The House
Page 23
XXII
THE BUTLER'S PANTRY
In the good old days, which were, of course, the days when you and Iwere boys and girls together at Biddeford, Me., our civilization knewnothing of that miserable invention which is now foisted upon themodern house under the name of butler's pantry. In those good old dayswe used to have pantries and china closets and butteries and all thatsort of thing, and people were contented.
At the present time, however, civilization is so curiously possessed ofa desire to ape the customs of European society that every kind ofinnovation is seized upon with enthusiasm and without any apparentregard for the derision and contempt to which it renders us liable. Inmy opinion (which is sustained by such an eminent authority as LawyerMiles) the butler's pantry without the butler is as absurd acontrivance as a carriage without a horse or a purse without gold orsilver to put therein. Yet there is not, I presume to say, a tenementhouse in all this city that has not its butler's pantry; without thisadjunct no home is considered complete, and it makes no differencewhether "the lady of the house" does her own work or is able to employfemale servants, the butler's pantry is a sine qua non.
I told Alice that I regarded a butler's pantry much in the light of alast year's bird's nest, and I added that since we were going to have abutler's pantry minus the butler I supposed the next move would be inthe direction of a wine cellar minus the wine. But my humor is whollylost upon Alice; since she began training with other householders thatsuperior woman has exhibited a strange indifference to my suggestionsand counsel.
I mentioned Lawyer Miles a moment ago. This gives me the opportunityof saying that my sympathies have gone out with enthusiasm toward thatgifted man ever since I heard him remark, not very long ago, that heliked to have things cluttered up in his house. I am not able todefine the compound "cluttered-up," but it conveys to my mind a meaningthat is perfectly clear, and it suggests conditions which are pleasingto me. I, too, like to have things cluttered up. The most dreadfulday in the week is, to my thinking, Friday--not because we invariablyhave fried fish upon that day, but because it is upon Friday that avandal hired girl appears in my study and, under the direction of mywife, proceeds to "put things in shape." Alice insists that I am notorderly or methodical, yet amid all the so-called disorder of my studyI can at any moment lay my hands upon any chart or map or book or paperI require, provided everything is left just where I drop it.
My doctrine about such things is that books and charts and papers weremade for use and are therefore of the greatest utility when mostavailable. When I am at work I like my tools around me; if they arenot handy, my work is interrupted, and an interruption often breaks thetrain of thought and renders impotent or at least mediocre an endeavorwhich elsewise would be excellent. In their ambition to "put things inshape," and to give me an object lesson in order and method, Alice andher vandal hired girl hide my tools of trade, disposing of my books,papers, and pens, and even of my slippers, in such ingenious wise as tokeep me busy for hours finding these necessities and replacing themwhere they will be available.
I thought that Alice and her mercenary were the only women in the worldaddicted to this weekly practice, but from what Lawyer Miles and othermarried men tell me I gather that there are other wives in the worldquite as possessed of the seven devils of order and method as Alice is.
To return to that other matter: Alice has hinted to me that she intendsto store a great deal of my own porcelain and pottery away in thebutler's pantry. I had hoped that when we got into the new house weshould have plenty of space for displaying the platters, plates, bowls,teapots, etc., etc., to which age has added a special charm, and thecollection of which has involved the expenditure of much time and moneyupon my part.
I am convinced, however, that Alice intends to hide all these beautifulold specimens away; the butler's pantry is evidently for this purpose.I have not questioned Alice about it, but (to use Uncle Si's favoriteexpression) "it's dollars to doughnuts" that Alice is figuring ondisplaying her sixty-dollar set of new porcelain in the new glasscabinet in the dining-room, while my rare antiques--among them the blueplatter, which was sent me from New Orleans, and which belongedoriginally to the pirate Lafitte--are relegated to the dim mysteriousshelves of the butler's pantry, where dust will obscure them andspiders make them their favorite romping grounds. I intend to askLawyer Miles what he would do under like circumstances.
There is a sink in the butler's pantry, but it is wholly superfluous.I am told that this adjunct is useful in washing such dishes andglassware as are too precious to be sent to the kitchen. All thissounds very fine, but the practice is to whew the tableware of allkinds into the kitchen, whether there be a sink in the butler's pantryor not. My grandmother (and my mother, too) never suffered a servantto wash the fine porcelain or the cut glass; that responsible task wasalways reserved for the housewife herself, and the result was that noporcelain was chipped and no cut glass cracked. They sent me an oldwillow teapot from Biddeford, and it had n't been with us three weeksbefore our Celtic cook marred its symmetry by chipping off itsvenerable nozzle.
