That House I Bought. Henry Edward Warner

we were moving to That House I Bought! These are things we think of, but do not write.

      Murphy was indefatigable. We thought we had a load more than Murphy made it, what with shifting this and changing that, and substituting something and stuffing small truck under tables and empty boxes that we wanted for our conservatory. My wife watched him in admiration.

      "Mr. Murphy," she said, "you would be invaluable to the United Railways as a conductor on the Druid Hill avenue line!"

      When the last load was about to leave my wife rushed to the door.

      "Oh, Mr. Murphy, couldn't you take that couch upstairs and drop it off at–"

      Murphy smiled and glanced at the wagon, with things tied on over the wheels, and the china closet swinging perilously far out on the tail piece.

      "I can do it," he said, "if I carry the china closet on my lap."

      Murphy intended that as a jest.

      My wife hadn't thought of the possibilities of Murphy's lap. The instant he mentioned it, she darted back into the house, quickly to reappear with a double armful of odds and ends that she couldn't get into the suit cases and trunks.

      "It's mighty kind of you," she said, with the sort of a smile that nailed me fifteen years ago. "If you can just carry these little things in your lap–"

      Murphy is a game one.

      When he drove away Murphy's lap looked like the market burden of a suburbanite. And because he was so cheerful about it, and so willing to do so much for so little, and because he is such a good citizen, again I say:

      "Heaven bless Murphy!"

      After Murphy had moved us in our real troubles began. I should have said our real joys, for, believe me, the infant troubles of owning your castle are so refined and glorified by the pride of possession that they appear only as strengthening alloy in the pure gold of content.

      It was on Thursday and Friday that Murphy moved us. On Saturday I went to the house, and the lady who will hereafter listen for the tinkle of the door and telephone bells met me, brimming over with cheerfulness and almost as proud of herself as I was of the lord of the manor who strutted like a peacock, as for the first time he showed his feathers in his own front yard.

      Never praise your wife too much, or she will dominate you.

      But as this is to be a truthful chronicle, be it said that my wife is the most wonderful woman in the world. How on earth she ever got the chairs and tables, the china closet and dishes, the cooking hardware and beds and mattresses and my desk and revolving bookcase, and Heaven knows what, all in place in one day is beyond me.

      There were pictures on the walls—old friends in new places, looking down to greet me. A foolish Billiken laughed out loud as I held up my hands in amazement.

      "Step high and easy," said my wife. "You'll scratch the hardwood floor," and she rubbed my heelprint from the polish with the hem of her working skirt. Then we started around testing the push-buttons. We pushed every button there was, and pulled down the curtains to try the effect in the parlor and dining-room. She hauled me around and showed me the marvelous gas range that she was going to do wonders with. That refrigerator, that was yet to have its first load of ice and provisions—it made me hungry just to look at it! We went upstairs and downstairs. I opened and closed every window and made wise-foolish observations on the proper care of a home.

      A man can be a fearful idiot when his chest is out.

      I chucked my coat and cuffs and collar and went to work on little odds and ends of chores about the place. Hasn't a fellow a right to whistle and sing when he comes home from foraging and finds the lady bird dancing around the new nest?

      There was a thermometer on top of the furnace in the basement, and beside it a round thing to tell how much water we were catapulting into the radiators. When there is too much water it overflows from a tank upstairs; when there isn't enough you turn some in downstairs. So I started a march up and down stairs, first turning some on and then scooting skyward to listen to the overflow, and after making this trip about ten times I had an appetite like a typhoid convalescent.

      O the tintinnabulation of the bells!

      There are church bells and wedding bells, bells that cry the joy of a new birth or toll the sorrow of the huddled family, bells that ring victory in war and bells that scream the hilarity of la fiesta! But for the bell that speaks the common language of all men, I name the dinner bell! The first biscuits were piping hot on the plate.

      "Are they as good as your mother used to make?" asked my wife.

      "My mother," I said, "was a piker at biscuit making!"

      And she beamed with pleasure when I slandered my honored mother!

      After the dinner we went out on the porch—the big, wide porch for which we had planned a swing on chains, and sat rocking and digesting, digesting and rocking, in a perfect picture of resident domesticity. In the house across the street there were lights. The people had just moved in—that is, they had moved in several days before and were just beginning to find the trouble with things and why the gas company could afford to pay considerable dividends on wind. I say, we were sitting there as cumfy as possible, when my wife caught my hand in a convulsive grip.

      With the other hand she pointed across the street to the second parlor blind. I followed her, and felt like a Peeping Tom. There on the blind was a great picture in silhouette—a picture of two figures standing, and the tall, masculine figure was holding both shoulders of the other and looking square into her eyes.

      "It's the daughter!" my wife almost whispered. "I know her by her hair ribbon; it's too young for the mother! Look, look, they are going to ki–"

      She finished the word with a little gurgle, for they had done it! Not only that, but the kiss was followed by an embrace, and another, and then the lights went out.

      A confounded belt had slipped at the powerhouse, I learned afterward.

      I think corporations should be heavily penalized for such breaks in the service. There should be some sort of appliance to keep belts from slipping. More than once the belt has slipped and left that whole residence district in darkness.

      THIRD PERIOD

      I had always regarded the humorous paragraphs about the price of coal as mere pleasantries. I now deny that they are pleasantries, and they are far from "mere."

      There are several grades of coal. Our furnace takes No. 3, and it's $6.60 a ton, April price. The man who dominates the situation told me by way of consolation that if it hadn't been for the big strike coal would be 50 cents a ton cheaper. I can't see how that sort of consolation helps a fellow.

      Our house burns about ten or twelve tons, normal conditions. We figured that about eight tons now would be the proper caper, and we could pay the difference next winter if driven to it. From the way the furnace ate coal to take the chill off the house the first day, I could see the Board of Charities asking me my name, address, age, social condition and whether my parents ever went to jail.

      Now $6.60 times eight tons is $52.80, and that's more than taxes, water rent and interest on a house and lot. So when the man backed up with a cartload and began to throw it in off-handedly, I was pained. A coal-heaver should treat $52.80 with more respect. I have seen men throw high-grade ore out of the Independence mine with the same callous indifference, without myself being shocked; but here was a new situation. It was my $52.80 he was throwing around like dirt, and I spoke to him about it.

      "How," I said, "can you have the heart to dump $52.80 into my cellar without ceremony? You should at least remove your hat."

      Do you know, I don't believe he appreciated the situation.

      William made the first fire. I instructed him to lay on the coal as scarcely as possible, and to go slow with the draughts. So he threw on six shovelsful of my $52.80, opened everything and ran it up to 204 degrees F. Any man who sat ten minutes in our house and then dared to expose himself in a Turkish steam room would freeze to death in ten seconds.

      We had a fire in the furnace two or three days. I got interested in (a) a newly patented ash