Part 6

Then they all rose up in fury Against their boastful friend, For prehistoric patience Cometh quickly to an end: Said one, "This is chimerical! Utopian! Absurd!" Said another, "What a stupid life! Too dull, upon my word!" Cried all, "Before such things can come, You idiotic child, _You must alter Human Nature_!" And they all sat back and smiled: Thought they, "An answer to that last It will be hard to find!" It was a clinching argument To the Neolithic Mind!

THE OLD MAID'S HOUSE: IN PLAN

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS

Corona had five hundred dollars and some pluck for her enterprise. She had also at her command a trifle for furnishing. But that seemed very small capital. Her friends at large discouraged her generously. Even Tom said he didn't know about that, and offered her three hundred more.

This manly offer she declined in a womanly manner.

"It is to be _my_ house, thank you, Tom, dear. I can live in yours at home." ...

Corona's architectural library was small. She found on the top shelf one book on the construction of chicken-roosts, a pamphlet in explanation of the kindergarten system, a cook-book that had belonged to her grandmother, and a treatise on crochet. There her domestic literature came to an end. She accordingly bought a book entitled "North American Homes"; then, having, in addition, begged or borrowed everything within two covers relating to architecture that was to be found in her immediate circle of acquaintance, she plunged into that unfamiliar science with hopeful zeal.

The result of her studies was a mixed one. It was necessary, it seemed, to construct the North American home in so many contradictory methods, or else fail forever of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that Corona felt herself to be laboring under a chronic aberration of mind.... Then the plans. Well, the plans, it must be confessed, Corona _did_ find it difficult to understand. She always had found it difficult to understand such things; but then she had hoped several weeks of close architectural study would shed light upon the density of the subject. She grew quite morbid about it. She counted the steps when she went up-stairs to bed at night. She estimated the bedroom post when she walked in the cold, gray dawn....

But the most perplexing thing about the plans was how one story ever got upon another. Corona's imagination never fully grappled with this fact, although her intellect accepted it. She took her books down-stairs one night, and Susy came and looked them over.

"Why, these houses are all one-story," said Susy. "Besides, they're nothing but lines, anyway. I shouldn't draw a house so."

Corona laughed with some embarrassment and no effort at enlightenment. She was not used to finding herself and Susy so nearly on the same intellectual level as in this instance. She merely asked: "How should you draw it?"

"Why, so," said Susy, after some severe thought. So she took her little blunt lead pencil, that the baby had chewed, and drew her plan as follows:

[Illustration: SUSY'S PLAN]

Corona made no comment upon this plan, except to ask Susy if that were the way to spell L; and then to look in the dictionary, and find that it was not spelled at all. Tom came in, and asked to see what they were doing.

"I'm helping Corona," said Susy, with much complacency. "These architects' things don't look any more like houses than they do like the first proposition in Euclid; and the poor girl is puzzled."

"_I'll_ help you to-morrow, Co," said Tom, who was in too much of a hurry to glance at his wife's plan. But to-morrow Tom went into town by the early train, and when Corona emerged from her "North American Homes," with wild eye and knotted brow, at 5 o'clock p.m., she found Susy crying over a telegram which ran:

Called to California immediately. Those lost cargoes A No. 1 hides turned up. Can't get home to say good-by. Send overcoat and flannels by Simpson on midnight express. Gone four weeks. Love to all.

TOM.

This unexpected event threw Corona entirely upon her own resources; and, after a few days more of patient research, she put on her hat, and stole away at dusk to a builder she knew of down-town--a nice, fatherly man who had once built a piazza for Tom and had just been elected superintendent of the Sunday-school. These combined facts gave Corona confidence to trust her case to his hands. She carried a neat little plan of her own with her, the result of several days' hard labor. Susy's plan she had taken the precaution to cut into paper dolls for the baby. Corona found the good man at home, and in her most business-like manner presented her points.

"Got any plan in yer own head?" asked the builder, hearing her in silence. In silence Corona laid before him the paper which had cost her so much toil.

