without being half so comfortable, or looking half-so well.”
“Sixty dollars for a dozen chairs, when very good ones can be had
for twenty-four dollars! Indeed, Ellen, we mustn’t think of such a
thing. We can’t afford it. Remember, there are a great many other
things to buy.”
“I know, dear; but I am sure it will be much more economical in the
end for us to diminish the number of articles, and add to the
quality of what we do have. I am very much like the poor woman who
preferred a cup of clear, strong, fragrant coffee, three times a
week, to a decoction of burnt rye every day. What I have, I do like
good.”
“And so do I, Ellen. But, as I said before, there will be, diminish
as we may, a great many things to buy, and we must make the cost of
each as small as possible. We must not think of such extravagance as
mahogany chairs now. At some other time we may get them.”
My wife here gave up the point, and, what I thought a little
remarkable, made no more points on the subject of furniture. I had
every thing my own way; I bought cheap to my heart’s content. It was
only necessary for me to express my approval of an article, for her
to assent to its purchase.
As to patronizing your fashionable cabinet makers and high-priced
upholsterers, we were not guilty of the folly, but bought at
reasonable rates from auction stores and at public sales. Our parlor
carpets cost but ninety cents a yard, and were handsomer than those
for which a lady of our acquaintance paid a dollar and
thirty-eight. Our chairs were of a neat, fancy pattern, and had cost
thirty dollars a dozen. We had hesitated for some time between a set
at twenty-four dollars a dozen and these; but the style being so
much more attractive, we let our taste govern in the selection. The
price of our sofa was eighteen dollars, and I thought it a really
genteel affair, though my wife was not in raptures about it. A pair
of card tables for fifteen dollars, and a marble-top centre table
for fourteen, gave our parlors quite a handsome appearance.
“I wouldn’t ask any thing more comfortable or genteel than this,”
said, I, when the parlors were all “fixed” right.
Mrs. Jones looked pleased with the appearance of things, but did not
express herself extravagantly.
In selecting our chamber furniture, a handsome dressing-bureau and
French bedstead that my wife went to look at in the ware-room of a
high-priced cabinet maker, tempted her strongly, and it was with
some difficulty that I could get her ideas back to a regular maple
four-poster, a plain, ten dollar bureau, and a two dollar
dressing-glass. Twenty and thirty dollar mattresses, too, were in
her mind, but when articles of the kind, just as good to wear, could
be had at eight and ten dollars, where was the use of wasting money
in going higher?
The ratio of cost set down against the foregoing articles, was
maintained from garret to kitchen; and I was agreeably disappointed
to find, after the last bill for purchases was paid, that I was
