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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:25 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:25 -0700 |
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diff --git a/10393-h/10393-h.htm b/10393-h/10393-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3225719 --- /dev/null +++ b/10393-h/10393-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,762 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= + "text/html; charset=UTF-8"> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Making the House a Home, by Edgar A. Guest. + </title> + +<STYLE type=text/css>BODY { + MARGIN-LEFT: 10%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10% +} +P { + TEXT-ALIGN: justify +} +BLOCKQUOTE { + TEXT-ALIGN: justify +} +H1 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center +} +H2 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center +} +H3 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center +} +H4 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center +} +H5 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center +} +H6 { + TEXT-ALIGN: center +} +PRE { + FONT-SIZE: 0.7em +} +HR { + WIDTH: 50%; TEXT-ALIGN: center +} +UNKNOWN { + MARGIN-LEFT: 25%; WIDTH: 50%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 25% +} +HR.full { + WIDTH: 100% +} +UNKNOWN { + MARGIN-LEFT: 0%; WIDTH: 100%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0% +} +.note { + FONT-SIZE: 0.9em; MARGIN-LEFT: 10%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10% +} +.footnote { + FONT-SIZE: 0.9em; MARGIN-LEFT: 10%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10% +} +.greek { + CURSOR: help +} +.poem { + MARGIN-LEFT: 10%; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10%; TEXT-ALIGN: left +} +.poem .stanza { + MARGIN: 1em 0em +} +.poem P { + PADDING-LEFT: 3em; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: -3em +} +.poem P.i2 { + MARGIN-LEFT: 2em +} +.poem P.i4 { + MARGIN-LEFT: 4em +} +</STYLE> + + </head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10393 ***</div> + +<br> + +<h1>Making the House a Home</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h2>Edgar A. Guest</h2> + +<h4>1922</h4> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Here's our story, page by page,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Happy youth and middle-age,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Smile and tear-drop, weal and woe</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Such as all who live must know—</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Here it is all written down,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Not for glory or renown,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">But the hope when we are gone</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Those who bravely follow on</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Meeting care and pain and grief</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Will not falter in belief.</span><br> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br> +<a name="Making_the_House_a_Home"></a><h2>Making the House a Home</h2> +<br> + +<p>We have been building a home for the last fifteen years, but it begins +to look now as though it will not be finished for many years to come. +This is not because the contractors are slow, or the materials scarce, +or because we keep changing our minds. Rather it is because it takes +years to build a home, whereas a house can be builded in a few months.</p> + +<p>Mother and I started this home-building job on June 28th, 1906. I was +twenty-five years of age; and she—well, it is sufficient for the +purposes of this record to say that she was a few years younger. I was +just closing my career as police reporter for the Detroit "Free Press," +when we were married. Up to a few months before our wedding, my hours +had been from three o'clock, in the afternoon, until three o'clock in +the morning, every day of the week except Friday. Those are not fit +hours for a married man—especially a young married man. So it was +fortunate for me that my managing editor thought I might have +possibilities as a special writer, and relieved me from night duty.</p> + +<p>It was then we began to plan the home we should build. It was to be a +hall of contentment and the abiding place of joy and beauty. And it was +all going to be done on the splendid salary of twenty-eight dollars a +week. That sum doesn't sound like much now, but to us, in January, 1906, +it was independence. The foundation of our first home was something less +than five hundred dollars, out of which was also to come the +extravagance of a two-weeks' honeymoon trip.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for all of us, life does not break its sad news in advance. +Dreams are free, and in their flights of fancy young folks may be as +extravagant as they wish. There may be breakers ahead, and trials, days +of discouragement and despair, but life tells us nothing of them to +spoil our dreaming.