Rudder Grange | Page 2

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 easy thing to find a canal-boat. There were none advertised for rent--at least, not for housekeeping purposes.
We made many inquiries and took many