Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper Part 24

"Ah! Why so?"

"I discovered, this spring, that the moth had got into it."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. They showed themselves, every day, in such numbers, in my parlors, that I became alarmed for my carpets. I soon traced their origin to the sofa, which was immediately packed off to auction. I was sorry to part with it; but, there was no other effective remedy."

"You lost on the sale, I presume," I ventured to remark.

"Yes; that was to be expected. It cost sixty dollars, and brought only thirty. But this loss was to be preferred to the destruction such an army of moth as it was sending forth, would have occasioned."

I changed the subject, dexterously, having heard quite enough about the sofa to satisfy me that my bargain was likely to prove a bad one.

All the summer, I was troubled with visions of moth-eaten carpets, furs, shawls, and overcoats; and they proved to be only the foreshadowing of real things to come, for, when, in the fall, the contents of old chests, boxes, drawers, and dark closets were brought forth to the light, a state of affairs truly frightful to a housekeeper, was presented. One of the breadths of my handsome carpet had the pile so eaten off in conspicuous places, that no remedy was left but the purchase and subst.i.tution of a new one, at a cost of nearly ten dollars. In dozens of places the texture of the carpet was eaten entirely through. I was, as my lady readers may naturally suppose, very unhappy at this. But, the evil by no means found a limit here. On opening my fur boxes, I found that the work of destruction had been going on there also. A single shake of the m.u.f.f, threw little fibres and flakes of fur in no stinted measure upon the air; and, on das.h.i.+ng my hand hard against it, a larger ma.s.s was detached, showing the skin bare and white beneath. My furs were ruined. They had cost seventy dollars, and were not worth ten!

A still further examination into our stock of winter clothing, showed that the work of destruction had extended to almost every article. Scarcely any thing had escaped.

Troubled, worried, and unhappy as I was, I yet concealed from Mr.

Smith the origin of all this ruin. He never suspected our cheap sofa for a moment. After I had, by slow degrees, recovered from my chagrin and disappointment, my thoughts turned, naturally, upon a disposition of the sofa. What was to be done with it? As to keeping it over another season, that was not to be thought of for a moment.

But, would it be right, I asked myself, to send it back to auctions and let it thus go into the possession of some housekeeper, as ignorant of its real character as I had been? I found it very hard to reconcile my conscience to such a disposition of the sofa. And there was still another difficulty in the way. What excuse for parting with it could I make to Mr. Smith? He had never suspected that article to be the origination of all the mischief and loss we had sustained.

Winter began drawing to a close, and still the sofa remained in its place, and still was I in perplexity as to what should be done with it.

"Business requires me to go to Charleston," said Mr. Smith, one day late in February.

"How long will you be away?" was my natural enquiry.

"From ten days to two weeks," replied Mr. Smith.

"So long as that?"

"It will hardly be possible to get home earlier than the time I have mentioned."

"You go in the Osprey?"

"Yes. She sails day after to-morrow. So you will have all ready for me, if you please."

Never before had the announcement of my husband that he had to go away on business given me pleasure. The moment he said that he would be absent, the remedy for my difficulty suggested itself.

The very day Mr. Smith sailed in the steamer for Charleston, I sent for an upholsterer, and after explaining to him the defect connected with my sofa, directed him to have the seating all removed, and then replaced by new materials, taking particular care to thoroughly cleanse the inside of the wood work, lest the vestige of a moth should be left remaining.

All this was done, at a cost of twenty dollars. When Mr. Smith returned, the sofa was back in its place; and he was none the wiser for the change, until some months afterwards, when, unable to keep the secret any longer, I told him the whole story.

I am pretty well cured, I think now, of bargain-buying.

CHAPTER XXII.

A PEEVISH DAY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

THERE are few housekeepers who have not had their sick and peevish days. I have had mine, as the reader will see by the following story, which I some time since ventured to relate, in the third person, and which I now take the liberty of introducing into these confessions.

"It is too bad, Rachel, to put me to all this trouble; and you know I can hardly hold up my head."

Thus spoke Mrs. Smith, in a peevish voice, to a quiet looking domestic, who had been called up from the kitchen to supply some unimportant omission in the breakfast table arrangement.