</p> + +<p>We knew the sort of home we wanted, but we were willing to begin +humbly. This was not because we were averse to starting at the top. +Both Mother and I had then, and have now, a fondness for the best things +of life. We should have liked a grand piano, and a self-making ice box, +and a servant, and an automobile right off! But less than five hundred +dollars capital and twenty-eight dollars a week salary do not provide +those things.</p> + +<p>What we <i>could</i> have would be a comfortable flat, and some nice +furniture. We'd pay cash for all we could, and buy the remainder of the +necessary things on time. We had found a wonderful, brand-new flat which +we could rent for twenty-five dollars a month. It had hardwood floors, +steam heat, two big bedrooms, a fine living room with a gas grate, a +hot-water heater for the bath, and everything modern and convenient. +To-day the landlord would ask ninety dollars a month for that place and +tell you he was losing money at that.</p> + +<p>With the rent paid, we should have eighty-seven dollars a month left to +live on. The grocery bill, at that time, would not run more than twenty +dollars a month; telephone, gas, and electric light would not exceed ten +dollars a month; the milkman and the paper boy would take but little, +and in winter time a ton of coal per month would be sufficient. Oh, we +should have plenty of money, and could easily afford to pledge twenty +dollars a month to pay for necessary furniture.</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that into our dreaming came no physician, no +dentist, no expenses bobbing up from unexpected sources. Not a single +bill collector called at the front door of our dream castle to ask for +money which we did not have.</p> + +<p>If older and wiser heads suggested the possibility of danger, we +produced our plans on paper, and asked them from whence could trouble +come? To-day we understand the depth of the kindly smile which our +protests always evoked. They were letting the dreamers dream.</p> + +<p>At last the furniture was bought on the installment plan and the new +flat was being put in order. It called for a few more pieces of +furniture than we had figured on, and the debt, in consequence, was +greater; but that meant merely a few months more to make payments.</p> + +<p>It was fine furniture, too! Of course it has long since ceased to serve +us; but never in this world shall that dining set be duplicated! For +perfection of finish and loveliness of design, that first oak dining +table will linger in our memories for life. The one we now have cost +more than all the money we spent for all the furniture with which we +began housekeeping; and yet, figuring according to the joy it has +brought to us, it is poor in comparison.</p> + +<p>And so it was, too, with the mahogany settee, upholstered in green +plush, and the beveled glass dresser, and the living-room chairs. We +used to make evening trips over to that flat merely for the joy of +admiring these things—our things; the first we had ever possessed.</p> + +<p>Then came the night of June 27th. We had both looked forward to that +wonderful honeymoon trip up the lakes to Mackinac Island, and tomorrow +we were to start. But right then I am sure that both Mother and I wished +we might call it off. It seemed so foolish to go away from such a +beautiful flat and such lovely furniture.</p> + +<p>The honeymoon trip lasted two weeks; and one day, at Mackinac Island, I +found Mother in tears.</p> + +<p>"What the matter?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I want to go home!" she said. "I know I am silly and foolish, but I +want to get back to our own house and our own furniture, and arrange +our wedding presents, and hang the curtains, and put that set of +Haviland china in the cabinet!"</p> + +<p>So back we came to begin our home-building in earnest.</p> + +<p>The rent and the furniture installments came due regularly, just as we +had expected. So did the gas and electric light and telephone bills. +But, somehow or other, our dream figures and the actual realities did +not balance. There never was a month when there was as much left of our +eighty-seven dollars as we had figured there should have been.</p> + +<p>For one thing, I was taken ill. That brought the doctor into the house; +and since then we have always had him to reckon with and to settle +with. Then there was an insurance policy to keep up. In our dream days, +the possibility of my dying sometime had never entered our heads; but +now it was an awful reality. And that quarterly premium developed a +distressing habit of falling due at the most inopportune times. Just +when we thought we should have at least twenty dollars for ourselves, in +would come the little yellow slip informing us that the thirty days' +grace expired on the fifth.</p> + +<p>But the home-of-our-own was still in our dreams. We were happy, but we +were going to be still happier. If ever we could get rid of those +furniture installments we could start saving for the kind of home we +wanted.</p> + +<p>Then, one evening, Mother whispered the happiest message a wife ever +tells a husband. We were no longer to live merely for ourselves; there +was to be another soon, who should bind us closer together and fill our +lives with gladness.