"Tell us, O man of many hues! how much time will you need to paint and stain and grizzle and grain and tint and stripe and fill and shellac and oil and rub and scrub and cut and draw and putty and sand-paper and size and distemper and border and otherwise exalt and glorify the walls and woodwork of our house, after the other workmen are through, making allowance for what you have already done and will be able to do while they are still at work?"
"I tell you what it is, Mr. Architect, it shall be done just as soon as possible. The fact is, we've got the heft of it done now. We shall follow the carpenters up sharp, and get through almost as soon as they do."
Outwardly serene, but smiling triumphantly within, we went to our daily roast-beef, and in the sweet simplicity of a blissful ignorance and
a clear conscience assured our patient hostess that the dog-days and her unworthy guests should go out together. Yet we never told a lie or wilfully deceived any man, much less a woman.
But we anticipate. At the close of the third day we essayed to examine progress at the new house. As we approached, a dim and doubtful but wondrous pleasant anticipation took possession of our fancy. What if it should, indeed, be finished! The carpenter had suggested three or four days,—three had already passed. The painter was to get through almost as soon, the plumber would surely be out of the way, and there would be only the furnace registers. It was, perhaps, too good to be true, and we lingered to give the notion time to grow. Opening the door at last, we received something the same shock the traveller feels when he encounters a guide-post telling him the next town is half a
mile farther on than it was three miles back. But we've not lived forty years without learning to bury our "might-have-beens" with outward composure, whatever the internal commotion. We remembered there was still a week, and resolved to keep a sharp lookout that no time was wasted; an idle resolution, for the workmen were as anxious to get through as we were to have them. Faithful industry and attention we may demand, haste we have no right to ask. But our men actually hurried. We were instant in season and out of season, and can testify, with both hands in our empty pockets, that there was not an hour wasted. Yet our full-blown hopes fell, as the roses fall, leaf by leaf; drop by drop our patience ebbed, till, ere the close of the week, we sank slowly down on a pile of black-walnut shavings in the calmness of despair.
To make a long story short, we gave up,
beaten, trespassed a week on our long-suffering hostess, then went to visit our rich relations. They were glad to see us when we came, and wondered how long we were going to stay. We thought best to let them wonder, which they did for the space of a few weeks, when we folded our nightgowns and silently stole—not the spoons, but ourselves—away.
We mentioned the calmness of despair. From that depth it is often but a single step to the serenity of faith, on which sublime height not the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds hath power to vex or make afraid, much less a few pine shavings and the want of a little paint. Despair is never endless; it's a short-lived emotion at the worst, a selfish one at the best. Moralizing thus, it was by some means revealed to us that people are happy in paying twenty-five dollars a week at Martha's Vineyard and Mount Desert for the blessed privilege of living
in unfinished and unfurnished rooms,—breathing plenty of fresh air, typhoid malaria thrown in,—and eating such food as the uncertain winds and waves may waft thither. If at Mount Desert why not at Rock Rimmon, especially as the cost is somewhat less, the fresh air equally abundant, with nothing more malarious than the pungent perfume of the pines, and all the products of the civilized world within easy reach? Moreover, our third, fourth, and fifth stories—the floor of the latter just above the ridge pole, its ceiling just beyond the stars—were, for all purposes of use and comfort, ready for occupation. So we entered, hung up our hats, and told the busy builders we had come to stay.