NINETY-THREE AND NINETY-FOUR.
Ninety-three and Ninety-four were two houses standing side by side inthe outskirts of a country town, and to all outward appearance as likeeach other as two peas. They were the pioneer buildings of a small brickblock; but as yet the rest of the block had not been built, which wasall the better for Ninety-three and Ninety-four, and gave them morespace and outlook. Both had French roofs with dormer windows; both frontdoors "grained" to represent oak, the graining falling into a pattern ofregular stripes like a watered silk; and across the front of each, onthe ground floor, ran the same little sham balcony of varnishediron,--balconies on which nothing heavier than a cat could venturewithout risk of bringing the frail structures down into the street.
Inside, the houses differed in trifling respects, as houses must whichare under the control of differing minds; but in one point they wereprecisely alike within,--which was, that the back room of the thirdstory of each was occupied by a girl of seventeen.
It is of these two rooms that I want to tell the story. So much has beensaid and written of late years about home decoration and the methods ofproducing it, that I think some other girls of seventeen with rooms tomake pretty may like to hear of how Eleanor Pyne and May Blodgettmanaged theirs.
Eleanor was the girl at Ninety-three. She and May were intimate friends,or considered themselves such. Intimacy is a word very freely used amongyoung people who have not learned what a sacred word it is and how verymuch it means. They had grown up together, had gone to the same schools,shared most of their pleasures as well as their lessons, sent each otherChristmas presents and birthday cards every year, and consulted inadvance over their clothes, spring bonnets, and fancy work, which, takenall together, may be said to make an intimacy according to the generaluse of the term. So it was natural that, when May, stirred by the senseof young-ladyhood just at hand and by the modern impulse for housedecoration, desired to "do over" and beautify her room, Eleanor shoulddesire it also.
Making a room pretty nowadays would seem easy enough where there isplenty of money for the purpose. There is only the embarrassment ofchoice, though that is so embarrassing at times as to lead one to envythose grandmothers of ours, who, with only three or four patterns ofeverything to choose from, and those all ugly, had but the simple taskof selecting the least ugly! But in the case of my two girls there wasthis further complication, that very little money could be used foradornment of the bedrooms. Mrs. Blodgett and Mrs. Pyne had consultedover the matter, and the decision was that Eleanor and May might eachspend twenty dollars, and no more.
What can be done with twenty dollars? It will buy one pretty article offurniture. It will pay for a "Kensington Art Square," with perhapsenough left for cheese-cloth curtains. It will paper a room, or paintit. You can easily dispose of the whole of it, if you will, in a singleportiere. And here were two rooms which needed renovation from floor toceiling!
The rooms were of the same size. Both had two windows looking north andan ample closet. The most important difference lay in the fact that thebuilder of the houses, for some reason known only to himself, had put asmall fireplace across the corner of Eleanor's room, and had put none inMay's. _Per contra_ May's room was papered, which she considered acounterbalancing advantage; but as the paper was not very pretty,Eleanor did not agree with her.
Many were the consultations held between the two girls. And just here,before they had actually begun operations, a piece of good luck befellboth of them. Eleanor's grandmother presented her with an easy-chair, anold one, very shabby as to cover, but a good chair still, and verycomfortable. And almost simultaneously a happily timed accident occurredto Mrs. Blodgett's spare-room carpet, which made the buying of a new onenecessary, and the old one was given to May. It was a still respectableBrussels, with rather a large medallion figure on a green ground. It didnot comport very well with the blue and drab paper on the walls, and themedallions looked very big on the smaller floor; but May cared nothingfor that, and she accepted her windfall gleefully.
"It will save ever and ever so much," she said, joyously. "Carpets docost so. Poor Eleanor, you will have to get one for yourself, unless youcan persuade your cook to upset an oil lamp on one of your mother's."
"Oh, Annie is too careful; she could never be persuaded to do such athing as that," laughed Eleanor. "Besides, I don't want her to. I don'tlike any of mother's carpets very much."
"Well, I don't care what sort of a carpet it is so long as I don't haveto buy it," said May.
"I do," replied Eleanor.
She did. There was this great point of difference between the friends.Eleanor possessed by nature that eye for color and sense of effectswhich belongs to what people call the "artistic" temperament. May hadnone of this, and did not even understand what it meant. To her all redsand olives and yellows were alike; differences of tone, inflections oftint, were lost on her untrained and unappreciative vision. She wasunconscious of this deficiency, so it did not annoy her, and as Eleanorhad a quiet and pleasant way of differing with her, they neverquarrelled. But none the less did each hold to her own point of view andher own opinion.
