On Monday, Smith’s house is turned into a sort of Bedlam, minus the beds. They are tied up, ready for the next morning’s Hegira; the Smiths sleeping on the floor on Monday night. Smith can’t sleep on the floor; he grows restless; he receives constant reminders from Mrs. Smith to take his elbow out of the baby’s face; he has horrid visions and rolls about: therefore, he is not at all surprised, on waking at cock-crow, to find his head in the fire-place, and his hair powdered with soot. The occasion of his waking at that time, was a dream of an unpleasant nature. He dreamed that he had rolled off the world backwards, and lodged in a thorn-bush. Of course, such a thing was slightly improbable; but how could Smith be responsible for a dream?
On Tuesday morning, the Smiths are up with the dawn. The household being mustered, it is found that the servant girl, who had often averred that, “she lived out, just for a little exercise,” had deserted her colors. The grocer on the corner politely informs Smith, (whom Mrs. S. had sent on an errand of inquiry) that, on the night previous, the servant left with him a message for her employers, to the effect that “she didn’t consider moving the genteel thing, at all; and that a proper regard for her character and position in society, had induced her to get a situation in the family of a gentleman who owned the house he lived in.”
This is severe: Smith feels it keenly; Mrs. Smith leans her head against her husband’s vest pattern, and says “She is quite crushed,” and “wonders how Smith can have the heart to whistle. But, it is always so,” she remarks. “Woman is the weaker vessel, and man delights to trample on her.” Smith indignantly denies this sweeping assertion, and says “he tramples on nothing;” when Mrs. Smith points to a bandbox containing her best bonnet, which he has just put his foot through. Smith is silent.
The cartmen were to be on the premises at six o’clock. Six o’clock comes—half-past six—seven o’clock—but no cartmen. Here is a dilemma! The successors to the Smiths are to be on the ground at eight o’clock; and being on the ground, they will naturally wish to get into the house; which they cannot well do, unless the Smiths are out of it.
Smith takes a survey of his furniture, with a feeling of intense disgust. He wishes his cumbrous goods were reduced to the capacity of a carpet-bag, which he could pick up and walk away with. The mirrors and pianoforte are his especial aversion. The latter is a fine instrument, with an Eolian attachment. He wishes it had a sheriff’s attachment; in fact, he would have been obliged to any officer who should, at that wretched moment, have sold out the whole establishment, at the most “ruinous sacrifice,” ever imagined by an auctioneer’s fertile “marvelousness.”
—Half-past seven, and no cartmen yet. What is to be done? Ah! here they come, at last. Smith is at a loss to know what excuse they will make. Verdant Smith! They make no excuse. They simply tell him, with an air which demands his congratulations, that they “picked up a nice job by the way, and stopped to do it. You see,” says the principal, “we goes in for all we can get, these times, and there’s no use of anybody’s grumbling. Kase, you see, if one don’t want us, another will; and it’s no favor for anybody to employ us a week either side the first of May.” The rascal grins, as he says this; and Smith, perceiving the strength of the cartman’s position, wisely makes no reply.
“They met, ’twas in a crowd”—
on the stairs, and Smith
“Thought that Brown would shun him,”
—but he didn’t!
They begin to load. Just as they get fairly at work, the Browns (the Smiths’ successors) arrive, with an appalling display of stock. Brown is a vulgar fellow, who has suddenly become rich, and whose ideas of manliness all center in brutality. He is furious because the Smiths are not “clean gone.” He “can’t wait there, all day, in the street.” He orders his men to “carry the things into the house,” and heads the column himself with a costly rocking-chair in his arms. As Brown comes up with his rocking-chair, Smith, at the head of his men, descends, with a bureau, from the second floor.
“They met, ’twas in a crowd”—