</p> + +<p>But—and many a night we sat for hours and planned and talked and +wondered—<i>how</i> were we to meet the expense? There was nothing in the +savings bank, and much was needed there. Mother had cherished for years +her ideas for her baby's outfit. They would cost money; and I would be +no miserly father, either! My child should have the best of everything, +somehow. It was up to me to get it, somehow, to.... If only that +furniture were paid for!</p> + +<p>Then a curious event occurred. I owed little bills amounting to about +twenty-one dollars. This sum included the gas, electric light, and +telephone bills, on which an added sum was charged if unpaid before the +tenth of the month. I had no money to meet them. I was worried and +discouraged. To borrow that sum would have been easy, but to pay it back +would have been difficult.</p> + +<p>That very morning, into the office came the press agent of a local +theatre, accompanied by Mr. Henry Dixey, the well-known actor. Mr. Dixey +wanted two lyrics for songs. He had the ideas which he wished expressed +in rhyme, and wondered whether or not I would attempt them. I promised +him that I would, and on the spot he handed me twenty-five dollars in +cash to bind the bargain. If those songs proved successful I should have +more.</p> + +<p>The way out had been provided! From Mr. Dixey's point of view, those +songs were not a success; but from mine they were, for they bridged me +over a chasm I had thought I could not leap. I never heard from that +pair of songs afterward; but neither Mother nor I will ever forget the +day they were written.</p> + +<p>It meant more than the mere paying of bills, too. It taught us to have +faith—faith in ourselves and faith in the future. There is always a way +out of the difficulties. Even though we cannot see or guess what that +way is to be, it will be provided. Since then we have gone together +through many dark days and cruel hurts and bitter disappointments, but +always to come out stronger for the test.</p> + +<p>The next few months were devoted to preparations for the baby, and our +financial reckonings had to be readjusted. I had to find ways of making +a little more money. I was not after much money, but I must have more. +All I had to sell was what I could write. Where was a quick market for a +poor newspaper man's wares?</p> + +<p>My experience with Mr. Dixey turned me to the vaudeville stage. I could +write playlets, I thought. So while Mother was busy sewing at nights I +devoted myself to writing. And at last the first sketch was finished. At +the Temple Theatre that week was the popular character actor, William H. +Thompson. To him I showed the manuscript of the sketch, which was called +"The Matchmaker." Mr. Thompson took it on Tuesday; and on Friday he sent +word that he wished to see me. Into his dressing-room I went, almost +afraid to face him.</p> + +<p>"It's a bully little sketch," said he, as I sat on his trunk, "and I'd +like to buy it from you. I can't pay as much as I should like; but if +you care to let me have it I'll give you two hundred and fifty +dollars—one hundred and fifty dollars now, and the remaining hundred +next week."</p> + +<p>I tried to appear indifferent, but the heart of me was almost bursting +with excitement. It meant that the furniture bill was as good as paid! +And there would be money in the bank for the first time since we were +married! The deal was made, and I left the theatre with the largest sum +of money I had ever made all at once. Later someone said to me that I +was foolish to sell that sketch outright for so little money.</p> + +<p>"Foolish!" said I. "That two hundred and fifty dollars looked bigger to +me than the promise of a thousand some day in the future!"</p> + +<p>Once more the way out had been provided.</p> + +<p>And then came the baby—a glorious little girl—and the home had begun +to be worth-while. There was a new charm to the walls and halls. The oak +table and the green plush settee took on a new glory.</p> + +<p>I was the usual proud father, with added variations of my own. One of my +pet illusions was that none, save Mother and me, was to be trusted to +hold our little one. When others <i>would</i> take her, I stood guard to +catch her if in some careless moment they should let her fall.</p> + +<p>As she grew older, my collars became finger-marked where her little +hands had touched them. We had pictures on our walls, of course, and +trinkets on the mantelpiece, and a large glass mirror which had been one +of our wedding gifts. These things had become commonplace to us—until +the baby began to notice them! Night after night, I would take her in my +arms and show her the sheep in one of the pictures, and talk to her +about them, and she would coo delightedly. The trinkets on the +mantelpiece became dearer to us because she loved to handle them. The +home was being sanctified by her presence. We had come into a new realm +of happiness.</p> + +<p>But a home cannot be builded always on happiness. We were to learn that +through bitter experience. We had seen white crepe on other doors, +without ever thinking that some day it might flutter on our own. We had +witnessed sorrow, but had never suffered it. Our home had welcomed many +a gay and smiling visitor; but there was a grim and sinister one to +come, against whom no door can be barred.