The Abandoned Farmers / His Humorous Account of a Retreat from the City to the Farm

by Irvin S. Cobb

“But if I were tackling this proposition I would certainly not put the dining room here were you've got it. I'd switch it over there right next to the living room and give a vista through. See, like this!”

And out would come his lead pencil.

“But that would mean eliminating the main hall,” one of us would venture.

“Of course it would,” Brother Pounce would say. “Next to giving a vista through, cutting out the hall is the principal idea I had in mind. What do you want with a hall here? For that matter, what do you want with a hall any place that you can get along without it? Why, my dear people, don't you know that hallways are no earthly good except to catch dust and be drafty and make extra work for servants? And besides, in modern houses people are cutting the hallways down to a minimum—to an absolute minimum.”

We gathered that in a modern house—and, of course, a modern house was what we devoutly craved to own—persons going from one part of it to another didn't pass through a hall any more; they passed through a minimum. The idea seemed rather revolutionary to persons reared—as we had been—in houses with halls in them. Still, this person spoke as one having authority and we would listen with due respect to his words as he went on:

“All right, then, we'll consider the hallway as chopped out. By chopping it out that gives us a chance to put the dining room here in this place and give a vista through into the living room. Here, I'll show you exactly what I mean—what did I do with my lead pencil? Because no matter what else you do or do not have, you must have a vista through.”

Before he had finished with this alteration and taken up with the next one we were made to understand that a house without a vista through was substantially the same as no house at all. Ashamed that we had been guilty of so gross an oversight, I would make a note, “Vista through,” on a scratch pad which I kept for that very purpose. Under the spell of his eloquence and compelling personality, I had already decided that first we would build a vista through, and then after that if any money was left we would sort of flank the vista through with bedrooms and a kitchen and other things of a comparatively incidental nature.

Having scored this important point, the king of the pouncers—now warming to his work and with his eyes feverishly lit by the enthusiasm of the zealot—would proceed to claw the quivering giblets out of another section of our plan. Hark to him: “And say, see here now, how about your sun parlor? I can see two—no, three places suitable for tacking on a sun parlor merely by moving some walls round and putting the main entrance at the east front instead of the south front—funny the architect didn't think of that! He should have thought of that the very first thing if he calls himself a regular architect—and I suppose he does. What's the idea, leaving off the sun parlor?”

Then weakly, with an inner sinking of the heart, we would confess that we had not calculated on including any sun parlors in the general scope and he for his part would proceed to show us how deadly an omission, how grievous an offense this would be.

It is a curious psychological paradox that we dreaded these suggestions and yet welcomed them, too. That is to say, we would begin by dreading them—resenting them would perhaps be a better term—and invariably would wind up by welcoming them. Nevertheless, there were times when I gave my celebrated imitation of the turning worm. Jarred off my mental balance by a proposed change which seemed entirely contrary to the trend of the style of house we had in mind for our house, I would offer at the outset a faint counter argument in defense, especially if a notion which was about to be offered as a sacrifice on the altar of friendly counsel had been a favorite little idea of my own—one that I had found in my own head, as the saying went in the Army. Though knowing in advance that I was fighting a losing fight, I would raise a meek small voice in protest. Never once did my protesting avail. There was one stock answer which my fellow controversialist always had handy—ready to belt me with.