Rudder Grange | Page 2

and
carpets, but these little conveniences are the things that make
housekeeping pleasant, and,--speaking from a common-sense point of
view,--profitable."
"That may be," he answered, "but I can't afford to make matters
pleasant and profitable for you in that way. Now, then, let us look at
one or two particulars. Here, on your list, is an ice- pick: twenty-five
cents. Now, if I buy that ice-pick and rent it to you at two and a-half
cents a year, I shall not get my money back unless it lasts you ten years.
And even then, as it is not probable that I can sell that ice-pick after
you have used it for ten years, I shall have made nothing at all by my
bargain. And there are other things in that list, such as feather-dusters
and lamp-chimneys, that couldn't possibly last ten years. Don't you see
my position?"
I saw it. We did not get that furnished house. Euphemia was greatly
disappointed.
"It would have been just splendid," she said, "to have taken our book
and have ordered all these things at the stores, one after another,
without even being obliged to ask the price."
I had my private doubts in regard to this matter of price. I am afraid
that Euphemia generally set down the lowest price and the best things.
She did not mean to mislead, and her plan certainly made our book
attractive. But it did not work very well in practice. We have a friend

who undertook to furnish her house by our book, and she never could
get the things as cheaply as we had them quoted.
"But you see," said Euphemia, to her, "we had to put them down at
very low prices, because the model house we speak of in the book is to
be entirely furnished for just so much."
But, in spite of this explanation, the lady was not satisfied.
We found ourselves obliged to give up the idea of a furnished house.
We would have taken an unfurnished one and furnished it ourselves,
but we had not money enough. We were dreadfully afraid that we
should have to continue to board.
It was now getting on toward summer, at least there was only a part of
a month of spring left, and whenever I could get off from my business
Euphemia and I made little excursions into the country round about the
city. One afternoon we went up the river, and there we saw a sight that
transfixed us, as it were. On the bank, a mile or so above the city, stood
a canal-boat. I say stood, because it was so firmly imbedded in the
ground by the river-side, that it would have been almost as impossible
to move it as to have turned the Sphinx around. This boat we soon
found was inhabited by an oyster-man and his family. They had lived
there for many years and were really doing quite well. The boat was
divided, inside, into rooms, and these were papered and painted and
nicely furnished. There was a kitchen, a living-room, a parlor and
bedrooms. There were all sorts of conveniences--carpets on the floors,
pictures, and everything, at least so it seemed to us, to make a home
comfortable. This was not all done at once, the oyster-man told me.
They had lived there for years and had gradually added this and that
until the place was as we saw it. He had an oyster-bed out in the river
and he made cider in the winter, but where he got the apples I don't
know. There was really no reason why he should not get rich in time.
Well, we went all over that house and we praised everything so much
that the oyster-man's wife was delighted, and when we had some
stewed oysters afterward,--eating them at a little table under a tree near
by,--I believe that she picked out the very largest oysters she had, to

stew for us. When we had finished our supper and had paid for it, and
were going down to take our little boat again,--for we had rowed up the
river,--Euphemia stopped and looked around her. Then she clasped her
hands and exclaimed in an ecstatic undertone:
"We must have a canal-boat!"
And she never swerved from that determination.
After I had seriously thought over the matter, I could see no good
reason against adopting this plan. It would certainly be a cheap method
of living, and it would really be housekeeping. I grew more and more
in favor of it. After what the oyster-man had done, what might not we
do? HE had never written a book on housekeeping, nor, in all
probability, had he considered the matter, philosophically, for one
moment in all his life.
But it was not an