</p> + +<p>After thirteen months of perfect happiness, its planning and dreaming, +the baby was taken from us.</p> + +<p>The blow fell without warning. I left home that morning, with Mother and +the baby waving their usual farewells to me from the window. Early that +afternoon, contrary to my usual custom, I decided to go home in advance +of my regular time. I had no reason for doing this, aside from a strange +unwillingness to continue at work. I recalled later that I cleaned up my +desk and put away a number of things, as though I were going away for +some time. I never before had done that, and nothing had occurred which +might make me think I should not be back at my desk as usual.</p> + +<p>When I reached home the baby was suffering from a slight fever, and +Mother already had called the doctor in. He diagnosed it as only a +slight disturbance. During dinner, I thought baby's breathing was not as +regular as it should be, and I summoned the doctor immediately. Her +condition grew rapidly worse, and a second physician was called; but it +was not in human skill to save her. At eleven o'clock that night she was +taken from us.</p> + +<p>It is needless to dwell here upon the agony of that first dark time +through which we passed. That such a blow could leave loveliness in its +path, and add a touch of beauty to our dwelling place, seemed +unbelievable at the time. Yet to-day our first baby still lives with us, +as wonderful as she was in those glad thirteen months. She has not grown +older, as have we, but smiles that same sweet baby smile of hers upon us +as of old. We can talk of her now bravely and proudly; and we have come +to understand that it was a privilege to have had her, even for those +brief thirteen months.</p> + +<p>To have joys in common is the dream of man and wife. We had supposed +that love was based on mutual <i>happiness</i>. And Mother and I had been +happy together; we had been walking arm in arm under blue skies, and we +knew how much we meant to each other. But just how much we <i>needed</i> each +other neither of us really knew—until we had to share a common sorrow.</p> + +<p>To be partners in a sacred memory is a divine bond. To be partners in a +little mound, in one of God's silent gardens, is the closest +relationship which man and woman can know on this earth. Our lives had +been happy before; now they had been made beautiful.</p> + +<p>So it was with the home. It began to mean more to us, as we began each +to mean more to the other. The bedroom in which our baby fell asleep +seemed glorified. Of course there were the lonely days and weeks and +months when everything we touched or saw brought back the memory of her. +I came home many an evening to find on Mother's face the mark of tears; +and I knew she had been living over by herself the sorrow of it all.</p> + +<p>I learned how much braver the woman has to be than the man. I could go +into town, where there was the contagion of good cheer; and where my +work absorbed my thoughts and helped to shut out grief. But not so with +Mother! She must live day by day and hour by hour amid the scenes of her +anguish. No matter where she turned, something reminded her of the joy +we had known and lost. Even the striking clock called back to her mind +the hour when something should have been done for the baby.</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i> have another little girl," she sobbed night after night. "I +<i>must</i> have another little girl!"</p> + +<p>And once more the way out was provided. We heard of a little girl who +was to be put out for adoption; she was of good but unfortunate parents. +We proposed to adopt her.</p> + +<p>I have heard many arguments against adopting children, but I have never +heard a good one. Even the infant doomed to die could enrich, if only +for a few weeks, the lives of a childless couple, and they would be +happier for the rest of their days in the knowledge that they had tried +to do something worthy in this world and had made comfortable the brief +life of a little one.</p> + +<p>"What if the child should turn out wrong?" I hear often from the lips of +men and women.</p> + +<p>"What of that?" I reply. "You can at least be happy in the thought that +you have tried to do something for another."</p> + +<p>To childless couples everywhere I would say with all the force I can +employ, <i>adopt a baby</i>! If you would make glorious the home you are +building; if you would fill its rooms with laughter and contentment; if +you would make your house more than a place in which to eat and sleep; +if you would fill it with happy memories and come yourselves into a +closer and more perfect union, adopt a baby! Then, in a year or two, +adopt another. He who spends money on a little child is investing it to +real purpose; and the dividends it pays in pride and happiness and +contentment are beyond computation.</p> + +<p>Marjorie came to us when she was three years old. She bubbled over with +mirth and laughter and soothed the ache in our hearts. She filled the +little niches and comers of our lives with her sweetness, and became not +only ours in name, but ours also in love and its actualities.