community clean. I mustsay he's tried to be fair, for he's give both houses the same number ofrooms and the same names to each room. We've each got a summer kitchen,but he left the spring and autumn to scratch along anyhow; we've eachgot a bathtub, and we've each got a china-closet as well as a pantry,which shows he had very little observation of the way _you_ keep thingsin order."
Mrs. Lathrop absorbed all this with the happy calm of a contented (androcking) sponge.
"But what takes me is the way he's not only got a finger, but has justsmashed both hands, into every pie on the place," Susan continued. "He'smoved the chicken-house and give us each a horse and give the cow a calfwithout even so much as 'by your leave.' I don't know which will be themost surprised if this plan comes true--me with my horse, or the cowfinding herself with a calf in the fall as well as the spring this year.Then it beats me where he's going to get all his trees, for both housesis a blooming bower, and the way tree-toads will sing me to sleep showshe's had no close friends in the country. Trees brushing your windowmean mosquitos at night and spiders whenever they feel so disposed. Andthat ain't all, whatever you may think, for you haven't got awindow-pane over four inches square and, as every window has fifty-sixof them, I see your windows going dirty till out of very shame I get 'emwashed for your funeral. And that ain't all, whatever you may think,either, for the snow is going to lodge all around all those littlegables and inglenooks he's trimmed your roof with, and you'll leakbefore six months goes by, or I'll lose my guess."
But it was impossible to impress Mrs. Lathrop. If things leaked, Jathropwould have them mended. She just rocked and rocked.
"I don't know what to write Jathrop about these plans," Susan Clegg saidslowly. "Of course, I've got to write him something, and I declare Idon't know what to say. He means it kindly, and there's nothing in thewide world that makes things so hard as when people mean kindly. You cando all sorts of things when people is enemies, but when any one meansanything kindly, you've got to eat it if it kills you. Mrs. Allen wastelling me the other day that since she's took a vow to do one goodaction daily, she's lost most all of her friends.
"That just shows how people feel about being grabbed by the neck andheld under till you feel you've done enough good to 'em. Jathrop meansthis well, but I've got a feeling as we'll go through a great deal ofmisery being built over, and I really don't think we'll be so muchbetter off after we've survived. You'll have to be torn right down, andthe day that that young man was up on my porch post, he said he couldn'tbe positive that I'd keep even my north wall. He pounded it all over inthe dining-room until the paper was a sight, and then when he saw howvery far from pleased I was, he tried to get out of it by saying thewall would have to come down, anyhow. I think he saw toward the lastthat he'd gone too far in a many little ways. I didn't like his takingthe hens off their nests to measure how wide the henhouse was. Iconsider a hen is one woman when she's seated at work and had ought notto be called off by any man alive. But, laws, that young man wasn't anyrespecter of work or hens or anything else! He called himself an artist,and since I've been studying these plans, I've begun to think as he wasreally telling the truth, for artists is all crazy, and anything crazierthan these plans I never did see. Not content with having us wash in thesink and the cellar, we're to wash under the front stairs, too, not tospeak of all but swimming up-stairs."
Mrs. Lathrop just smiled and rocked more.
"I'm not in favor of it," said Miss Clegg, rising to go. "I don'tbelieve it'll be any real advantage. We'll be like the Indians that dieas soon as you civilize 'em--that's what we'll be. The windmill willkeep us awake nights, and you don't use any water to speak of, anyhow.So I don't see why I should be kept awake. As for that laughing tigerhe's give me on my front door, I just won't have it, and that's allthere is about it. A laughing tiger's no kind of a welcome to people youwant, and when people come that I don't want, I don't need no tiger tolet 'em know it. No, I never took to that young man, and I don't take tohis plans. I don't like those four pillars across my front any more thanI do that mouse-hole without a roof that he's give me to go to you in. Iconsider it a very poor compliment to you, Mrs. Lathrop, that he's fixedit so if I once start to go to see you, I've got to keep on, for I can'tpossibly get out so to go nowhere else."
Susan Clegg paused. Mrs. Lathrop rocked.
"Well?" said Miss Clegg, impatiently.
But Mrs. Lathrop just rocked. If Susan didn't like it, she needn't likeit. Jathrop would pay the bill.
Susan Clegg went home, her mind still unconvinced.