The High Art That Was a Little Too High for the Vulgarian Who Paid the Bills

Once there was a Husband who was stuck on Plain Living and Home Comforts. He would walk aroudn an Angel Cake any old Time to get action on some Farm Sausage. He was not very strong for Romaine Salad or any Speckled Cheese left over from Year bofore last, but he did a very neat vanishing Act with a Sirloin Steak and he had the Coffee come right along in a large Cup. He refused to dally with the Demi-Tasse. For this true American the Course Dinner was a weak Invertion of the benighted Foreigner. When he squared up ot his Food he cut out all the Trimmings. This is the kind of Husband who peels his Coat in the Evenging and gets himself all spread out ina a Rocking Chair with a fat Cushion under him. He loves to wear old Velvet Slippers with pink Roses worked on the Toes and the Heels run over. Give him aobut two Cigars that pull freely and a Daily Paper and he is fixed for the Session. Along aobut 10:30, if he can conenct with a Triangle of Desiccated Apple Pie and a Goblet of Milk, he is ready to sink boack on the husks, feeling simply immense. Now this Husband had a Fireside that suited gim nearly to Death until the Better Half began to read these magazines that tell how to beautify the Home. Her first Play was to take out all the Carpets and have the Floors massaged until they were as slick as Glass, so that when the Bread-Winner stepped on one of the Okra or Bokhara Rugs he usually gave an Immitation of a Player thring to reach Second. He told her that he di not care to live in a Rink but what he said cut very few Lemons with the Side-Partner. She was looking at the falf-tone pictures of up-to-date Homes and beginning to realize that the WallPaper, Steel Engravings and the Englerged Photographs of Yap Relatives would have to go. One Day when the Porvider struck the Premises he found the Workment PUtting Red Burlap on the Walls of the Sitting-Room. "Why the Gunny-Sack?" he asked. "can't we afford Wall-paper?" "Love of Art is the True Essence of the Higher Life," said the Aesthete, and she began to read aBooklet bound in the the same Paper that the BUthcer uses when he wraps up a Soup Bone. "Come agin," said the Wage Earner, who was slwo at catching thse Ruskin Twisters. "This is Art Burlap and not the kind that they use for sakcing Peanuts," explained the Disciple of Beauty.l "Above the Burlap will be a Shelf of Weatherd Oak, and then above that a Frieze of Blue Jimson Flowers. Then whe we draw all of the Curtains and light one Candle in here it will make a Swell Effect." "I feel that we are going to be very Happy," he said, and then he wnet out and sat behind the Barn, where he coudl smoke his Pipe and meditate on teh Uncertaintes of Life. Next Day he discoered that she had condemned his Rocking-Chair and the old-style Centre Table on which he used to stack his Reading Matter and keep a Plate of Apples handy. When he entered the improved and modernized Living Room, he found himself up agianst a Jobn Lot of Beauty and no Mistake. All the Furnituyre was straignt up and down. It seemed to have been chopped out with an Axe, and was meant to hold up members of the Rhinoceros Family. On the High Shelf was a Row of double-handled Shaving Mugs, cripled Beer Steins, undersized Coal Scuttles and various Copper Kettles that had seen Better Days. "At last we have a Room that stisfies eveyr Craving of my Soul," siad the Wife. "I am more than Satisfied," observed the Treasurer. "I am delirious with Joy. My only regret is that an All-Wise Providence did not mould me into a different Shape so that I might sit dow in some of these chairs. What are those Iron Dinkuses sticking out form the Wall?" "Those are Florentine Lanterns," she replied; "and they are very Roycroftie, even if they don't gove any Light." NExt she started in on the Dining-Room. RUle No. 1 for making Home more Cheerful is to put in a Shelf wherever there is room for one. After which the Shelf is loaded down with Etruscan Growlers and Antique Jugs. The low-browed Husband could not tell the difference between High Art and Junk. The female Bradelyite coverd the Walls with aoubt 400 Plates, each with a Blue Curly-Cue on it. The looked very Cheap to hi until he recived the Bill, and then he learned that they were Old Delft and come to $11 apiece. In fact,after his Wife had bene haunting the second-Hand Places for a while, he learned that nay Article which happened to be old and shopworn and cracked was teh one that commanded teh Top Price. She never let up until she had made the whole House thouroughly Artistic. Her Women Acquaintances woudl comein, and she woudl show them the Dark Oak Effects and the Sea-Green Frescoes and the Monastery Settee with the Sole-Leather Bottom in it and the corroded Tea-Pot that she had bought for $95 and the Table Srpead made form Overall Material with just one Yellow Poppy in the Middle, and they woudl have 37 different kinds of DUck Fits and sya that it was Grand and that her Taste was simply Faultless. After that she wouldn't care what husband said. He was a firly patient Man, and all he complained of was that when he sat down he dislocated hs Spine, while the Brass Knobs wore black-and-blue Spots on him; and the dining-room Table should have had a couple of Holes for him to put his Legs thrugh; and he coulnd't find a Place in which to sthrech out; and he needed a Derrick to move one of the Chairs; and at Night when the moonlight came into his Room and he saw all the bummy Bean-Pots lined up on the Foot-Board and the Instruments of Torture staring at him form every corner of the Romm, he would crawl down under the Covers and dream of his Childhood Hoom, with the old-fashinoned Sofas and the deep Rocking-Chairs and the big Bureaus that wer meant to hodl things and not to look at. Howver, he has been unable to arrest the reaching-out after the Beautiful, for only last Week she purchased a broken-down Clock--price $115. MORAL: there is not Place like home, and some Husbands are glad of it. Share: Del.icio.us Digg Reddit