Part 12

She did. There was this great point of difference between the friends. Eleanor possessed by nature that eye for color and sense of effects which belongs to what people call the "artistic" temperament. May had none of this, and did not even understand what it meant. To her all reds and olives and yellows were alike; differences of tone, inflections of tint, were lost on her untrained and unappreciative vision. She was unconscious of this deficiency, so it did not annoy her, and as Eleanor had a quiet and pleasant way of differing with her, they never quarrelled. But none the less did each hold to her own point of view and her own opinion.

So, while May read eagerly all the articles in the secular and religious papers which show how girls and women have made plain homes cheaply charming by painting sunflowers and Black-Eyed Susans on ink-bottles and molasses-jugs, converting pork-barrels into arm-chairs with the aid of "excelsior" and burlaps, and "lighting up" dark corners with six-cent fans, and was fired with an ambition to do the same, Eleanor silently dissented from her enthusiasms. She was ready to help, however, even when she did not agree; and May, glad of the help, did not notice much the lack of sympathy. It is often so in friendships. One does the talking and one the listening. One kisses while the other holds out the cheek, as the French proverb puts it; one lays down the law and the other differs without disputing it, so both are satisfied.

It was so in this case. Eleanor was doing a great deal of quiet thinking and planning while May chattered by the hour over her projects.

"What I want my room to be," she told her friend, "is gay and dressy. I hate dull-looking rooms, and having no carpet or paper to buy I can get lots of chintz. There's a lovely pattern on the bargain counter at Shell's for fourteen cents, all over roses. I am going to have a whole piece of it, and just cover up all that awful old yellow furniture of mine entirely. The bureau is to have little rods across the front and curtains to hide the drawers, like that picture in the 'Pomologist,' and I shall make a soapbox footstool and a barrel chair, and have lambrequins and a drapery over my bed, and a coverlet and valances. The washstand I have decided to do in burlaps with cat-tails embroidered on the front, and a splasher with a pattern of swans and, 'Wash and be clean.' Won't it be lovely?

"You know those black-walnut book-shelves of mine," she went on, after a pause; "well, I am going to cover them in white muslin with little pleated ruffles on the edges and pink satin bows at the corners. Sarah Stanton has promised to paint me a stone bottle with roses to put on top, and Bell Short is working me a wall banner. It's going to be the gayest little place you ever saw."

"Won't the white muslin soil soon, and won't so much chintz get very dusty?" objected Eleanor.

"Oh, they can be washed," replied May, easily.

So the big roll of chintz was ordered home, and for a fortnight she and Eleanor spent all their spare time in hemming ruffles, tacking pleatings on to wooden shelves, and putting up frills and curtains. When all was done the room looked truly very fresh and gay. The old yellow "cottage furniture" had vanished under its raiment of chintz and was quite hidden. Even the foot-board of the bed had its slip-cover and flounce. The books were ranged in rows on the muslin shelves with crisp little ruffles above and below. Flowers and bright-colored zig-zags of crewels adorned everything. Wherever it was possible, a Japanese fan was stuck on the wall, or a bow of ribbon, or a little embroidered something, or a Christmas card. Scarfs of one sort or another were looped across the corners of the pictures, tidies innumerable adorned the chair-backs and table-tops. There was a general look of fulness and of an irresistible tendency in things to be of no particular use except to make spots of meaningless color and keep the eye roving restlessly to and fro.

"Isn't it just lovely?" said May, as she stood in the doorway to take in the effect. "Now, Eleanor Pyne, do say it's lovely."

"It's as bright as can be," answered Eleanor, cordially. "Only I can't bear to think of all these pretty things getting dusty. They're so nice and fresh now."

"Oh, they can easily be dusted," said May. "You are a perfect crank about dust, Elly. Now, here is my account. I think I have managed pretty well, don't you?"

