"You wouldn't say that if you had to clear up the library every morning as I have to. Those sketches of yours are everywhere, lying around loose. I have picked them up and picked them up, till they've tired me out. 'Parlor, dining-room, kitchen, pantry:' I've read this and read it, till it runs in my head all day, like 'rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief.' I've marked off the figures on all the papering in this house into 'parlor, dining-room, kitchen, pantry."
"I don't see a mite of reason in Susan's being so particular about that house," said the mother, "seein' she's going to rent it. Now, if she was going to live in it herself, or any of the rest of the family, it would be different, Anyway, these plans all look to me like first-rate ones," she continued, glancing from one to another of half a dozen under her spectacles—"plenty good enough for renting-houses. Now, this one is right pretty, 'pears to me, and right handy.—What's the reason this one won't do, Susan?"
"Why, mother, don't you see the fault?" Susan replied. "There's no way of getting to the dining-room except through the kitchen."
"To be sure!" said the mother. "Of course that would never do, for, of all things, I do despise to have folks stalking through my kitchen when the pots and kittles are all in a muss, as they're always like to be at meal-times. What ever did you draw it this way for, Susan?"
"Well, I didn't see how it was coming out till it was finished."
"To be sure! Well, now, what's the matter with this one?" and the mother singled out another sketch. "This one seems to be about right."
"Why, yes, I think it's splendid," said Gertrude, leaning over her mother's shoulder and studying the plan under consideration. "There's the cellar-way opening from the pantry, and there's a movable slide between dining-room and pantry, right over the sink.—Why, Susie, I think this is wonderfully nice. Why don't you adopt this plan?"
"The objection to it is that the pantry has no window: it would be as dark as a pocket. Don't you see there can't be a window?"
"So there can't," said Gertrude.
"That spoils the whole thing," said the mother. "If there's anything I do despise, it's this thing of fumblin' 'round in a dark pantry; and, before everything else, I want my mouldin'-board so I can see what goes into my bread. Now, I never noticed about that window, and I s'pose would never have minded about it till the house was built an' I'd gone in to mix my bread. Then wouldn't I have been in a pretty pickle? Clean beat! Well, I suppose there's something or other the matter with all these plans?"