It was headed in her clear black hand:

PLAN FOR A SMALL BUT HAPPY HOME

This was

[Illustration: CORONA'S PLAN]

"Well," said the builder, after a silence,--"well, I've seen worse."

"Thank you," said Corona, faintly.

"How does she set?" asked the builder.

"Who set?" said Corona, a little wildly. She could think of nothing that set but hens.

"Why, the house. Where's the points o' compass?"

"I hadn't thought of those," said Corona.

"And the chimney," suggested the builder. "Where's your chimneys?"

"I didn't put in any chimneys," said Corona.

"Where did you count on your stairs?" pursued the builder.

"Stairs? I--forgot the stairs."

"That's natural," said Mr. Timbers. "Had a plan brought me once without an entry or a window to it. It wasn't a woman did it, neither. It was a widower, in the noospaper line. What's your scale?"

"Scale?" asked Corona, without animation.

"Scale of feet. Proportions."

"Oh! I didn't have any scales, but I thought about forty feet front would do. I have but five hundred dollars. A small house must answer."

The builder smiled. He said he would show her some plans. He took a book from his table and opened at a plate representing a small, snug cottage, not uncomely. It stood in a flourishing apple-orchard, and a much larger house appeared dimly in the distance, upon a hill. The cottage was what is called a "story-and-half" and contained six rooms. The plan was drawn with the beauty of science.

"There," said Mr. Timbers, "I know a lady built one of those upon her brother-in-law's land. He give her the land, and she just put up the cottage, and they was all as pleasant as pease about it. That's about what I'd recommend to you, if you don't object to the name of it."

"What is the matter with the name?" asked Corona.

"Why," said the builder, hesitating, "it is called the Old Maid's House--in the _book_."

"Mr. Timbers," said Corona, with decision, "why should we seek further than the truth? I will have that house. Pray, draw me the plan at once."

DISTICHS

BY JOHN HAY

I

Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her. This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.

II

There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going, When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs.

III

Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection, As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea.

IV

As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them, Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.

V

What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second? What does the second love bring? Only regret for the first.

VI

Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of the laurel and myrtle. Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love.

VII

Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it the fouler, But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom.

VIII

Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient: Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.

IX

When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures; Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins.

X

Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry? Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.

XI

Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him, And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.

XII

Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbor's approval: Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain.

XIII

Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of his pronouns. Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.

XIV

The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.

XV

True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table: Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.

XVI

Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues; But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud.

XVII

Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters; Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.

XVIII

Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting, Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life.

THE QUARREL

BY S.E. KISER

"There are quite as good fish In the sea As any one ever has caught," Said he. "But few of the fish-- In the sea Will bite at such bait as you've got," Said she. To-day he is gray, and his line's put away, But he often looks back with regret; She's still "in the sea," and how happy she'd be If he were a fisherman yet!

A LETTER FROM MR. BIGGS

BY E.W. HOWE

MY DEAR SIR--Occasionally a gem occurs to me which I am unable to favor you with because of late we are not much together. Appreciating the keen delight with which you have been kind enough to receive my philosophy, I take the liberty of sending herewith a number of ideas which may please and benefit you, and which I have divided into paragraphs with headings.

HAPPINESS

I have observed that happiness and brains seldom go together. The pin-headed woman who regards her thin-witted husband as the greatest man in the world, is happy, and much good may it do her. In such cases ignorance is a positive blessing, for good sense would cause the woman to realize her distressed condition. A man who can think he is as "good as anybody" is happy. The fact may be notorious that the man is not so "good as anybody" until he is as industrious, as educated, and as refined as anybody, but he has not brains enough to know this, and, content with conceit, is happy. A man with a brain large enough to understand mankind is always wretched and ashamed of himself.

REPUTATION

Reputation is not always desirable. The only thing I have ever heard said in Twin Mounds concerning Smoky Hill is that good hired girls may be had there.

WOMEN

1. Most women seem to love for no other reason than that it is expected of them.

2. I know too much about women to honor them more than they deserve; in fact I know all about them. I visited a place once where doctors are made, and saw them cut up one.