The account ran thus:--

Sixty yards of chintz at 14 cents a yard $8.40 Burlaps, cheese-cloth, white muslin 3.25 Fans, ribbons, crewels 1.60 Stamping a tidy .30 One wicker-work chair 5.00 Hanging-basket 1.25 ------ Total $19.80

"There's twenty cents left over," explained May, as she finished reading the items. "That will just get a yellow ribbon to tie round the handle of my clothes-brush. Eleanor, you've been ever so good to help me so much. When are you going to begin your room? You must let me help you now."

"I began this morning."

"Have you really begun? What did you get?"

"Oh, I didn't get anything. This first thing isn't to cost anything at all."

"Why, what is it?"

"You know that ugly fire-board in front of my fireplace? I have taken it upstairs to the attic, and mother has lent me some cunning little andirons and a shovel and tongs which grandmamma gave her, and I am going to have an open fire."

"But you don't need one. The room is warm enough, with your register."

"Oh, I know that. And I didn't mean that I was going to _light_ the fire, only have it all ready for lighting. I rubbed the brass knobs myself with Puit's Pomade, and they shine _beautifully_, and I painted the bricks with red-ochre and water, and arranged the wood and kindlings, and it has such a cosy, homelike look, you can't think!"

"Well, I confess I don't see the cosiness of a fire that you're never going to light."

"Oh, mamma says if I ever am sick in bed, or there is any particular reason for it, I may light it. And even if it doesn't happen often, I shall have the comfort of knowing that it's all ready."

"I call it cold comfort. What a queer girl you are! Well, what are you going to do next, Elly?"

"You will laugh when I tell you. I'm going to paper my room myself."

"Not really! Why, you can't. Papering is very difficult; I have always heard so. People have to get men to do it, always."

"I don't believe it's so very difficult. There was a piece about it once in the 'Family Friend' which I cut out and saved. It told how to make the paste and everything, and it didn't seem hard at all. Mother thinks I can. I'm going to begin to-morrow. In fact, I began yesterday, for old Joyce came and mended the crack in the ceiling and kalsomined it, and oh, May, I did such a _thrifty_ thing! He had a nice big brush and a roller to smooth out the paper with, and don't you think, I made a bargain with him to hire them out to me for three cents an hour, so I sha'n't have to buy any."

"Didn't he laugh?"

"Yes, he laughed, and Ned laughed too; but I don't care. 'Let those laugh who win,'" concluded Eleanor, with a bright, confident smile.

"Come in to-morrow afternoon and see how I get on," she called out from the door of Ninety-three.

May went at the appointed time. The papering was done, and for a beginner very well done, though an expert might easily have found faulty places here and there. The paper Eleanor had chosen was of a soft, warm yellow like pale sunshine, which seemed to neutralize the cold light of the north windows. It looked plain when seen in shadow, but where the light struck it revealed a pattern of graceful interlaced disks. And the ceiling was tinted with a much lighter shade of the same yellow. A chestnut picture-rod separated wall and ceiling.

"Putting the paper on myself saved _lots_," announced Eleanor, gleefully. "It only cost fifteen cents a roll, so the whole room came to exactly a dollar eighty. Then I am to pay Joyce eighteen cents for six hours' use of his brush and roller, and mother isn't going to charge anything for the flour for the paste, because I boiled it myself. I had to get the picture-moulding, though, and that was rather dear,--nearly two dollars. Ned nailed it up for me."

"Why didn't you have a paper border; it would not have cost nearly as much?"

"No, but I should have had to drive nails and tacks in every time I wanted to hang up anything, and that would have spoiled the paper. And I want that to last a long, long time."

"What are you going to do with your furniture?" asked May, casting an eye of disfavor at the articles in question, a so-called "cottage" set, enamelled, of a faded, shabby blue.

"I am going to paint them," replied Eleanor, daringly.

"Eleanor Pyne! you can't!"

