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
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
usable order and respectable aspect. By this time a new set of
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
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
railroad cars; knobs are tight; locks in prime order, and veneers
cling as tightly to their places as if they had grown there. All is
right and tight, and wears an orderly, genteel appearance; and what
is best of all the cost of every thing we have, good as it is, is
far below the real cost of what is inferior.
“It is better—much better,” said I to Mrs. Jones, the other day.
“Better!” was her reply. “Yes, indeed, a thousand times better to
have good things at once. Cheap furniture is dearest in the end.
Every housekeeper ought to know this in the beginning. If we had
known it, see what we would have saved.”
“If I had known it, you mean,” said I.
My wife looked kindly, not triumphantly, into my face, and smiled.
When she again spoke, it was on another subject.
CHAPTER VI.