3. A woman loses her power when she allows a man to find out all there is to her; I mean by this that familiarity breeds contempt. I knew a young man once who worked beside a woman in an office, and he never married.

4. If men would only tell what they actually know about women, instead of what they believe or hear, they would receive more credit for chastity than is now the case, for they deserve more.

LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE

As a people we lack self-confidence. The country is full of men that will readily talk you to death privately, who would run away in alarm if asked to preside at a public meeting. In my Alliance movement I often have trouble in getting out a crowd, every farmer in the neighborhood feeling of so much importance as to fear that if he attends he will be called upon to say something.

IN DISPUTE

In some communities where I have lived the women were mean to their husbands; in others, the husbands were mean to their wives. It is usually the case that the friends of a wife believe her husband to be a brute, and the friends of the husband believe the wife to possess no other talent than to make him miserable. You can't tell how it is; the evidence is divided.

MAN

There is only one grade of men; they are all contemptible. The judge may seem to be a superior creature so long as he keeps at a distance, for I have never known one who was not constantly trying to look wise and grave; but when you know him, you find there is nothing remarkable about him except a plug hat, a respectable coat, and a great deal of vanity, induced by the servility of those who expect favors.

OPPORTUNITY

You hear a great many persons regretting lack of opportunity. If every man had opportunity for his desires, this would be a nation of murderers and disgraced women.

EXPECTATION

Always be ready for that which you do not expect. Nothing that you expect ever happens. You have perhaps observed that when you are waiting for a visitor at the front door, he comes in at the back, and surprises you.

WOMAN'S WORK

A woman's work is never done, as the almanacs state, for the reason that she does not go about it in time to finish it.

THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY

If you can not resist the low impulse to talk about people, say only what you actually know, instead of what you have heard. And, while you are about it, stop and consider whether you are not in need of charity yourself.

NEIGHBORS

Every man overestimates his neighbors, because he does not know them so well as he knows himself. A sensible man despises himself because he knows what a contemptible creature he is. I despise Lytle Biggs, but I happen to know that his neighbors are just as bad.

VIRTUE

Men are virtuous because the women are; women are virtuous from necessity.

ASHAMED OF THE TRUTH

I believe I never knew any one who was not ashamed of the truth. Did you ever notice that a railroad company numbers its cars from 1,000, instead of from 1?

KNOWING ONLY ONE OF THEM

We are sometimes unable to understand why a pretty little woman marries a fellow we know to be worthless; but the fellow, who knows the woman better than we do, considers that he has thrown himself away. We know the fellow, but we do not know the woman.

AN APOLOGY

I detest an apology. The world is full of people who are always making trouble and apologizing for it. If a man respects me, he will not give himself occasion for apology. An offense can not be wiped out in that way. If it could, we would substitute apologies for hangings. I hope you will never apologize to me; I should regard it as evidence that you had wronged me.

OLDEST INHABITANTS

The people of Smoky Hill are only fit for oldest inhabitants. In thirty or forty years from now there will be a great demand for reminiscences of the pioneer days. I recommend that they preserve extensive data for the only period in their lives when they can hope to attract attention.

Be good enough, sir, to regard me, as of old, your friend.

L. BIGGS. _To_ NED WESTLOCK, _Twin Mounds_.

MRS. JOHNSON

BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

It was on a morning of the lovely New England May that we left the horse-car, and, spreading our umbrellas, walked down the street to our new home in Charlesbridge, through a storm of snow and rain so finely blent by the influences of this fortunate climate, that no flake knew itself from its sister drop, or could be better identified by the people against whom they beat in unison. A vernal gale from the east fanned our cheeks and pierced our marrow and chilled our blood, while the raw, cold green of the adventurous grass on the borders of the sopping side-walks gave, as it peered through its veil of melting snow and freezing rain, a peculiar cheerfulness to the landscape. Here and there in the vacant lots abandoned hoop-skirts defied decay; and near the half-finished wooden houses, empty mortar-beds, and bits of lath and slate strewn over the scarred and mutilated ground, added their interest to the scene....

