The House

by Eugene Field

  XXIV

  DRIVEWAYS AND WALL-PAPERS

  Had we been so disposed we could have given the wretched Percival Wax agreat deal of trouble. Lawyer Miles was anxious to prosecute thefellow, and I dare say he felt that he had missed the greatestopportunity of his life when Alice and I concluded to let the matterdrop. We were moved to this decision by the consideration that, whilewe owed Percival Wax only our resentment and vengeance, a prosecutionof him for his numerous misdemeanors would put us to no end of trouble.The exposure and punishment of vice would doubtless prove much morepopular among the virtuous, did not these proceedings involve so greatan expenditure both of time and of labor. Alice and I were not long inmaking up our minds that we had plenty of other unavoidable troubles toengage our attention; so we let the tramp go, but not, however, until Ihad lectured him seriously upon the propriety of his abandoning hisevil ways and until Alice had given him a clean shirt and an old pairof shoes with which to start out afresh upon the pathway of reform,which he solemnly promised to follow.

  If you have ever passed the old Schmittheimer place--and doubtless youhave, for it is the pride and ornament of a most aristocraticsection--you must have noticed the roadway that leads from the streetto the residence that looms up majestically two hundred feet back fromthe street. Perhaps you have wondered why grounds in other respects soattractive should be defaced by a feature so unsightly and soimpracticable as this identical roadway.

  And yet, as I told Alice, this roadway was actually the most naturalfeature of the place; there was absolutely no touch of artificialityabout it; it was originally a stretch of sand, and such it had remainedfrom time immemorial, by which I mean from that remote date--presumablyeighteen centuries ago--when the receding waters of Lake Michigan leftthe spot subsequently to be known as the old Schmittheimer place highand dry in section 5, range 16, township 3. The genius of man hadwrought wondrous and beautiful changes elsewhere, converting marshesinto boulevards and transforming sandy wastes into blooming gardens;but never had it expended a touch or a thought upon that baldprehistoric streak which served as a driveway for all vehicles thatdared invade the old Schmittheimer place.

  How many vehicles had in the lapse of years been hopelessly maimed ortotally wrecked while trying to traverse that roadway I shall notpresume to say, for as a man of science I glory in exactness and Ieschew surmise. This much I know, for I have seen it time and againduring the last four months: nothing that moves on wheels has venturedupon that roadway that it did not sink slowly but surely up to the hubsof its wheels in the unresisting sand. The Pusheck grocery cart brokea spring the first time it drove in, and the wagon that hauled thesteam fixtures was stalled for three hours in one of those treacherousdepressions in which the roadway abounds, depressions which, as I amtold, are known to dwellers in hilly country places as "thank-ye-marms."

  Until I became acquainted with this particular roadway I never fullycomprehended the nicety and the force of the phrase "to drive in." Ihad heard people say that they had driven into such and such places,and I had wondered why they employed this figure of speech when, itseemed to me, it would have been more exact to say that they enteredupon or drove over. But I know now that it is no figure of speech whenone says that he drives into the old Schmittheimer place. No otherphrase could more exactly express an actuality.

  If we were going to retain the driveway in all its unhamperedprehistoric simplicity, just as the glacial period found and left it,it would really be the proper thing for us to found and to maintain arescue station in its vicinity, for we have been called upon to hastento the relief of every vehicle that has "driven into" the premisessince we took possession. And a very serious theological aspect ofthis matter is had in a consideration of the fact that this prehistoricdriveway not only breaks spokes and tires and hubs and springs, butalso incites human beings to break the third commandment. I haveoverheard the young man who drives Pusheck's grocery cart indulging inexpletives which I am sure he never learned as a member of Alice'sBible class.

  So, taking one consideration with another, Alice and I determined tohave a new road. Undoubtedly this was a wise determination; if we hadgone ahead from that wise beginning and built the road as we hadplanned, all would have been well. The serious error we made was inseeking the counsel of our neighbors--the very same error we have madeand kept on making over and over again ever since we entered upon thisscheme of the new house.

  I take it for granted that you know as well as I do that when it comesto roads, there are as many different kinds of roads as there areplanetoids in the solar system. Furthermore, paradoxical as it mayappear, each of these different kinds is better than any of theseothers, for each possesses not only all the advantages of the others,but also certain distinct and paramount advantages of its own. Aliceand I had decided upon a dirt road, because we believed that a dirtroad would conform in appearance to the other rustic and farmlikefeatures of the place, and because we fancied that a dirt road could beconstructed cheaply.

