Part 14 (1/2)

XXV

AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE

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

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

It has seemed to me at times during the last four months as if the carpenters and joiners and plumbers and painters were leagued against Alice and me to defraud and to rob us. I supposed that in these dull and hard times these people would feel in a measure grateful to us for giving them a chance to ply their trades. I find, however, that they expect me to be grateful to them for allowing me the privilege of paying them exorbitant prices for very indifferent services.

Alice wanted to make a contract in every instance, but she was wheedled out of this by the eloquent representations of the sharpers to the effect that it would be much cheaper in the end to pay for the material used and so much per diem for the actual labor done. This looked reasonable enough, but the result was wholly in favor of the per-diem fellows. Our experience has convinced us that a mechanic who is working per diem will never make an end to his job so long as the appropriation holds out.

Of what use would our new house have been to us if the doors and windows and screens and blinds had not been supplied with the fixtures required for their operation? We have very little worth stealing, and yet I feel more secure if there are locks upon our doors and if the windows are fastened down. Uncle Si knew that we would need bolts and locks and other similar hardware fixtures; the neighbors, our busiest advisers, knew it, too; yet n.o.body ever said booh about these things to us. They fancied, forsooth, that we would have by intuition the knowledge which they had acquired by costly experience! And when we complained of the expense and trouble involved in the selection and purchase of these extras, the intimation that we were unreasonably idiotic was freely bandied about by the very people who should have sympathized with us.

The fixtures came late, too late for the big storm. There being no bolt or any other fastening to the north porch door, the wind blew that door open and the rain descended in torrents upon the hardwood floor of the guest chamber. Next day it was apparent that the floor was practically ruined. The carpenters agreed that it would have to be sc.r.a.ped and that it was very likely to swell and spring out of place on account of the soaking it had suffered.

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

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

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

When the floors were sc.r.a.ped and stained and varnished it took two weeks for them to dry; meanwhile n.o.body was permitted to approach them.

A favored few among our most intimate friends were graciously allowed to peer in at the s.h.i.+ning floors from the porch outside, and it seemed very tedious waiting for the time to come when we could put those floors to the uses for which floors are undoubtedly intended.

When at last we _were_ suffered to walk upon the floors an unlooked-for casualty came very near das.h.i.+ng to the ground the cup of joy which our pride had, metaphorically speaking, raised to our lips. Little Josephine, the most precious jewel in our domestic diadem, had never before had any experience with hardwood floors, and no sooner did she begin to dance and caper on that smooth and l.u.s.trous surface than the innocent little lambkin lost her footing and fell, sustaining so severe a shock as to render the services of a physician necessary.

This mishap confirmed me in my dislike for hardwood floors, and that dislike has increased steadily. Several other people have come very near breaking their necks by losing their balance on that treacherous surface, and I confess that I myself am compelled to exercise the art of a Blondin in order to maintain my equilibrium in those slippery places.

Alice has always argued that hardwood floors were particularly desirable for the reason that they did away with the expense and care of carpets. It is true that we are to have no carpets in the apartments where these hardwood floors have been laid, but these handsome floors simply emphasize and italicize a man's poverty unless they are dotted with rugs, and there is none so foolhardy as to deny that the average rug costs five times as much as the average carpet.