</p> + +<p>There were those who suggested that we were too young to adopt a child. +They told us that the other children would undoubtedly be sent to us as +time went on. I have neither the space here nor the inclination to list +the imaginary difficulties outlined to us as the possibilities of +adoption.</p> + +<p>But Mother and I talked it all over one evening. And we decided that we +needed Marjorie, and Marjorie needed us. As to the financial side of the +question, I smiled.</p> + +<p>"I never heard of anyone going to the poorhouse, or into bankruptcy," I +said, "because of the money spent on a child. I fancy I can pay the +bills."</p> + +<p>That settled it. The next evening when I came home, down the stairway +leading to our flat came the cry, "Hello, Daddy!" from one of the +sweetest little faces I have ever seen. And from that day, until God +needed her more and called her home, that "Hello, Daddy" greeted me and +made every care worth while.</p> + +<p>The little home had begun to grow in beauty once more. That first +shopping tour for Marjorie stands out as an epoch in our lives. I am not +of the right sex to describe it. Marjorie came to us with only such +clothing as a poor mother could provide. She must be outfitted anew from +head to toe, and she was. The next evening, when she greeted me, she was +the proud possessor of more lovely things than she had ever known +before. But, beautiful as the little face appeared to me then, more +beautiful was the look in Mother's face. There had come into her eyes a +look of happiness which had been absent for many months. I learned then, +and I state it now as a positive fact, that a woman's greatest +happiness comes from dressing a little girl. Mothers may like pretty +clothes for themselves; but to put pretty things on a little girl is an +infinitely greater pleasure. More than once Mother went down-town for +something for herself—only to return without it, but with something for +Marjorie!</p> + +<p>We pledged to ourselves at the very beginning that we would make +Marjorie ours; not only to ourselves but to others. Our friends were +asked never to refer in her presence to the fact that she was adopted. +As far as we were concerned it was dismissed from our minds. She was +three years old when she was born to us, and from then on we were her +father and her mother. To many who knew her and loved her, this article +will be the first intimation they ever have received that Marjorie was +not our own flesh and blood. It was her pride and boast that she was +like her mother, but had her father's eyes. Both her mother and I have +smiled hundreds of times, as people meeting her for the first time would +say, "Anyone would know she belonged to you. She looks exactly like +you!"</p> + +<p>Marjorie made a difference in our way of living. A second-story flat, +comfortable though it was, was not a good place to bring up a little +girl. More than ever, we needed a home of our own. But to need and to +provide are two different propositions. We needed a back yard; but back +yards are expensive; and though newspapermen may make good husbands they +seldom make "good money."</p> + +<p>One evening Mother announced to me that she had seen the house we ought +to have. It had just been completed, had everything in it her heart had +wished for, and could be bought for forty-two hundred dollars. The price +was just forty-two hundred dollars more than I had!</p> + +<p>All I did have was the wish to own a home of my own. But four years of +our married life had gone, and I was no nearer the first payment on a +house than when we began as man and wife. However, I investigated and +found that I could get this particular house by paying five hundred +dollars down and agreeing to pay thirty-five a month on the balance. I +could swing thirty-five a month, but the five hundred was a high +barrier.</p> + +<p>Then I made my first wise business move. I went to Julius Haass, +president of the Wayne County and Home Savings Bank, who always had been +my friend, and explained to him my difficulties. He loaned me that five +hundred dollars for the first payment—I to pay it back twenty-five +dollars monthly—and the house was ours.</p> + +<p>We had become land owners overnight. My income had increased, of course; +but so had my liabilities. The first few years of that new house taxed +our ingenuity more than once. We spent now and then, not money which we +had, but money which we were <i>going to get</i>; but it was buying +happiness. If ever a couple have found real happiness in this world we +found it under the roof of that Leicester Court home.</p> + +<p>There nearly all that has brought joy and peace and contentment into our +lives was born to us. It was from there I began to progress; it was +there my publishers found me; and it was there little Bud was born to +us. We are out of it now. We left it for a big reason; but we drive by +it often just to see it; for it is still ours in the precious memory of +the years we spent within its walls.