But Eleanor could and did. Painting is by no means the recondite art which some of its professors would have us suppose. Eleanor avoided one of the main difficulties of the craft, by buying her paint ready mixed and qualified with "dryers." She chose a pretty tint of olive brown. Ned took her bedstead apart for her, and one by one she carried the different articles to a little-used attic, where, equipped in a long-sleeved apron and a pair of old cotton gloves to save her fingers, she gradually coated each smoothly with the new paint. It took some days to finish, for she did not work continuously, but when done she felt rewarded for her pains; for the furniture not only looked new, but was prettier than it had ever been before during the memory of man. Her brother Ned was so pleased with her success, that he volunteered, if she would pay for the "stuff," to make a broad pine shelf to nail over the narrow shelf of her chimney-piece, and some smaller ones above, cut after a pretty design which he had seen in an agricultural magazine. This handsome offer Eleanor gladly accepted, and when the shelves were done, she covered them with two coats of the same useful olive-brown paint.

There was still some paint left; and grown bold with practice and no longer afraid of her big brush, Eleanor essayed a bolder flight. She first painted her doors and her window-frames, then she attacked her floor, and, leaving an ample square space in the middle, executed a border two feet and a half wide all round it, in a pattern of long diamonds done in two shades of olive, the darker being obtained by mixing a little black with the original tint.

"You see I have to buy my own carpet," she explained to the astonished and somewhat scandalized May; "and with this border a little square one will answer, instead of my having to get a great big thing for the whole floor."

"But sha'n't you hate to put your feet on bare boards?"

"That's just what I sha'n't do. Don't you see that the bureau and washstand and the bedstead and towel-frame and all the rest fill up nearly all the space I have left for a border. What's the use of buying carpet for _them_ to stand on?"

May shook her head. She was not capable of such original reasoning. In her code the thing that generally had been always should be.

"Well, it seems rather queer to me--and not very comfortable," she said. "And I can't think why you painted those shelves over the mantel instead of covering them with something,--chintz, now. They would have looked awfully pretty with pinked ruffles, you know, and long curtains to draw across the front like that picture you saw in 'Home made Happy.'"

"Oh, I shouldn't have liked that at all. I should hate the idea of calico curtains to a mantel-piece. It would always seem as if they were going to catch fire."

"But they _couldn't_. You don't have any fire," persisted May.

"No, but they would seem so. And I want my fire to look as if it could be lighted at any minute."

Eleanor's instinct was based on an "underlying principle." It is a charming point in any fireplace to look as if it were constantly ready for use. Inflammable draperies, however pretty, militate against this look, and so are a mistake in taste, especially in our changeful New England climate, where, even in midsummer, a little blaze may at any moment be desirable to cheer a dull day or warm a chilly evening.

But May herself was forced to admit that the room looked "comfortable" when the square of pretty ingrain carpeting of a warm golden brown was tacked into its place, and the furniture brought back from the attic and arranged. Things at once fell into harmonious relation with each other, as in a well-thought-out room they should do. The creamy, bright paper made a pleasant background; there was an air of cheerfulness even on cloudy days. May could not understand the reason of this, or why on such days her reds and pinks and drabs and greens and blues never seemed to warm her out of dulness.

"I am sure my colors are a great deal brighter than yours," she would say; "I cannot imagine why they don't light up better."

Eleanor did not try for many evanescent prettinesses. In fact, she could not, even had she wished to do so, for her money was all spent; so, as she told her mother, she contented herself with having secured things that would wear, and a pretty color. She put short curtains of "scrim" at her windows, and plain serviceable towels which could be often washed on her bureau and table-tops. The bureau was enlivened by a large, square scarlet pincushion, the only bit of finery in which Eleanor indulged. Amid the subdued tone of its surroundings it looked absolutely brilliant, like the famous red wafer which the great Turner stuck in the foreground of his dim-tinted landscape, and which immediately seemed to take the color out of the bright pictures on either side.

