Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper

My speculation in china ware.

This happened a very few years after, my marriage, and is one of those feeling incidents in life that we never forget.  My husband’s income was moderate, and we found it necessary to deny ourselves many little articles of ornament and luxury, to the end that there might be no serious abatement in the comforts of life.  In furnishing our house, we had been obliged to content ourselves mainly with things useful.  Our parlor could boast of nine cane-seat chairs; one high-backed cane-seat rocking chair; a pair of card tables; a pair of ottomans, the covers for which I had worked in worsted; and a few illustrated books upon the card tables.  There were no pictures on the walls, nor ornaments on the mantle pieces.

For a time after my marriage with Mr. Smith, I did not think much about the plainness of our style of living; but after a while, contracts between my own parlors and those of one or two friends, would take place in my mind; and I often found myself wishing that we could afford a set of candelabras, a pair of china vases, or some choice pieces of Bohemian glass.  In fact, I set my heart on something of the kind, though I concealed the weakness from my husband.

Time stole on, and one increase after another to our family, kept up the necessity for careful expenditure, and at no time was there money enough in the purse to justify any outlay beyond what the wants of the household required.  So my mantel pieces remained bare as at first, notwithstanding the desire for something to put on them still remained active.

One afternoon, as I sat at work renovating an old garment, with the hope of making it look almost “as good as new,” my cook entered and said—­

“There’s a man down stairs, Mrs. Smith, with a basket full of the most beautiful glass dishes and china ornaments that you ever did see; and he says that he will sell them for old clothes.”

“For old clothes?” I responded, but half comprehending what the girl meant.

“Yes ma’am. if you have got an old coat, or a pair of pantaloons that aint good for nothing, he will buy them, and pay you in glass or china.”

I paused for a moment to think, and then said—­

“Tell him to come up into the dining room, Mary.”

The girl went down stairs, and soon came back in company with a dull looking old man, who carried on his arm a large basket, in which were temptingly displayed rich china vases, motto and presentation cups and saucers, glass dishes, and sundry other articles of a like character.

“Any old coats, pantaloons or vests?” said the man, as he placed, carefully, his basket on the floor.  “Don’t want any money.  See here!  Beautiful!”

And as he spoke, he took up a pair of vases and held them before my eyes.  They were just the thing for my mantle pieces, and I covetted them on the instant.

“What’s the price?” I enquired.

“Got an old coat?” was my only answer.  “Don’t want money.”

My husband was the possessor of a coat that had seen pretty good service, and which he had not worn for some time.  In fact, it had been voted superannuated, and consigned to a dark corner of the clothes-press.  The thought of this garment came very naturally into my mind, and with the thought a pleasant exhilaration of feeling, for I already saw the vases on my mantles.

“Any old clothes?” repeated the vender of china ware.

Without a word I left the dining room, and hurried up to where our large clothes-press stood, in the passage above.  From this I soon abstracted the coat, and then descended with quick steps.

The dull face of the old man brightened, the moment his eyes fell upon the garment.  He seized it with a nervous movement, and seemed to take in its condition at a single glance.  Apparently, the examination was not very satisfactory, for he let the coat fall, in a careless manner, across a chair, giving his shoulders a shrug, while a slight expression of contempt flitted over his countenance.

“Not much good!” fell from his lips after a pause.

By this time I had turned to his basket, and was examining, more carefully, its contents.  Most prominent stood the china vases, upon which my heart was already set; and instinctively I took them in my hands.

“What will you give for the coat?” said I.

The old man gave his head a significant shake, as he replied—­

“No very good.”

“It’s worth something,” I returned.  “Many a poor person would be glad to buy it for a small sum of money.  It’s only a little defaced.  I’m sure its richly worth four or five dollars.”

“Pho!  Pho!  Five dollar!  Pho!” The old man seemed angry at my most unreasonable assumption.

“Well, well,” said I, beginning to feel a little impatient, “just tell me what you will give for it.”

“What you want?” he enquired, his manner visibly changing.

“I want these vases, at any rate,” I answered, holding up the articles I had mentioned.

“Worth four, five dollar!” ejaculated the dealer, in well feigned surprise.

I shook my head.  He shrugged his shoulders, and commenced searching his basket, from which, after a while, he took a china cup and saucer, on which I read, in gilt letters, “For my Husband.”

“Give you this,” said he.

It was now my time to show surprise; I answered—­

“Indeed you won’t, then.  But I’ll tell you what I will do; I’ll let you have the coat for the vases and this cup and saucer.”

To this proposition the man gave an instant and decided negative, and seemed half offended by my offer.  He threw the coat, which was in his hands again, upon a chair, and stooping down took his basket on his arm.  I was deceived by his manner, and began to think that I had proposed rather a hard bargain; so I said—­

“You can have the coat for the vases, if you care to make the exchange; if not, why no harm is done.”

For the space of nearly half a minute, the old man stood in apparent irresolution, then he replied, as he set down his basket and took out the pair of vases—­

“I don’t care; you shall have them.”

I took the vases and he took the coat.  A moment or two more, and I heard the street door close behind the dealer in china ware, with a very decided jar.

“Ain’t they beautiful, aunty?” said I to my old aunt Rachel, who had been a silent witness of the scene I have just described; and I held the pair of vases before her eyes.

“Why yes, they are rather pretty, Jane,” replied aunt Rachel, a little coldly, as I thought.

