"They say the young girl is goin' to be married soon, and I reckon some day that pretty young thing's children'll be lyin' in the old Stearns cradle; and a lot o' that old mahogany, they tell me, goes to the furnishin' of her room. Maybe she'll be writin' her letters at Grandfather's secretary, and sleepin' on Grandmother's old canopy bed. It don't seem right, Maria, for a pretty young bride to be beginnin' life with a lot o' dead folks' furniture; but then, she won't have the associations, and it's the associations that make old furniture so unhealthy to have around the house.
"I reckon I must be some kin to the tribe o' Indians I was readin' about in my missionary paper last Sunday. Every time anybody dies, they burn everything that belonged to the dead person, and then they burn down the place he died in and build a new one. That seems right wasteful, don't it, Maria? But it's a good deal wholesomer to do that way, than to clutter up your house with dead folks' belongin's like we do. And that's why I'm gettin' so much pleasure out o' this new oak furniture. It's mine, jest mine, and nobody else's. It didn't come down to me from my great-grandmother; I went to the store and picked it out myself. No dead person's hands ever touched it, and there's not a single association hangin' anywheres around it.
"Yes, Maria, I got a good price for everything I sold. Because I didn't want it, that's no reason why I should give it away. I could see the lady wanted it mighty bad, so I valued it accordin' to what I thought it'd be worth to her, and when I saw how willin' she was to pay my price, I was right sorry I hadn't asked more.
"She was one o' the high-steppers, that lady was, but as sweet-talkin' and nice-mannered as you please, and when she wrote out the check and handed it to me, she says: 'When can I get the furniture?' 'Right now,' says I, 'if you want it right now.' 'But,' says she, 'what will you do without furniture? Hadn't you better get in your new beds and chairs and tables before I take the old ones away?' And I says: 'Don't you worry about me, ma'am; it's only four miles from here to town, and by the time you get this old mahogany rubbish out, I'll have my new golden oak things in; so don't you hold back on my account.'
"And she looked at me in a curious sort o' way, and says she: 'Don't you mind givin' up this old mahogany? Would you just as soon have new golden oak furniture?' And I says: 'No, I wouldn't jest as soon; I'd a good deal rather have it.'
"And she laughed real pleasant, and says she: 'I'm so glad you feel that way about it. I always feel guilty when I buy old furniture that the owner is unwilling to part with, no matter how good a price I pay for it.' And I says: 'Well, you can have a clear conscience in the matter of buyin' my old furniture. This check and the golden oak I'm goin' to buy with it is perfectly satisfactory to me.'
"And what do you reckon I'm goin' to do with that money, Maria? I reckon people think that because I've lived here all my life I've enjoyed doin' so. But I haven't. I've been jest as tired of Goshen neighborhood as I ever was of my old mahogany,—the old roads and the old fences and the old farms,—yes, and the old people, too. Maria, I get tired of everything, even myself, and now I'm goin' to travel and see the world, that's what I'm goin' to do. What's the use in livin' sixty or seventy years in a world like this and never seein' it. Why, you might as well be a worm in a hickory nut. And, Maria, I take out my old geography sometimes, when I'm sittin' here alone in the evenin', and I look at the map of North America, and there's the big Atlantic ocean on one side and the big Pacific ocean on the other; and all the big rivers and lakes in between flowin' down to the big Gulf of Mexico; and here I am stuck fast in this little old place, and the most water I've ever seen is Drake's Creek and Little Barren River! And I look on the map at the mountains runnin' up and down this country, the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies and all the rest of 'em, and the highest ground I've ever seen is Pilot Knob! I'm not afraid to die, Maria, but when I think of all the things that's to be seen in this world, and how I'm not seein' 'em, I just pray: 'Lord, don't let me go to the next world till I've seen somethin' of this one.' And now my prayer's answered. I don't know whether I'll go east or west or north or south; but I'm goin' to see the ocean, and I'm goin' to see the mountains before I die, all on account o' that mahogany furniture; I never supposed the day would come when I'd be thankful for that old plunder; but sometimes, Maria, the things we don't want turn out to be our greatest blessin's.