So, while May read eagerly all the articles in the secular and religiouspapers which show how girls and women have made plain homes cheaplycharming by painting sunflowers and Black-Eyed Susans on ink-bottles andmolasses-jugs, converting pork-barrels into arm-chairs with the aid of"excelsior" and burlaps, and "lighting up" dark corners with six-centfans, and was fired with an ambition to do the same, Eleanor silentlydissented from her enthusiasms. She was ready to help, however, evenwhen she did not agree; and May, glad of the help, did not notice muchthe lack of sympathy. It is often so in friendships. One does thetalking and one the listening. One kisses while the other holds out thecheek, as the French proverb puts it; one lays down the law and theother differs without disputing it, so both are satisfied.
It was so in this case. Eleanor was doing a great deal of quiet thinkingand planning while May chattered by the hour over her projects.
"What I want my room to be," she told her friend, "is gay and dressy. Ihate dull-looking rooms, and having no carpet or paper to buy I can getlots of chintz. There's a lovely pattern on the bargain counter atShell's for fourteen cents, all over roses. I am going to have a wholepiece of it, and just cover up all that awful old yellow furniture ofmine entirely. The bureau is to have little rods across the front andcurtains to hide the drawers, like that picture in the 'Pomologist,' andI shall make a soapbox footstool and a barrel chair, and havelambrequins and a drapery over my bed, and a coverlet and valances. Thewashstand I have decided to do in burlaps with cat-tails embroidered onthe front, and a splasher with a pattern of swans and, 'Wash and beclean.' Won't it be lovely?
"You know those black-walnut book-shelves of mine," she went on, after apause; "well, I am going to cover them in white muslin with littlepleated ruffles on the edges and pink satin bows at the corners. SarahStanton has promised to paint me a stone bottle with roses to put ontop, and Bell Short is working me a wall banner. It's going to be thegayest little place you ever saw."
"Won't the white muslin soil soon, and won't so much chintz get verydusty?" objected Eleanor.
"Oh, they can be washed," replied May, easily.
So the big roll of chintz was ordered home, and for a fortnight she andEleanor spent all their spare time in hemming ruffles, tacking pleatingson to wooden shelves, and putting up frills and curtains. When all wasdone the room looked truly very fresh and gay. The old yellow "cottagefurniture" had vanished under its raiment of chintz and was quitehidden. Even the foot-board of the bed had its slip-cover and flounce.The books were ranged in rows on the muslin shelves with crisp littleruffles above and below. Flowers and bright-colored zig-zags of crewelsadorned everything. Wherever it was possible, a Japanese fan was stuckon the wall, or a bow of ribbon, or a little embroidered something, or aChristmas card. Scarfs of one sort or another were looped across thecorners of the pictures, tidies innumerable adorned the chair-backs andtable-tops.
There was a general look of fulness and of an irresistibletendency in things to be of no particular use except to make spots ofmeaningless color and keep the eye roving restlessly to and fro.
"Isn't it just lovely?" said May, as she stood in the doorway to take inthe effect. "Now, Eleanor Pyne, do say it's lovely."
"It's as bright as can be," answered Eleanor, cordially. "Only I can'tbear to think of all these pretty things getting dusty. They're so niceand fresh now."
"Oh, they can easily be dusted," said May. "You are a perfect crankabout dust, Elly. Now, here is my account. I think I have managed prettywell, don't you?"
The account ran thus:--
Sixty yards of chintz at 14 cents a yard $8.40 Burlaps, cheese-cloth, white muslin 3.25 Fans, ribbons, crewels 1.60 Stamping a tidy .30 One wicker-work chair 5.00 Hanging-basket 1.25 ------ Total $19.80
"There's twenty cents left over," explained May, as she finished readingthe items. "That will just get a yellow ribbon to tie round the handleof my clothes-brush. Eleanor, you've been ever so good to help me somuch. When are you going to begin your room? You must let me help younow."
"I began this morning."
"Have you really begun? What did you get?"
"Oh, I didn't get anything. This first thing isn't to cost anything atall."
"Why, what is it?"
"You know that ugly fire-board in front of my fireplace? I have taken itupstairs to the attic, and mother has lent me some cunning littleandirons and a shovel and tongs which grandmamma gave her, and I amgoing to have an open fire."
"But you don't need one. The room is warm enough, with your register."
"Oh, I know that. And I didn't mean that I was going to _light_ thefire, only have it all ready for lighting. I rubbed the brass knobsmyself with Puit's Pomade, and they shine _beautifully_, and I paintedthe bricks with red-ochre and water, and arranged the wood andkindlings, and it has such a cosy, homelike look, you can't think!"
"Well, I confess I don't see the cosiness of a fire that you're nevergoing to light."