Rachel looked hurt and rebuked, but made no reply.

"How could you speak in that way to Rachel?" said Mr. Smith, as soon as the domestic had withdrawn.

"If you felt just as I do, Mr. Smith, you would speak cross, too!"

Mrs. Smith replied a little warmly--"I feel just like a rag; and my head aches as if it would burst."

"I know you feel badly, and I am very sorry for you. But still, I suppose it is as easy to speak kindly as harshly. Rachel is very obliging and attentive, and should be borne with in occasional omissions, which you of course know are not wilful."

"It is easy enough to preach," retorted Mrs. Smith, whose temper, from bodily la.s.situde and pain, was in quite an irritable state. The reader will understand at least one of the reasons of this, when he is told that the scene here presented occurred during the last oppressive week in August.

Mr. Smith said no more. He saw that to do so would only be to provoke instead of quieting his wife's ill humor. The morning meal went by in silence, but little food pa.s.sing the lips of either. How could it, when the thermometer was ninety-four at eight o'clock in the morning, and the leaves upon the trees were as motionless as if suspended in a vacuum. Bodies and minds were relaxed--and the one turned from food, as the other did from thought, with an instinctive aversion.

After Mr. Smith had left his home for his place of business, Mrs.

Smith went up into her chamber, and threw herself upon the bed, her head still continuing to ache with great violence. It so happened that a week before, the chambermaid had gone away, sick, and all the duties of the household had in consequence devolved upon Rachel, herself not very well. Cheerfully, however, had she endeavored to discharge these acc.u.mulated duties, and but for the unhappy, peevish state of mind in which Mrs. Smith indulged, would have discharged them without a murmuring thought. But, as she was a faithful, conscientious woman, and, withal, sensitive in her feelings, to be found fault with, worried her exceedingly. Of this Mrs. Smith was well aware, and had, until the latter part of the trying month of August, acted towards Rachel with consideration and forbearance. But the last week of August was too much for her. The sickness of the chamber maid threw such heavy duties upon Rachel, whose daily headaches and nervous relaxation of body were borne without a complaint, that their perfect performance was almost impossible.

Slight omissions, which were next to unavoidable, under the circ.u.mstances, became so annoying to Mrs. Smith, herself, as it has been seen, laboring under great bodily and mental prostration that she could not bear them.

"She knows better, and she could do better, if she chose," was her rather uncharitable comment, often inwardly made on the occurrence of some new trouble.

After Mr. Smith had taken his departure on the morning just referred to, Mrs. Smith went up into her chamber, as has been seen, and threw herself languidly upon a bed, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples, as she did so, and murmuring:

"I can't live at this rate!"

At the same time, Rachel sat down in the kitchen the large waiter upon which she had arranged the dishes from the breakfast table, and then sinking into a chair, pressed one hand upon her forehead, and sat for more than a minute in troubled silence. It had been three days since she had received from Mrs. Smith a pleasant word, and the last remark, made to her a short time before, had been the unkindest of all. At another time, even all this would not have moved her--she could have perceived that Mrs. Smith was not in a right state--that la.s.situde of body had produced a temporary infirmity of mind. But, being herself affected by the oppressive season almost as much as her mistress, she could not make these allowances. While still seated, the chamber bell was rung with a quick, startling jerk.

"What next?" peevishly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rachel, and then slowly proceeded to obey the summons.

"How could you leave my chamber in such a condition as this?" was the salutation that met her ear, as she entered the presence of Mrs.

Smith, who, half raised upon the bed, and leaning upon her hand, looked the very personification of languor, peevishness, and ill-humor. "You had plenty of time while we were eating breakfast to have put things a little to rights!"

To this Rachel made no reply, but turned away and went back into the kitchen. She had scarcely reached that spot, before the bell rang again, louder and quicker than before; but she did not answer it. In about three minutes it was jerked with an energy that snapped the wire, but Rachel was immovable. Five minutes elapsed, and then Mrs.

Smith fully aroused, from the lethargy that had stolen over her, came down with a quick, firm step.

"What's the reason you didn't answer my bell? say?" she asked, in an excited voice.

Rachel did not reply.

"Do you hear me?"