Mrs. Jameson not only strove to establish improvements in our midst,
but she attacked some of our time-honored institutions, one against
which she directed all the force of her benevolent will being our
front doors. Louisa and I had always made free with our front door,
as had some others; but, generally speaking, people in our village
used their front doors only for weddings, funerals, and parties. The
side doors were thought to be good enough for ordinary occasions,
and we never dreamed, when dropping in for a neighborly call, of
approaching any other. Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson resolved to do away
with this state of things, and also with our sacred estimate of the
best parlors, which were scarcely opened from one year's end to the
other, and seemed redolent of past grief and joy, with no dilution by
the every-day occurrences of life. Mrs. Jameson completely ignored
the side door, marched boldly upon the front one, and compelled the
mistress to open it to her resolute knocks. Once inside, she advanced
straight upon the sacred precincts of the best parlor, and seated
herself in the chilly, best rocking-chair with the air of one who
usurps a throne, asking with her manner of sweet authority if the
blinds could not be opened and the sun let in, as it felt damp to
her, and she was very susceptible to dampness. It was told, on good
authority, that in some cases she even threw open the blinds and
windows herself while the person who admitted her was calling other
members of the family.
It was also reported that she had on several occasions marched
straight up to a house which she had no design of entering, thrown
open the parlor blinds, and admitted the sunlight, with its fading
influence, on the best carpet, and then proceeded down the street
with the bearing of triumphant virtue. It was related that in a
number of instances the indignant housewife, on entering her best
parlor, found that the sun had been streaming in there all day,
right on the carpet.
Mrs. Jameson also waged fierce war on another custom dear to the
average village heart, and held sacred, as everything should be which
is innocently dear to one's kind, by all who did not exactly approve
of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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