“Rather pretty!  They are beautiful,” said I warmly.  “See there!” And I placed them on the dining room mantle.  “How much they will improve our parlors.”

“Not half so much as that old coat you as good as gave away would have improved the feelings as well as the looks of poor Mr. Bryan, who lives across the street,” was the unexpected and rebuking answer of aunt Rachel.

The words smote on my feelings.  Mr. Bryan was a poor, but honest and industrious young man, upon whose daily labor a wife and five children were dependent.  He went meanly clad, because he could not earn enough, in addition to what his family required, to buy comfortable clothing for himself.  I saw, in an instant, what the true disposition of the coat should have been.  The china vases would a little improve the appearance of my parlors; but how many pleasant feelings and hours and days of comfort, would the old coat have given to Mr. Bryan.  I said no more.  Aunt Rachel went on with her knitting, and I took the vases down into the parlors and placed them on the mantles—­one in each room.  But they looked small, and seemed quite solitary.  So I put one on each end of a single mantle.  This did better; still, I was disappointed in the appearance they made, and a good deal displeased with myself.  I felt that I had made a bad bargain—­that is, one from which I should obtain no real pleasure.

For a while I sat opposite the mantle-piece, looking at the vases—­but, not admiringly; then I left the parlor, and went about my household duties, but, with a pressure on my feelings.  I was far, very far from being satisfied with myself.

About an hour afterwards my husband came home.  I did not take him into the parlor to show him my little purchase, for, I had no heart to do so.  As we sat at the tea table, he said, addressing me—­

“You know that old coat of mine that is up in the clothes-press?”

I nodded my head in assent, but did not venture to speak.

“I’ve been thinking to-day,” added my husband, “that it would be just the thing for Mr. Bryan, who lives opposite.  It’s rather too much worn for me, but will look quite decent on him, compared with the clothes he now wears.  Don’t you think it is a good thought?  We will, of course, make him a present of the garment.”

My eyes drooped to the table, and I felt the blood crimsoning my face.  For a moment or two I remained silent, and then answered—­

“I’m sorry you didn’t think of this before; but it’s too late now.”

“Too late!  Why?” enquired my husband.

“I sold the coat this afternoon,” was my reply.

“Sold it!”

“Yes.  A man came along with some handsome china ornaments, and I sold the coat for a pair of vases to set on our mantle-pieces.”

There was an instant change in my husband’s face.  He disapproved of what I had done; and, though he uttered no condemning words, his countenance gave too clear an index to his feelings.

“The coat would have done poor Mr. (sic) Byran a great deal more good than the vases will ever do Jane,” spoke up aunt Rachel, with less regard for my feelings than was manifested by my husband.  “I don’t think,” she continued, “that any body ought to sell old clothes for either money or nicknackeries to put on the mantle-pieces.  Let them be given to the poor, and they’ll do some good.  There isn’t a housekeeper in moderate circumstances that couldn’t almost clothe some poor family, by giving away the cast off garments that every year accumulate on her hands.”

How sharply did I feel the rebuking spirit in these words of aunt Rachel.

“What’s done can’t be helped now,” said my husband kindly, interrupting, as he spoke, some further remarks that aunt Rachel evidently intended to make.  “We must do better next time.”

“I must do better,” was my quick remark, made in penitent tones.  “I was very thoughtless.”

To relieve my mind, my husband changed the subject of conversation; but, nothing could relieve the pressure upon my feelings, caused by a too acute consciousness of having done what in the eyes of my husband, looked like a want of true humanity.  I could not bear that he should think me void of sympathy for others.

The day following was Sunday.  Church time came, and Mr. Smith went to the clothes press for his best coat, which had been worn only for a few months.

“Jane!” he called to me suddenly, in a voice that made me start.  “Jane!  Where is my best coat?”

“In the clothes press,” I replied, coming out from our chamber into the passage, as I spoke.

“No; it’s not here,” was his reply.  “And, I shouldn’t wonder if you had sold my good coat for those china vases.”

“No such thing!” I quickly answered, though my heart gave a great bound at his words; and then sunk in my bosom with a low tremor of alarm.

“Here’s my old coat,” said Mr. Smith, holding up that defaced garment—­“Where is the new one?”

“The old clothes man has it, as sure as I live!” burst from my lips.

“Well, that is a nice piece of work, I must confess!”

This was all my husband said; but it was enough to smite me almost to the floor.  Covering my face with my hands, I dropped into a chair, and sat and sobbed for a while bitterly.

“It can’t be helped now, Jane,” said Mr. Smith, at length, in a soothing voice.  “The coat is gone, and there is no help for it.  You will know better next time.”

That was all he said to me then, and I was grateful for his kind consideration.  He saw that I was punished quite severely enough, and did not add to my pain by rebuke or complaint.

An attempt was made during the week to recover the coat, valued at some twenty dollars; but the china ornament-man was not to be found—­he had made too good a bargain to run the risk of having it broken.

About an hour after the discovery of the loss of my husband’s coat, I went quietly down into the parlor, and taking from the mantle-piece the china vases, worth, probably, a dollar for the pair, concealed them under my apron, lest any one should see what I had; and, returning up stairs, hid them away in a dark closet, where they have ever since remained.

The reader may be sure that I never forgot this, my first and last speculation in china ware.