"I reckon it's mighty poor taste on my part to want new furniture in place o' that old mahogany. All the time I was showin' 'em around, the lady and her daughter kept sayin': 'How artistic!' 'What classic lines!' and I reckon the reason they looked at me so curious when I said I'd rather have this golden oak, was that they was pityin' me for not knowin' what's 'artistic.' Now, I may not be artistic, Maria, but I've got a taste of my own, and what's the use in havin' a taste of your own unless you use it? I might jest as well try to use somebody else's eyes as to use somebody else's taste. That old mahogany pleased my grandmother's taste and my mother's taste, but it don't please mine; and I'm no more bound to use my grandmother's old furniture than I am to wear my grandmother's old clothes.
"Don't go, Maria. Sit down a minute longer, for I haven't told you the best part of the story yet. After the lady had said good-by and was out of the door, she turned back, and says she: 'Miss Mayfield, when I get the furniture in order, I'm going to send my carriage for you, and you must come over and see if you can recognize your old friends in their new dress and their new home.' I never believed she was goin' to send her carriage for me, Maria, but she did. And she took me all over the house, and they've made it over the same as you'd make over an old dress; and it ain't a house any longer, it's a palace. Don't ask me to tell you how it looks, for I can't. I've always wondered what sort of places kings and queens lived in, and now I know. There wasn't a room that didn't have some of my old mahogany in it, but at first I couldn't believe it was the same furniture I'd sold the lady. She'd had all the varnish scraped off, and it was as soft and shiny-lookin' as satin, even that little, old black cradle, and the lady said that when the furniture man began to scrape that, he found it was solid rosewood. We went into the library, and there was Grandfather's old secretary, lookin' so fine and grand, Maria, it took my breath clean away. There wasn't a dent or a scratch on it, and it shone in the light jest like a piece of polished silver, and the prettiest curtains you ever saw fallin' on each side of it. It looked exactly like it belonged in that room. And it does belong there. Why, as I was standin' there lookin' at it, I thought if that old secretary could speak, it would say: 'I've found my place at last.' And it come over me all at once, Maria, that the doctrine of foreordination holds good with things as well as people. That old mahogany never belonged to me nor to Mother. It jest stopped over a while with us, while it was on its way to the lady, and it was hers from the very day it was made. I tell you, Maria, things belong to the folks that can appreciate 'em. That furniture was jest chairs and tables and bedsteads to Mother and me; but the lady knew all about it, when it was made and where it was made, and the name of the man that first made it. And after we'd looked at everything in the house, she took me out to see the gyarden. Such a gyarden! She said it was jest like one she'd seen over in England, and she was plantin' the same kind of flowers in it. The beds were all sorts of shapes, and there was a pool of water in the middle with water-lilies in it, and right by the pool was somethin' that tells the time of day pretty near as well as a clock, jest by the shadow on it. There was a hedge planted all around the gyarden, and the gyardner was settin' out all kinds of flowers, and there was one bed of pansies and another of geraniums in full bloom, and I said: 'I don't know why you wanted my old-fashioned flowers, when you've got such a gyarden as this.' And she smiled and looked down at the geraniums, and says she: 'These flowers don't mean anything to me. But your roses and honeysuckles and pinks mean everything; they are joy and sorrow and love and youth,—everything I have had and lost.' Hearin' her talk, Maria, was jest like readin' a book. And then, she took me around to another gyarden at the back of the house, and showed me a bed, and all the roots and slips that she'd got from me were growin' in it. The gyardner 'tends to the rest of the flowers, but he never touches this bed; the lady weeds it and waters it with her own hands. Now, I don't want anything around me that reminds me of what I've had and lost, but she's one of the kind that loves associations.
"No, I haven't re-furnished all the up-stairs rooms, Maria. What's the use o' havin' furnished rooms that you never use? Yes, it does look pretty empty, but after livin' in a jungle of old mahogany these many years, you don't know what a blessed relief it is to have a few empty spots about the house. Every house ought to have one or two empty rooms, Maria, jest for folks to rest their eyes on.