within the limit of expenditures I had proposed to make by over a
hundred dollars.
The change from a boarding-house to a comfortable home was, indeed,
pleasant. We could never get done talking about it. Every thing was
so quiet, so new, so clean, and so orderly.
“This is living,” would drop from our lips a dozen times a week.
One day, about three months after we had commenced housekeeping, I
came home, and, on entering the parlor, the first thing that met my
eyes was a large spot of white on the new sofa. A piece of the
veneering had been knocked off, completely disfiguring it.
“What did that?” I asked of my wife.
“In setting back a chair that I had dusted,” she replied, “one of
the feet touched the sofa lightly, when off dropped that veneer like
a loose flake. I’ve been examining the sofa since, and find that it
is a very bad piece of work. Just look here.”
And she drew me over to the place where my eighteen dollar sofa
stood, and pointed out sundry large seams that had gaped open, loose
spots in the veneering, and rickety joints. I saw now, what I had
not before seen, that the whole article was of exceedingly common
material and common workmanship.
“A miserable piece of furniture!” said I.
“It is, indeed,” returned Mrs. Jones. “To buy an article like this,
is little better than throwing money into the street.”
For a month the disfigured sofa remained in the parlor, a perfect
eye-sore, when another piece of the veneering sloughed off, and one
of the feet became loose. It was then sent to a cabinet maker for
repair; and cost for removing and mending just five dollars.
Not long after this, the bureau had to take a like journey, for it
had, strangely enough, fallen into sudden dilapidation. All the
locks were out of order, half the knobs were off, there was not a
drawer that didn’t require the most accurate balancing of forces in
order to get it shut after it was once open, and it showed
premonitory symptoms of shedding its skin like a snake. A five
dollar bill was expended in putting this into something like
castors was needed for the maple four-poster, which was obtained at
the expense of two dollars. Moreover, the head-board to said
four-poster, which, from its exceeding ugliness, had, from the
first, been a terrible eye-sore to Mrs. Jones, as well as to myself,
was, about this period, removed, and one of more sightly appearance
substituted, at the additional charge of six dollars. No tester
frame had accompanied the cheap bedstead at its original purchase,
and now my wife wished to have one, and also a light curtain above
and valance below. All these, with trimmings, etc., to match, cost
the round sum of ten dollars.
“It looks very neat,” said Mrs. Jones, after her curtains were up.
“It does, indeed,” said I.
“Still,” returned Mrs. Jones, “I would much rather have had a
handsome mahogany French bedstead.”
“So would I,” was my answer. “But you know they cost some thirty
