THE double bed had two depressions plainly visible on the mattress where two previous occupants had maintained their respective sleeping rights. The double quilt, patterned after a gaudy Chinese puzzle, sank into the depressions of its own, warm weight.
“The best thing about that quilt,” explained Thropper, “is that when my eyes get weary with study or tired from writing, I look at the combinations of colors, and my eyes are rested. It’s great for that. By the way, I’ll call you Al if you’ll call me Jim,” he suggested.
That bed occupied the major portion of the floor. Its edge left just a narrow alley between it and two kitchen tables that were covered with black oil-cloth. One of the tables—farthest from the window, in the dim light,—was bare of books, and Jim said that it would be mine. The other had about a dozen text books on it, some scraps of paper, and an open Bible, marked with purple and red ink where Jim told me he was busy emphasizing all the texts that he might preach sermons from—some day.
The chair allotted me was a plain kitchen affair, as hard as a tombstone; but Jim’s was fearfully and wonderfully stuffed. There it stood like a parody on a fluffy Morris, library chair. It was a kitchen chair grotesquely stuffed and upholstered within a faded, torn, and highly colored bed comforter. When Jim noted that I took an interest in it, he said,
“Padding made quite a difference in that chair, Al. It’s real comfortable, though there isn’t much seat left; it’s so thickly padded. I was out in the fields one day, and near the fence I picked up a sheep’s skin of thick wool. I thought then that I could make good use of it, so I brought it back, left it on the clothes-line at the back of the building to let the air sweeten it, for it was pretty strong; then I came to the conclusion that I could use it to stuff the chair—real wool, you know. The comforter was left in the back room by a fellow and I used that, too. It’s a real comfortable chair; almost makes you fall asleep when you sit in it.”
“You didn’t manage to sweeten all of the wool, did you, Jim?” I asked dubiously as I noted the dank odor that came from the chair; an odor that was reminiscent of a junk shop after a rain.
“Why,” replied Jim, in good humor, “I don’t notice it a bit. I think it must be your imagination.”
“Well,” I concluded, ungraciously, “probably it’s like the gas. You’ve got used to it.”
Between the gas stove and the wash stand stood a galvanized water pail, three-quarters filled and with a fuzzy growth on its oily surface.
“That ain’t drinking water, is it?” I asked in alarm.