This heavenly weather, which the Pilgrim Fathers, with the idea of turning their thoughts effectually from earthly pleasures, came so far to discover, continued with slight amelioration throughout the month of May and far into June; and it was a matter of constant amazement with one who had known less austere climates, to behold how vegetable life struggled with the hostile skies, and, in an atmosphere as chill and damp as that of a cellar, shot forth the buds and blossoms upon the pear-trees, called out the sour Puritan courage of the currant-bushes, taught a reckless native grape-vine to wander and wanton over the southern side of the fence, and decked the banks with violets as fearless and as fragile as New England girls; so that about the end of June, when the heavens relented and the sun blazed out at last, there was little for him to do but to redden and darken the daring fruits that had attained almost their full growth without his countenance.

Then, indeed, Charlesbridge appeared to us a kind of Paradise. The wind blew all day from the southwest, and all day in the grove across the way the orioles sang to their nestlings.... The house was almost new and in perfect repair; and, better than all, the kitchen had as yet given no signs of unrest in those volcanic agencies which are constantly at work there, and which, with sudden explosions, make Herculaneums and Pompeiis of so many smiling households. Breakfast, dinner, and tea came up with illusive regularity, and were all the most perfect of their kind; and we laughed and feasted in our vain security. We had out from the city to banquet with us the friends we loved, and we were inexpressibly proud before them of the Help, who first wrought miracles of cookery in our honor, and then appeared in a clean white apron, and the glossiest black hair, to wait upon the table. She was young, and certainly very pretty; she was as gay as a lark, and was courted by a young man whose clothes would have been a credit, if they had not been a reproach, to our lowly basement. She joyfully assented to the idea of staying with us till she married.

In fact, there was much that was extremely pleasant about the little place when the warm weather came, and it was not wonderful to us that Jenny was willing to remain. It was very quiet; we called one another to the window if a large dog went by our door; and whole days passed without the movement of any wheels but the butcher's upon our street, which flourished in ragweed and buttercups and daisies, and in the autumn burned, like the borders of nearly all the streets in Charlesbridge, with the pallid azure flame of the succory. The neighborhood was in all things a frontier between city and country. The horse-cars, the type of such civilization--full of imposture, discomfort, and sublime possibility--as we yet possess, went by the head of our street, and might, perhaps, be available to one skilled in calculating the movements of comets; while two minutes' walk would take us into a wood so wild and thick that no roof was visible through the trees. We learned, like innocent pastoral people of the golden age, to know the several voices of the cows pastured in the vacant lots, and, like engine-drivers of the iron age, to distinguish the different whistles of the locomotives passing on the neighboring railroad....

We played a little at gardening, of course, and planted tomatoes, which the chickens seemed to like, for they ate them up as fast as they ripened; and we watched with pride the growth of our Lawton blackberries, which, after attaining the most stalwart proportions, were still as bitter as the scrubbiest of their savage brethren, and which, when by advice left on the vines for a week after they turned black, were silently gorged by secret and gluttonous flocks of robins and orioles. As for our grapes, the frost cut them off in the hour of their triumph.

So, as I have hinted, we were not surprised that Jenny should be willing to remain with us, and were as little prepared for her desertion as for any other change of our mortal state. But one day in September she came to her nominal mistress with tears in her beautiful eyes and protestations of unexampled devotion upon her tongue, and said that she was afraid she must leave us. She liked the place, and she never had worked for any one that was more of a lady, but she had made up her mind to go into the city. All this, so far, was quite in the manner of domestics who, in ghost stories, give warning to the occupants of haunted houses; and Jenny's mistress listened in suspense for the motive of her desertion, expecting to hear no less than that it was something which walked up and down the stairs and dragged iron links after it, or something that came and groaned at the front door, like populace dissatisfied with a political candidate. But it was in fact nothing of this kind; simply, there were no lamps upon our street, and Jenny, after spending Sunday evening with friends in East Charlesbridge, was always alarmed, on her return, in walking from the horse-car to our door. The case was hopeless, and Jenny and our household parted with respect and regret.