dollars, and we paid but sixteen for this.”
“Sixteen!” said my wife, turning quickly toward me. “It cost more
than that.”
“Oh, no. I have the bill in my desk,” was my confident answer.
“Sixteen was originally paid, I know,” said Mrs. Jones. “But then,
remember, what it has cost since. Two dollars for castors, six for a
new head-board, and ten for tester and curtains. Thirty-four dollars
in all; when a very handsome French bedstead, of good workmanship,
can be bought for thirty dollars.”
I must own that I was taken somewhat aback by this array of figures
“that don’t lie.”
“And for twenty dollars we could have bought a neat, well made
dressing-bureau, at Moore and Campion’s, that would have lasted for
twice as many years, and always looked in credit.”
“But ours, you know, only cost ten,” said I.
“The bureau, such as it is, cost ten, and the glass two. Add five
that we have already paid for repairs, and the four that our maple
bedstead has cost above the price of a handsome French, one, and we
will have the sum of twenty-one dollars,—enough to purchase as
handsome a dressing-bureau as I would ask. So you see. Mr. Jones,
that our cheap furniture is not going to turn out so cheap after
all. And as for looks, why no one can say there is much to brag of.”
This was a new view of the case, and certainly one not very
flattering to my economical vanity. I gave in, of course, and,
admitted that Mrs. Jones was right.
But the dilapidations and expenses for repairs, to which I have just
referred, were but as the “beginning of sorrows.” It took, about
three years to show the full fruits of my error. By the end of that
time, half my parlor chairs had been rendered useless in consequence
of the back-breaking and seat-rending ordeals through which they had
been called to pass. The sofa was unanimously condemned to the
dining room, and the ninety cent carpet had gone on fading and
defacing, until my wife said she was ashamed to put it even on her
chambers. For repairs, our furniture had cost, up to this period, to
say nothing of the perpetual annoyance of having it put out of
order, and running for the cabinet maker and upholsterer, not less
than a couple of hundred dollars.
Finally, I grew desperate.
“I’ll have decent, well made furniture, let it cost what it will,”
said I, to Mrs. Jones.
“You will find it cheapest in the end,” was her quiet reply.
On the next day we went to a cabinet maker, whose reputation for
good work stood among the highest in the city; and ordered new
parlor and chamber furniture—mahogany chairs, French bedstead,
dressing-bureau and all, and as soon as they came home, cleared the
house of all the old cheap (dear!) trash with which we had been
worried since the day we commenced housekeeping.
A good many years have passed since, and we have not paid the first
five dollar bill for repairs. All the drawers run as smoothly as
