Humorous stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"I've been all through it," she said to her friend, "and now I can't
really tell what I think a _tall_. But this I _do_ know, if we ever
really get these houses, I will be running back and forth from dawn to
dark through that wire tunnel in a way as'll make the liveliest polar
bear that ever kept taking a fresh turn look like a petrified tree
beside me. Why, only to keep the conveniences he's got put in scoured
bright would take me all of every morning in my house, to say nothing of
wiping up the floors, for Jathrop isn't intending to buy us no carpets
ever. We're to sit around on cherry when we ain't on Georgia pine, and
he's got every mantelpiece marked with the kind of wood we're to burn in
it, and he's been kind enough to tell us what colored china we're to
use in each bedroom. We're to shoot our clothes into the cellar through
a hole from up-stairs and wash 'em there in those two square boxes as we
couldn't make out. That thing I read 'angle-hook' is a 'inglenook,' and
so far from sitting in it to fish we're to set in it to look at the
fire, if we can get any mahogany to burn in that particular fireplace.
"Those fans are stairs, we're to go up 'em the way the arrow points, and
heaven knows where or how we're to get down again. What we thought was
beds is closets, and what we thought was closets is beds, and it's
evident with all his hopping and hanging he didn't really charge his
mind with us a _tall_, for he's got a bedroom in your house marked 'Mr.
Lathrop,' when the last bit of real thought would have made him just
_have_ to remember as you're a widow. He's give me a sewing-room when he
must have seen that I always do my mending in the kitchen, and he's give
us each enough places to wash to keep the whole community clean. I must
say he's tried to be fair, for he's give both houses the same number of
rooms and the same names to each room. We've each got a summer kitchen,
but he left the spring and autumn to scratch along anyhow; we've each
got a bathtub, and we've each got a china-closet as well as a pantry,
which shows he had very little observation of the way _you_ keep things
in order."
Mrs. Lathrop absorbed all this with the happy calm of a contented (and
rocking) sponge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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