"Oh, mamma says if I ever am sick in bed, or there is any particularreason for it, I may light it. And even if it doesn't happen often, Ishall have the comfort of knowing that it's all ready."
"I call it cold comfort. What a queer girl you are! Well, what are yougoing to do next, Elly?"
"You will laugh when I tell you. I'm going to paper my room myself."
"Not really! Why, you can't. Papering is very difficult; I have alwaysheard so. People have to get men to do it, always."
"I don't believe it's so very difficult. There was a piece about it oncein the 'Family Friend' which I cut out and saved. It told how to makethe paste and everything, and it didn't seem hard at all. Mother thinksI can. I'm going to begin to-morrow. In fact, I began yesterday, for oldJoyce came and mended the crack in the ceiling and kalsomined it, andoh, May, I did such a _thrifty_ thing! He had a nice big brush and aroller to smooth out the paper with, and don't you think, I made abargain with him to hire them out to me for three cents an hour, so Isha'n't have to buy any."
"Didn't he laugh?"
"Yes, he laughed, and Ned laughed too; but I don't care. 'Let thoselaugh who win,'" concluded Eleanor, with a bright, confident smile.
"Come in to-morrow afternoon and see how I get on," she called out fromthe door of Ninety-three.
May went at the appointed time. The papering was done, and for abeginner very well done, though an expert might easily have found faultyplaces here and there. The paper Eleanor had chosen was of a soft, warmyellow like pale sunshine, which seemed to neutralize the cold light ofthe north windows. It looked plain when seen in shadow, but where thelight struck it revealed a pattern of graceful interlaced disks. And theceiling was tinted with a much lighter shade of the same yellow. Achestnut picture-rod separated wall and ceiling.
"Putting the paper on myself saved _lots_," announced Eleanor,gleefully. "It only cost fifteen cents a roll, so the whole room came toexactly a dollar eighty. Then I am to pay Joyce eighteen cents for sixhours' use of his brush and roller, and mother isn't going to chargeanything for the flour for the paste, because I boiled it myself. I hadto get the picture-moulding, though, and that was rather dear,--nearlytwo dollars. Ned nailed it up for me."
"Why didn't you have a paper border; it would not have cost nearly asmuch?"
"No, but I should have had to drive nails and tacks in every time Iwanted to hang up anything, and that would have spoiled the paper. And Iwant that to last a long, long time."
"What are you going to do with your furniture?" asked May, casting aneye of disfavor at the articles in question, a so-called "cottage" set,enamelled, of a faded, shabby blue.
"I am going to paint them," replied Eleanor, daringly.
"Eleanor Pyne! you can't!"
But Eleanor could and did. Painting is by no means the recondite artwhich some of its professors would have us suppose. Eleanor avoided oneof the main difficulties of the craft, by buying her paint ready mixedand qualified with "dryers." She chose a pretty tint of olive brown. Nedtook her bedstead apart for her, and one by one she carried thedifferent articles to a little-used attic, where, equipped in along-sleeved apron and a pair of old cotton gloves to save her fingers,she gradually coated each smoothly with the new paint. It took somedays to finish, for she did not work continuously, but when done shefelt rewarded for her pains; for the furniture not only looked new, butwas prettier than it had ever been before during the memory of man. Herbrother Ned was so pleased with her success, that he volunteered, if shewould pay for the "stuff," to make a broad pine shelf to nail over thenarrow shelf of her chimney-piece, and some smaller ones above, cutafter a pretty design which he had seen in an agricultural magazine.This handsome offer Eleanor gladly accepted, and when the shelves weredone, she covered them with two coats of the same useful olive-brownpaint.
There was still some paint left; and grown bold with practice and nolonger afraid of her big brush, Eleanor essayed a bolder flight. Shefirst painted her doors and her window-frames, then she attacked herfloor, and, leaving an ample square space in the middle, executed aborder two feet and a half wide all round it, in a pattern of longdiamonds done in two shades of olive, the darker being obtained bymixing a little black with the original tint.
"You see I have to buy my own carpet," she explained to the astonishedand somewhat scandalized May; "and with this border a little square onewill answer, instead of my having to get a great big thing for the wholefloor."
"But sha'n't you hate to put your feet on bare boards?"
"That's just what I sha'n't do. Don't you see that the bureau andwashstand and the bedstead and towel-frame and all the rest fill upnearly all the space I have left for a border. What's the use of buyingcarpet for _them_ to stand on?"
May shook her head. She was not capable of such original reasoning. Inher code the thing that generally had been always should be.
"Well, it seems rather queer to me--and not very comfortable," she said."And I can't think why you painted those shelves over the mantel insteadof covering them with something,--chintz, now. They would have lookedawfully pretty with pinked ruffles, you know, and long curtains to drawacross the front like that picture you saw in 'Home made Happy.'"