The only reason why so many charming bits of china have come down to usfrom the last century is that our grandmothers and our mothers caredfor these things and protected them from rough usage. But, bless yoursoul! do you suppose Alice could be induced to bare her arms and applyherself to the task of washing a stack of antique porcelain or a row ofcut-glass tumblers? No, not for the entire wealth of Wedgewood or thecombined output of Dresden and of Sevres!
Mrs. Baylor tells me that I am doing the butler's pantry a graveinjustice; that the servants will use it, and that it will prove agreat convenience. I do not wish to appear unreasonable and I amwilling to concede that the servants will utilize the pantry and itsdeath-dealing sink. It is very probable that under their auspices theslaughter of china and of glassware will be continued; it moots not tothe average hired-girl whether the sink be in the kitchen or thebutler's pantry, upon the housetop or in the bowels of the earth; thework of destruction goes on at four dollars a week and every Thursdayout.
It was during the pantry agitation that Mr. Patrick Devoe came into ourlives. He approached us one sweltering afternoon and introducedhimself with all the urbanity of a native of Glanmire, County Cork. Hepraised our house and our premises and my wife and our children. Wewondered what he was driving at, but he didn't keep us in suspense verylong, for he was, as he assured us, a business man from the word "go."He was, it appeared, the proprietor of a street-sprinkling cart, andthe object of his call upon us was to crave the boon of sprinklingClarendon Avenue in front of our place at the merely nominal price often cents a day.
Mr. Devoe could hardly have called at a time more favorable to hisinterests. The day was, as I have already intimated, oppressively hot:there was a stiff wind from the south and the dust rolled up the avenuein clouds. Mr. Devoe represented to us that the other people in theneighborhood had contracted for his services and our reputation beliedus if we were unwilling to secure at a paltry financial outlay whatwould contribute to our comfort and health. This persuasive gentlemanassured us that, under the benign influence of his sprinkling cart,Clarendon Avenue would presently become one of the most popular ofsuburban driveways. Hither would equipages come from every quarter,and the thoroughfare eventually would be famed as the coolest,shadiest, and most fashionable in Chicago.
Furthermore Mr. Devoe represented that the trees, shrubbery, and grassof our premises would be directly benefited by his sprinkling cart; thegracious flood of water, distributed twice a day by his itinerant cart,would not only lay the dust of the highway, but also permeate andcirculate through the contiguous soil, bearing refreshment and healthto tree, plant, and flower alike. The vigor of vegetation meant muchto humanity; by this means an abundance of ozone would be supplied tothe circumambient atmosphere, insuring healthful sleep and generalreinvigoration to man, woman, and child.
Mr. Devoe's presentation of the facts and possibilities was soconvincing
that both Alice and I recognized the propriety of securinghis services. The sum of ten cents per diem seemed very trifling; itwas not until after Mr. Devoe had departed with our contract in hispocket that we began to realize that, however insignificant ten centsper diem might be, seventy cents per week was not to be sneezed at,while twenty-one dollars for the season was simply a grossextravagance. I was in favor of recalling and annulling our contractwith Mr. Devoe, but Alice insisted that we should keep strictly in linewith the other neighbors, doing nothing likely to stigmatize us eitheras mean or as unfashionable.
A day or two after this incident a ruffianly looking fellow called onus to "make arrangements," as he said, about hauling away our garbagewhen we got moved into our new house. I told the fellow that the citysent a garbage wagon around every week to remove the garbage free ofcost. To this the fellow replied that the city did its workcarelessly, that the wagon was invariably overloaded, and that noreliance could be placed upon the garbage boxes being emptied if thatresponsible duty were intrusted to the city employes.
The fellow seemed to know what he was talking about, and hisrepresentations were so fair that finally I agreed to pay himtwenty-five cents a week for hauling the garbage away. That evening Iheard from Mr. Baylor that the scheme was a vulgar bit of blackmail;that the fellow was driver for one of the city wagons and made apractice of extorting fees from householders for doing work which hewas already paid to do. I felt grievously outraged and I threatened toreport this infamy to the municipal authorities. But Mr. Baylor andother friends assured me that these infamous practices of blackmailwere encouraged at the City Hall, and that I would simply be laughed atif I ventured to complain.
It was about this time, too, that I paid a man four dollars to cleanout the catch basin in the rear of our premises. The man told me thatthe catch basin was "reeking with the germs of disease." I did n't seehow that could well be, since the sewer had not been laid six weeks.However, the man insisted, and he talked so portentously of bacteriaand bacilli and morbiferous microbes that finally in a terror ofapprehension I gave him four dollars and bade him do his saving workand do it quickly.
When the neighbors heard of this incident they unanimously pronouncedme a fool, accompanying that opprobrious stigmatization with an epithetwhich my religious convictions prohibit me from recording.