  I use the term "dirt road" under protest. I am aware that what iscalled a dirt road is, properly speaking, an earth road. Dirt isfilth, but earth is not; so when we call an earth road a dirt road wecommit a vulgar error by employing a wrong epithet. All this I know,and yet, conforming to a custom, because it is a custom followed by allexcept a smattering of purists, I humiliate my sense of integrity, andI prostitute the virtue of my native speech.

  In an unguarded moment, as I have intimated, we confided to ourneighbors the precious secret that the stretch of sand from our frontgate to our backyard was to make way for a modern, safe, andcomfortable driveway. Immediately we were overwhelmed with suggestionsand advice as to the particular kind of driveway we really ought tohave. You may have noticed that whenever a friend (a dear, goodfriend) advises, he or she invariably tells you what you really _ought_to have--putting much emphasis on the "ought." This clinches andrivets the advice. When one says to you that you really ought to havesuch or such a thing, he means, of course, that you would have it ifyou were not either too poor or too stupid (or both) to get it. Aliceand I are poor in purse, but I deny that we are idiots.

  Not to consume your time with further discourse upon this subject(although I will concede that it has its fascinations and itsimportance), I will say that the primitive roadway (illustrative of thepre-glacial period) still winds its Saharan course through ourpremises. For Alice and I are undetermined whether to follow our owninstincts and have a dirt road (there it is again!) or whether toconcede to neighborly influence in the matter of this driveway, just aswe have conceded upon nearly every other detail that has come up forconsideration within the last four months. I dare say we shalleventually come back to our original plan, for it is already as clearas the noonday sun that if we adopt the suggestion of any one neighborwe shall have all the rest of our neighbors down on us for the rest ofour lives.

  We had an unpleasant experience of this character in the matter ofwall-paper. It seems that Alice and Adah consulted all the women-folksin their acquaintance, and after much agitation made such selections ofwall-paper as they believed would serve as a felicitous compromisebetween all parties consulted and all tastes expressed. The result isthat nobody is suited--nobody but me. As for me, I am too much of aphilosopher and too busy with my philosophy to spend any time worryingabout the color or the pattern of the paper on the walls. If the paperis not so prepossessing as it might be, I should be glad that it isupon my walls rather than upon the walls of those whom it would vexmuch more than it does me.

  I do not mind telling you that my favorite color in wall-paper (as wellas in everything else) is red, and it was a delicate concession uponAlice's part to cover the walls of my study over the kitchen with paperof undeniably red hue, upon which appear tracings of yellowish white ina pattern particularly pleasing to my uneducated eye. LittleJosephine's room (which is shared by Alice's sister Adah) is decoratedwith wall-paper in which red is also the predominant color. Thepattern is of bunches of roses
in full bloom, and these counterfeitpresentments are so true to the life that when little Josephine firstentered the apartment she reached out her tiny hands in rapture andsought to pluck the beautiful flowers. Adah, too, is delighted withthis floral design; the rose is her favorite flower, and by a charmingcoincidence it happens to be also the favorite flower of Adah's friendMaria--of course you remember Maria; married Johnnie Richardson, andlives at St. Joe, Missouri. So, you see, there are several tendersentiments attaching Adah to that rose-bedecked apartment.

  And yet (will you believe it?) there are those who do not at allapprove of the wall-paper in which I and little Josephine and Adah (tosay nothing of Maria) take so great delight. Some of these people havebeen ill-mannered enough to laugh aloud and long when they beheld theimpassioned hue of the covering of the walls in my study! There wasone person (I forbear mention of her name) who seriously said shethought we 'd be afraid to let little Josephine sleep in thatrose-garlanded room; that the glaring colors would be likely to givethe dear child the "willies." I do not know what the "willies" are,but I do know that little Josephine sleeps well, eats well, and ishappy, and this is all that we could hope for in one of her tenderyears.

  Now while I cannot do otherwise than defend the choices in wall-paperswhich Alice and Adah have made, I distinctly recognize and I regret twovery unpleasant facts: first, that by not complying with their adviceupon the subject we have grievously offended a number of our neighbors,and, second, that Alice and Adah are prepared to set down in the listof their active and malignant foes every woman who presumes todisparage either by word or by look the wall-paper they have picked outas most pleasing to their tastes.