Later, when Eleanor had learned to do the pretty Mexican work, now in fashion, she decorated some special towels for her table and bureau, with lace-like ends, and a pair of pillow-covers. Meanwhile, she bore very well the knowledge that May and most of the other girls of their set considered her room rather "plain and bare." It suited her own fancy, and that satisfied her.

"I do like room to turn about in and not too many things, and not to smell of dust," she told her mother.

Here is Eleanor's budget of expenses, to set against May's:--

Wall-paper, twelve rolls $1.80 Use of brush and roller .18 Kalsomining ceiling 1.75 Picture-moulding 2.00 Two gallons of mixed paint, at $1.80 per gallon 3.60 Brush .30 Nine yards of ingrain carpeting at sixty-five cents a yard 5.85 Carpet thread and tacks .20 Pine shelving 1.00 Chintz for chair-cover put on by Eleanor herself 1.75 Satin and ribbon for cushion 1.12 ------ Total $19.86

This was two years ago. If you could take a peep at the rival rooms in Ninety-three and Ninety-four to-day, you would find Eleanor's looking quite as pretty as when new, or prettier; for she has used it carefully, and each year has added something to its equipments, as years will. When a girl has once secured a good foundation for her room, her friends are apt to make their gifts work in toward its further beautification.

With May it is different. Her room has lost the freshness which was its one good point. The chintz has become creased and a little faded, the muslin and scrim from repeated washings are no longer crisp, and look limp and threadbare; all the ribbons and scarfs are shabby and tumbled; while the green carpet and the blue wall "swear" as vigorously at each other as they did at first. May sighs over it frequently, and wishes she had tried for a more permanent effect. Next time she will do better, she avers; but next times are slow in coming where the family exchequer has not the recuperative powers of Fortunatus's purse.

The Moral of this simple tale may be divided into three heads. I object to morals myself as a wind-up for stories, and I dare say most of you who read this are no fonder of them than I am; still, a three-headed moral is such a novelty that it may be urged as an excuse. The three heads are these:--

1. When you have only a small sum to spend on renovations, choose those that will last.

2. Ingenuity and energy count for more than mere money can.

3. Once make sure in a room of convenience, cheerfulness, and a good color, and you can afford to wait for gimcracks--or "Jamescracks"--or any of the thousand and one little duds which so many people consider indispensable features of pleasantness. Rooms have their anatomy as well as human beings. There must be a good substructure of bones rightly placed to underlie the bloom and sparkle in the one; and in like manner for the other the laws of taste, which are immutable, should underlie and support the evanescent and passing fancies and fashions of every day.

THE SORROWS OF FELICIA.

It was a pretty chamber, full of evidences of taste and loving care. White curtains draped the windows and the looking-glass. There was a nice writing-table, set where the light fell upon it exactly as it should for convenience to the writer. There was a book-shelf full of gayly bound books, a pretty blue carpet, photographs on the faintly tinted blue wall,--somebody had evidently taken pains to make the room charming, and just as evidently to make it charming for the use of a girl. And there lay the girl on the sofa,--Felicia, or, in schoolroom parlance, Felie Bliss. Was she basking in the comfort and tastefulness of her room? Not at all! A volume of "In Memoriam" was in her hand. Her face was profoundly long and dismal. She murmured mournful lines over to herself, only pausing now and then to reach out her hand and fill a tumbler from a big jug of lemonade which stood on a little table beside her. Felie always provided herself with lemonade when she retired to her bedroom to enjoy the pleasures of woe for a season.

From the door, which was locked, sounded a chorus of knocks and irreverent voices.

"Sister, are you in there?" demanded one.

"Are you thinking about Life, sister?" asked another.

"Have you got your sharp-pointed scissors with you?" cried the first voice. "Oh, Felie, Felie, stay your rash hand."

"We like lemonade just as much as you," chimed in Dimple, the youngest of the four.

"Let us in. We are very thirsty, and we long to comfort you," said voice the second, with a stifled giggle.

