However, this one hadn't
a deserted look; it had the look of being lived in and petted
and cared for and looked after; and so had its front yard,
which was a garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and flourishing.
I was invited in, of course, and required to make myself at home
--it was the custom of the country.
It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily
and nightly familiarity with miners' cabins--with all which this
implies of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups,
bacon and beans and black coffee, and nothing of ornament but war
pictures from the Eastern illustrated papers tacked to the log walls.
That was all hard, cheerless, materialistic desolation, but here was a
nest which had aspects to rest the tired eye and refresh that something
in one's nature which, after long fasting, recognizes, when confronted
by the belongings of art, howsoever cheap and modest they may be,
that it has unconsciously been famishing and now has found nourishment.
I could not have believed that a rag carpet could feast me so,
and so content me; or that there could be such solace to the soul
in wall-paper and framed lithographs, and bright-colored tidies
and lamp-mats, and Windsor chairs, and varnished what-nots, with
sea-shells and books and china vases on them, and the score of little
unclassifiable tricks and touches that a woman's hand distributes
about a home, which one sees without knowing he sees them, yet would
miss in a moment if they were taken away.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191