"Oh, I shouldn't have liked that at all. I should hate the idea ofcalico curtains to a mantel-piece. It would always seem as if they weregoing to catch fire."
"But they _couldn't_. You don't have any fire," persisted May.
"No, but they would seem so. And I want my fire to look as if it couldbe lighted at any minute."
Eleanor's instinct was based on an "underlying principle." It is acharming point in any fireplace to look as if it were constantly readyfor use. Inflammable draperies, however pretty, militate against thislook, and so are a mistake in
taste, especially in our changeful NewEngland climate, where, even in midsummer, a little blaze may at anymoment be desirable to cheer a dull day or warm a chilly evening.
But May herself was forced to admit that the room looked "comfortable"when the square of pretty ingrain carpeting of a warm golden brown wastacked into its place, and the furniture brought back from the attic andarranged. Things at once fell into harmonious relation with each other,as in a well-thought-out room they should do. The creamy, bright papermade a pleasant background; there was an air of cheerfulness even oncloudy days. May could not understand the reason of this, or why on suchdays her reds and pinks and drabs and greens and blues never seemed towarm her out of dulness.
"I am sure my colors are a great deal brighter than yours," she wouldsay; "I cannot imagine why they don't light up better."
Eleanor did not try for many evanescent prettinesses. In fact, she couldnot, even had she wished to do so, for her money was all spent; so, asshe told her mother, she contented herself with having secured thingsthat would wear, and a pretty color. She put short curtains of "scrim"at her windows, and plain serviceable towels which could be often washedon her bureau and table-tops. The bureau was enlivened by a large,square scarlet pincushion, the only bit of finery in which Eleanorindulged. Amid the subdued tone of its surroundings it looked absolutelybrilliant, like the famous red wafer which the great Turner stuck in theforeground of his dim-tinted landscape, and which immediately seemed totake the color out of the bright pictures on either side.
Later, when Eleanor had learned to do the pretty Mexican work, now infashion, she decorated some special towels for her table and bureau,with lace-like ends, and a pair of pillow-covers. Meanwhile, she borevery well the knowledge that May and most of the other girls of theirset considered her room rather "plain and bare." It suited her ownfancy, and that satisfied her.
"I do like room to turn about in and not too many things, and not tosmell of dust," she told her mother.
Here is Eleanor's budget of expenses, to set against May's:--
Wall-paper, twelve rolls $1.80 Use of brush and roller .18 Kalsomining ceiling 1.75 Picture-moulding 2.00 Two gallons of mixed paint, at $1.80 per gallon 3.60 Brush .30 Nine yards of ingrain carpeting at sixty-five cents a yard 5.85 Carpet thread and tacks .20 Pine shelving 1.00 Chintz for chair-cover put on by Eleanor herself 1.75 Satin and ribbon for cushion 1.12 ------ Total $19.86
This was two years ago. If you could take a peep at the rival rooms inNinety-three and Ninety-four to-day, you would find Eleanor's lookingquite as pretty as when new, or prettier; for she has used itcarefully, and each year has added something to its equipments, as yearswill. When a girl has once secured a good foundation for her room, herfriends are apt to make their gifts work in toward its furtherbeautification.
With May it is different. Her room has lost the freshness which was itsone good point. The chintz has become creased and a little faded, themuslin and scrim from repeated washings are no longer crisp, and looklimp and threadbare; all the ribbons and scarfs are shabby and tumbled;while the green carpet and the blue wall "swear" as vigorously at eachother as they did at first. May sighs over it frequently, and wishes shehad tried for a more permanent effect. Next time she will do better, sheavers; but next times are slow in coming where the family exchequer hasnot the recuperative powers of Fortunatus's purse.
The Moral of this simple tale may be divided into three heads. I objectto morals myself as a wind-up for stories, and I dare say most of youwho read this are no fonder of them than I am; still, a three-headedmoral is such a novelty that it may be urged as an excuse. The threeheads are these:--
1. When you have only a small sum to spend on renovations, choose thosethat will last.
2. Ingenuity and energy count for more than mere money can.
3. Once make sure in a room of convenience, cheerfulness, and a goodcolor, and you can afford to wait for gimcracks--or "Jamescracks"--orany of the thousand and one little duds which so many people considerindispensable features of pleasantness. Rooms have their anatomy as wellas human beings. There must be a good substructure of bones rightlyplaced to underlie the bloom and sparkle in the one; and in like mannerfor the other the laws of taste, which are immutable, should underlieand support the evanescent and passing fancies and fashions of everyday.