The House | Page 3

eight-o'clock accommodation brought them home
again every evening; moreover, the noon freight stopped at Elmdale to
take up passengers every other Wednesday, and it was the practice of
every other train to whistle and to slack up in speed to thirty miles an
hour while passing through this promising suburb.
I did not care particularly for Elmdale, but Alice took a mighty fancy to
it. Our twin boys (Galileo and Herschel, named after the astronomers of
blessed memory!) were now three years old, and Alice insisted that
they required the pure air and the wholesome freedom of rural life.
Galileo had, in fact, never quite been himself since he swallowed the

pincushion.
We did not go to Elmdale at once; we never went there. Elmdale was
simply another one of those curious phases in which our dream of a
home abounded. With the Elmdale phase "our house" underwent
another change. But this was natural enough. You see that in none of
our other plans had we contemplated the possibility of a growing
family. Now we had two uproarious boys, and their coming had
naturally put us into pleasing doubt as to what similar emergencies
might transpire in the future. So our five-room cottage had acquired (in
our minds) two more rooms--seven altogether--and numerous little
changes in the plans and decorations of "our house" had gradually been
evolved.
As I now remember, it was about this time that Alice made up her mind
that the reception-room should be treated in blue. Her birth had
occurred in December, and therefore turquoise was her birth-stone and
the blue thereof was her favorite color. I am not much of a believer in
such things--in fact, I discredit all superstitions except such as involve
black cats and the rabbit's foot, and these exceptions are wholly
reasonable, for my family lived for many years in Salem, Mass. But I
have always conceded that Alice has as good a right to her superstitions
as I to mine. I bought her the prettiest turquoise ring I could afford, and
I approved her determination to treat the reception-room in blue. I
rather enjoyed the prospect of the luxury of a reception-room; it had
ground the iron into my soul that, ever since we married and settled
down, Alice and I had been compelled in winter months to entertain
our callers in the same room where we ate our meals. In summer this
humiliation did not afflict us, for then we always sat of an evening on
the front porch.
The blue room met with a curious fate. One Christmas our beneficent
friend, Colonel Mullaly, presented Alice and me with a beautiful and
valuable lamp. Alice went to Burley's the next week and priced one
(not half as handsome) and was told that it cost sixty dollars. It was a
tall, shapely lamp, with an alabaster and Italian marble pedestal
cunningly polished; a magnificent yellow silk shade served as the

crowning glory to this superb creation.
For a week, perhaps, Alice was abstracted; then she told me that she
had been thinking it all over and had about made up her mind that when
we got our new house she would have the reception-room treated in a
delicate canary shade.
"But why abandon the blue, my dear?" I asked. "I think it would be so
pretty to have the decoration of the room match your turquoise ring."
"That 's just like a man!" said Alice. "Reuben, dear, could you possibly
imagine anything else so perfectly horrid as a yellow lampshade in a
blue room?"
"You are right, sweetheart," said I. "That is something I had never
thought of before. You are right; canary color it shall be, and when we
have moved in I 'll buy you a dear little canary bird in a lovely gold
cage, and we 'll hang it in the front window right over the lamp, so that
everybody can see our treasures from the street and envy our
happiness!"
"You dear, sweet boy!" cried Alice, and she reached up and pulled my
head down and kissed her dear, sweet boy on his bald spot. Alice is an
angel!
I fear I am wearying you with the prolixity of my narrative. So let me
pass rapidly over the ten years that succeeded to the yellow-lamp epoch.
Ten hard but sweet years! Years full of struggle and hopes, touched
with bereavement and sorrow, but precious years, for troubles, like
those we have had, sanctify human lives. Children came to us, and of
these priceless treasures we lost two. If I thought Alice would ever see
these lines I should not say to you now that from the two great sorrows
of those years my heart has never been and never shall be weaned. I
would not have Alice know