Upon a bracket in the front parlor she placed a model of a ship that had been given to Captain Fritzinger by the maker. This pleased Mr. Whitman exceedingly, for he had often noticed and admired it. He said that the first time he had desired to write anything was when he saw a ship in full sail. He tried to describe it exactly and failed; had often since studied ships in the vain hope of getting the whole beautiful story into words, but had never been able to do so.
The mantels of both parlors Mrs. Davis heaped with shells and curiosities from distant parts of the world. Some of them were rare and valuable.
Such was the inside of the house after it had passed through Mary's transforming hands. There were many things in it that might have been better elsewhere, perhaps. But where? It was only a little house, and Mary had come to it from a larger one, with all her possessions. She had nowhere else to put them now, without losing them. If Mr. Whitman had any sense of being over-crowded, it was his own fault. She had come at his urging—and he had taken the two large parlors on the first floor, and the large front chamber with the anteroom above, entirely for his own use, thus leaving for the two women the kitchen (which he shared with them in its aspect of dining room) and the only remaining room in the house—the little back chamber on the second floor. Into this, they condensed and squeezed their more personal belongings.
IV
THE NEW RÉGIME
"I know an old story. It goes back to 1826, when a monument to Bellman, the Swedish poet, was unveiled in Stockholm. The King and Queen were there, and Bellman's old wife. And the King spoke of the dead poet, and praised him in a flight of purple phrases; but the old wife said, 'Oh yes, but if your Majesty only knew what a nuisance he was about the house....' But frankly, wouldn't you like to know what kind of a nuisance the poet was at home?"—Vance Thompson.
DISCOVERING so quickly that her new charge was decidedly a self-centered person, and seeing that waiting upon him promised to be her chief occupation, Mrs. Davis planned her work accordingly, and being an early riser was able to devote the untrammelled morning hours to preparations for the day.
Mr. Whitman usually arose at nine o'clock, but in this, as in all things, he consulted his own wishes alone. His breakfast hour was any time during the forenoon; and no doubt he did not understand how or why this could discommode his new housekeeper.