  XXV

  AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE

  The detail of hardware fixtures did not enter into our originalcalculations. This was very stupid of us, so everybody elsesaid--everybody, of course, who had been through the ordeal of buildinga house. It is surprising how soon one who has had this experienceforgets that before he had that experience he was as ignorant and asunsuspecting a body as could be imagined.

  I suspect that after all it is a good thing for humanity that allpeople do not have to go through with what Alice and I have experiencedthe last four months. Otherwise the world would be filled withdistrust, for I can conceive of nothing else so likely to sow the seedsof rancor and of suspicion in one's bosom as an experience at buildinga house.

  It has seemed to me at times during the last four months as if thecarpenters and joiners and plumbers and painters were leagued againstAlice and me to defraud and to rob us. I supposed that in these dulland hard times these people would feel in a measure grateful to us forgiving them a chance to ply their trades. I find, however, that theyexpect me to be grateful to them for allowing me the privilege ofpaying them exorbitant prices for very indifferent services.

  Alice wanted to make a contract in every instance, but she was wheedledout of this by the eloquent representations of the sharpers to theeffect that it would be much cheaper in the end to pay for the materialused and so much per diem for the actual labor done. This lookedreasonable enough, but the result was wholly in favor of the per-diemfellows. Our experience has convinced us that a mechanic who isworking per diem will never make an end to his job so long as theappropriation holds out.

  Of what use would our new house have been to us if the doors andwindows and screens and blinds had not been supplied with the fixturesrequired for their operation? We have very little worth stealing, andyet I feel more secure if there are locks upon our doors and if thewindows are fastened down. Uncle Si knew that we would need bolts andlocks and other similar hardware fixtures; the neighbors, our busiestadvisers, knew it, too; yet nobody ever said booh about these things tous. They fancied, forsooth, that we would have by intuition theknowledge which they had acquired by costly experience! And when wecomplained of the expense and trouble involved in the selection andpurchase of these extras, the intimation that we were unreasonablyidiotic was freely bandied about by the very people who should havesympathized with us.

  The fixtures came late, too late for the big storm. There being nobolt or any other fastening to the north porch door, the wind blew thatdoor open and the rain descended in torrents upon the hardwood floor ofthe guest chamber. Next day it was apparent that the floor waspractically ruined. The carpenters agreed that it would have to bescraped and that it was very likely to swell and spring out of place onaccount of the soaking it had suffered.

  Hardwood floors may have their advantages: they ought to have, for theyare a costly luxury and they are a great care. Owing to the fewhardwood floors in our new house we were delayed moving into the placefor many weeks. When Uncle Si and his cohort got through with themthey were as billowy as the surface of the ocean.

  The painters came to us one by one and apprized us in confidence thatthose floors were the worst they had ever seen. They said that thecarpenters must have supposed that we wanted a toboggan slide insteadof hardwood floors. This sarcasm rankled in our bosoms.

  At this critical juncture Lansom Mansom, the cabinetmaker who had madeour bookcases for us, came to our relief with the suggestion that he beemployed to "go over" the floors and make them practicable. He advisedthe per-diem scheme, and with characteristic good nature we acceded toit. Thereupon this crafty and thrifty person set himself about thisdelectable task, which busied him five weeks at four dollars a day--asum not to be sneezed at, I can tell you.

  When the floors were scraped and stained and varnished it took twoweeks for them to dry; meanwhile nobody was permitted to approach them.A favored few among our most intimate friends were graciously allowedto peer in at the shining floors from the porch outside, and it seemedvery tedious waiting for the time to come when we could put thosefloors to the uses for which floors are undoubtedly intended.

  When at last we _were_ suffered to walk upon the floors an unlooked-forcasualty came very near dashing to the ground the cup of joy which ourpride had, metaphorically speaking, raised to our lips. LittleJosephine, the most precious jewel in our domestic diadem, had neverbefore had any experience with hardwood floors, and no sooner did shebegin to dance and caper on that smooth and lustrous surface than theinnocent little lambkin lost her footing and fell, sustaining so severea shock as to render the services of a physician necessary.

  This mishap confirmed me in my dislike for hardwood floors, and thatdislike has increased steadily. Several other people have come verynear breaking their necks by losing their balance on that treacheroussurface, and I confess that I myself am compelled to exercise the artof a Blondin in order to maintain my equilibrium in those slipperyplaces.