Felicia paid no attention whatever to these observations, only murmured to herself,--

"But what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her perpetual maidenhood--"

"Who is 'her'?" demanded that bad Jenny through the door. "If you mean Mrs. Carrington, you are all wrong. May Curtis says her engagement is announced to Mr. Collins."

"Oh, children, do go away!" cried Felie in a despairing tone.

"Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confessions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in Thy wisdom make me wise."

"Hear her!" said Betty outside. "She's having it very badly to-day. I wish I knew Tennyson. I should like to tell him what I think of his writing a horrid, melancholy, caterwauling book, and making the Bliss family miserable. Felie, if you've drunk up all your lemonade, you might at least lend us the pitcher."

It was no use. Felicia either did not, or would not, hear. So, with a last thump on the panels of the long-suffering door, the trio departed in search of another pitcher.

If anybody had told Felie Bliss, at seventeen, that she really had not a grief in the world worthy of the name, she would have resented it deeply. She was a tall girl, whose bones and frame were meant for the use of a large woman, when their owner should have arrived at all that nature meant her to be, but who at this period of her life was almost startlingly long and thin. She had "outgrown her strength," as people say, which was Felie's only excuse for the almost tragic enjoyment which she took in mournful things. She was in fair health, and had an excellent appetite, and a real school-girl love for raisins, stick-cinnamon, sugar-plums, and soda-water; tastes which were highly at variance with the rôle which she wished to play,--that of a sweetly-resigned and long-suffering being, whose hopes had faded from earth, into the distant heaven toward which she was hastening. Felie's sweet-tooth was quite a trial to her; but she struggled with it, and resisted enjoyment as far as was possible with her naturally cheerful disposition.

She was an interesting perplexity to her family, who were contented, reasonable folk, of the sort which, happily for the world, is called commonplace. To her younger sisters, especially, Felicia was a never-failing and exciting conundrum, the answer to which they were always guessing, but never could find out. For days together she would be as cheerful as possible, full of fun and contrivance, and the life of the house; then, all of a sudden, gloom would envelop her like a soft fog, and she would retire to her room with "In Memoriam," or some other introspective volume, and the fat jug of lemonade, lock the door, and just "drink and weep for hours together," as her sister Jenny expressed it. It was really unaccountable.

All her books were deeply scored with lines against the woful passages, and such pencilled remarks as "Alas!" and "All too true!" She sat in church with a carefully arranged sad smile on her face; but this, as unsuitable to her natural expression, was not always a success. Felie was much aggrieved one day at being told, by an indiscriminating friend, that her face "seemed made to laugh,--no one could imagine it anything but bright." This, for a girl who was posing for "Patience on a monument smiling at grief," was rather a trial; but then the friend had never seen her reading "King John," and murmuring,--

"Here I and sorrow sit--"

with a long brown stick of cinnamon, in process of crunch, occupying the other corner of her mouth. But perhaps the friend might have found even this funny,--there are such unfeeling people in the world!

Felie's letters were rather dull reading, because she told so little of what she had said or done, and hinted so liberally at her own aching heart and thwarted hopes. But her correspondents, who were mostly jolly school-girls, knew her pretty well, and dismissed these jeremiads as, "Just Felie's way. She does love to be miserable, you know, but nobody is better fun than she when she doesn't think it her duty to be unhappy."

Felie didn't come down to tea on the evening of the day on which our story opens. An afternoon of lemonade had dampened her appetite, but at bedtime she stole out in her dressing-gown and slippers, helped herself to a handful of freshly baked cookies and a large green cucumber pickle, and, by the aid of these refreshments, contrived to stave off the pangs of hunger till next morning, when she appeared at breakfast cheerful and smiling, with no sign upon her spirits of the eclipse of the day before. Her family made no allusion to that melancholy episode,--they were used to such,--only Mr. Bliss asked, between two mouthfuls of toast, "Where were you gadding to last night, child? I didn't hear you come home."

"I was not out. I didn't feel very--very bright, and went to bed early."

"Oh!"--Mr. Bliss understood.