The House | Page 4

this, for it would open afresh the wounds
her dear, tender mother-heart has suffered.
Galileo and Herschel are strapping fellows. They have survived their
juvenile ambitions to be milkmen, policemen, lamp-lighters, butchers,

grocerymen, etc., respectively. Both are now in the manual-training
school. Fanny, Josephine and Erasmus--I have not mentioned them
before,--these are the children that are left to us of those that have come
in the later years. And, my! how they are growing! What changes have
taken place in them and all about us! My affairs have prospered; if it
had n't been for the depression that set in two years ago I should have
had one thousand dollars in bank by this time. My salary has increased
steadily year by year; it has now reached a sum that enables me to hope
for speedy relief from those financial worries which encompass the
head of a numerous household. By the practice of rigid economy in
family expenses I have been able to accumulate a large number of
black-letter books and a fine collection of curios, including some fifty
pieces of mediaeval armor. We have lived in rented houses all these
years, but at no time has Alice abandoned the hope and the ambition of
having a home of her own. "Our house" has been the burthen of her
song from one year's end to the other. I understand that this becomes a
monomania with a woman who lives in a rented house.
And, gracious! what changes has "our house" undergone since first dear
Alice pictured it as a possibility to me! It has passed through every
character, form, and style of architecture conceivable. From five rooms
it has grown to fourteen. The reception parlor, chameleon-like, has
changed color eight times. There have duly loomed up bewildering
visions of a library, a drawing-room, a butler's pantry, a nursery, a
laundry--oh, it quite takes my breath away to recall and recount the
possibilities which Alice's hopes and fancies conjured up.
But, just two months ago to-day Alice burst in upon me. I was in my
study over the kitchen figuring upon the probable date of the
conjunction of Venus and Saturn in the year 1963.
"Reuben, dear," cried Alice, "I 've done it! I 've bought a place!"
"Alice Fothergill Baker," says I, "what do you mean!"
She was all out of breath--so transported with delight was she that she
could hardly speak. Yet presently she found breath to say: "You know
the old Schmittheimer place--the house that sets back from the street

and has lovely trees in the yard? You remember how often we 've gone
by there and wished we had a home like it? Well, I 've bought it! Do
you understand, Reuben dear? I 've bought it, and we 've got a home at
last!"
"Have you paid for it, darling?" I asked.
"N-n-no, not yet," she answered, "but I 'm going to, and you 're going
to help me, are n't you, Reuben?"
"Alice," says I, going to her and putting my arms about her, "I don't
know what you 've done, but of course I 'll help you--yes, dearest, I 'll
back you to the last breath of my life!"
Then she made me put on my boots and overcoat and hat and go with
her to see her new purchase--"our house!"

II
OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS
Everybody's house is better made by his neighbors. This philosophical
utterance occurs in one of those black-letter volumes which I purchased
with the money left me by my Aunt Susan (of blessed memory!). Even
if Alice and I had not fully made up our minds, after nineteen years of
planning and figuring, what kind of a house we wanted, we could have
referred the important matter to our neighbors in the confident
assurance that these amiable folk were much more intimately
acquainted with our needs and our desires than we ourselves were. The
utter disinterestedness of a neighbor qualifies him to judge
dispassionately of your requirements. When he tells you that you ought
to do so and so or ought to have such and such a thing, his counsel
should be heeded, because the probabilities are that he has made a
careful study of you and he has unselfishly arrived at conclusions
which intelligently contemplate your welfare. In planning for oneself
one is too likely to be directed by narrow prejudices and selfish
considerations.

Alice and I have always thought much of our neighbors. I suspect that
my neighbors are my most salient weaknesses. I confess that I enjoy
nothing else more than an informal call upon the Baylors, the Tiltmans,
the Rushes, the Denslows and the other good people who constitute the
best element in society in that part of the city where Alice and I and our
interesting