  Alice has always argued that hardwood floors were particularlydesirable for the reason that they did away with the expense and careof carpets. It is true that we are to have no carpets in theapartments where these hardwood floors have been laid, but thesehandsome floors simply emphasize and italicize a man's poverty unlessthey are dotted with rugs, and there is none so foolhardy as to denythat the average rug costs five times as much as the average carpet.And the care demanded by a hardwood floor is exacting, for that shiningsurface, upon which every spot of dust stands out so distinctly, mustbe gone over daily with a soft brush, and must be wiped up with a wetcloth at least thrice a week.

  Moreover the utmost precaution must be practised lest the surface ofthe hardwood floor be scratched or be seamed by the nails in one'sboots or by the legs of tables or of chairs. Our youngest son,Erasmus, complains grievously of the restrictions put upon him since heentered upon this hardwood-floor epoch of his career. It is hard forthe buoyant lad to understand why he is not to be permitted to slideand skate on these floors as he has hitherto been permitted to slideand skate on the floors of the rented houses we have lived in. I havenot chided Erasmus for his remonstrances, for I, too, have been temptedto rebel against the new order of things. If either Erasmus or I everbuild a house of our own we shall eschew the hardwood-floor heresy aswe would a pest.

 
; There is another evil which I am at this moment reminded of, and thatis the folding-door evil. In all my experience I have never met withanother door as honest, sensible, and trustworthy as the door thatswings on hinges.

  I told Alice so when the subject of doors came up in our discussions ofproposed innovations in the new house. But Alice had conceived thenotion that we ought to have a folding door in the parlor, and whenAlice once gets a notion into her head all creation with a pickaxecouldn't get it out again.

  Properly speaking, the door was not a folding door; it was a slidingdoor. When pushed back it was to disappear in the wall separating theparlor from the front hall. When I saw Uncle Si and his menconstructing this door I expressed the fear that it wouldn't work, butUncle Si laughed my fears to scorn; the trouble with too many doors, hesaid, was that they were made of cheap stuff; _this_ door, he assuredme, was an A No. 1 door and would never--could never--get out of place.Then he showed me the rollers and attachments and proved theirpracticability and strength.

  Not knowing any more about such things than a seacow knows of thesummer solstice, I assented to all his propositions and went my waywith my apprehensions completely allayed. But in less than forty-eighthours after Uncle Si and his men turned over the house to us, bang wentthat door, and no power at our command could budge it an inch eitherway.

  Another carpenter came and investigated. Presently he shook his headand smiled a bitter smile. Then he told us that the break would nothave happened if the fixtures had not been of the cheapest make. Whatwe required, he said, was fixtures that cost ten dollars instead ofthree dollars, our door being a large parlor door and not a lightpantry door.

  We bade this sarcastic genius go ahead and remedy the evil as best hecould, and the result is that the door now slides as smoothly as eventhe most exacting could wish: this repair has involved the expenditureof only fifteen dollars, and I would not mention it if I had anyconfidence whatever in the door even in its rehabilitated condition. Iknow as well as I know anything else that as soon as we build a fire inour heating apparatus next November the heat thereof will warp andtwist that door into such shape that it will be as impossible to budgeit as if it were nailed down. We shall then be in a serious pickle,for we shall be unable to enter our parlor.

  The windows all over the house are fast in their casings, having beenpainted so carefully by those rascally painters that it requires thepower of a steam derrick to raise them. The other morning I tried toopen one of the windows in the butler's pantry, for the atmosphere inthat place was absolutely stifling. I tugged and pulled and pushed invain.

  Finally a happy thought struck me, and I hunted up a hammer and used itlustily upon the obstinate sash. I must have got careless, for after Ihad hammered away for several minutes I missed my aim and the head ofthe hammer went through a pane of glass.

  I didn't want Alice to know anything about this mishap, so I furtivelyhired a glazier to repair the damage I had done. As I made no contractwith the fellow he took advantage of me, just as I should have known byexperience he would. Here is a copy of the bill he has just sent infor me to pay:

  "REUBEN BAKER, Esq., to J. SYKES, Dr.

  To one pane glass 7x11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 To one day's labor setting same . . . . . . . . . . . $3.60 ----- Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3.90 Please remit."

  [It was the intention of Mr. Field to add a final chapter to his bookdescribing the entrance of the Baker family into their new home, buthis sudden death left the book with this chapter unwritten.]