</p> + +<p>Still, in the beginning, it was just a house! It had no associations and +no history. It had been built to sell. The people who paid for its +construction saw in its growing walls and rooftree only the few hundred +dollars they hoped to gain. It was left to us to change that <i>house</i> +into a <i>home</i>. It sounds preachy, I know, to say that all buildings +depend for their real beauty upon the spirit of the people who inhabit +them. But it is true.</p> + +<p>As the weeks and months slipped by, the new house began to soften and +mellow under Mother's gentle touches. The living-room assumed an air of +comfort; my books now had a real corner of their own; the +guest-chamber—or, rather, the little spare-room—already had +entertained its transient tenants; and as our friends came and went the +walls caught something from them all, to remind us of their presence.</p> + +<p>I took to gardening. The grounds were small, but they were large enough +to teach me the joy of an intimate friendship with growing things. +To-day, in my somewhat larger garden, I have more than one hundred and +fifty rosebushes, and twenty or thirty peony clumps, and I know their +names and their habits. The garden has become a part of the home. It is +not yet the garden I dream of, nor even the garden which I think it will +be next year; but it is the place where play divides the ground with +beauty. What Bud doesn't require for a baseball diamond the roses +possess.</p> + +<p>Early one morning in July, Bud came to us. Immediately, the character +of that front bedroom was changed. It was no longer just "our bedroom;" +it was "the room where Bud was born." Of all the rooms in all the houses +of all the world, there is none so gloriously treasured in the memories +of man and woman as those wherein their children have come to birth.</p> + +<p>I have had many fine things happen to me: Friends have borne me high on +kindly shoulders; out of the depths of their generous hearts they have +given me honors which I have not deserved; I have more than once come +home proud in the possession of some new joy, or of some task +accomplished; but I have never known, and never shall know, a thrill of +happiness to equal that which followed good old Doctor Gordon's brief +announcement: "It's a Boy!"</p> + +<p>"It's a Boy!" All that day and the next I fairly shouted it to friends +and strangers. To Marjorie's sweetness, and to the radiant loveliness of +the little baby which was ours for so brief a time, had been added the +strength and roguishness of a boy.</p> + +<p>The next five years saw the walls of our home change in character. +Finger marks and hammer marks began to appear. When Bud had reached the +stage where he could walk, calamity began to follow in his trail. Once +he tugged at a table cover and the open bottle of ink fell upon the rug. +There was a great splotch of ink forever to be visible to all who +entered that living-room! Yet even that black stain became in time a +part of us. We grew even to boast of it. We pointed it out to new +acquaintances as the place where Bud spilled the ink. It was an evidence +of his health and his natural tendencies. It proved to all the world +that in Bud we had a real boy; an honest-to-goodness boy who could spill +ink—and <i>would</i>, if you didn't keep a close watch on him.</p> + +<p>Then came the toy period of our development. The once tidy house became +a place where angels would have feared to tread in the dark. Building +blocks and trains of cars and fire engines and a rocking horse were +everywhere, to trip the feet of the unwary. Mother scolded about it, at +times; and I fear I myself have muttered harsh things when, late at +night, I have entered the house only to stumble against the tin sides of +an express wagon.</p> + +<p>But I have come to see that toys in a house are its real adornments. +There is no pleasanter sight within the front door of any man's castle +than the strewn and disordered evidences that children there abide. The +house seems unfurnished without them.</p> + +<p>This chaos still exists in our house to-day. Mother says I encourage it. +Perhaps I do. I know that I dread the coming day when the home shall +become neat and orderly and silent and precise. What is more, I live in +horror of the day when I shall have to sit down to a meal and not send a +certain little fellow away from the table to wash his hands. That has +become a part of the ceremonial of my life. When the evening comes that +he will appear for dinner, clean and immaculate, his shirt buttoned +properly and his hair nicely brushed, perhaps Mother will be proud of +him; but as for me, there will be a lump in my throat—for I shall know +that he has grown up.</p> + +<p>Financially, we were progressing. We had a little more "to do with," as +Mother expressed it; but sorrow and grief and anxiety were not through +with us.</p> + +<p>We were not to be one hundred per cent happy. No one ever is. Marjorie +was stricken with typhoid fever, and for fourteen weeks we fought that +battle; saw her sink almost into the very arms of death; and watched her +pale and wasted body day by day, until at last the fever broke and she +was spared to us.</p> + +<p>Another bedroom assumed a new meaning to us both. We knew it as it was +in the dark hours of night; we saw the morning sun break through its +windows. It was the first room I visited in the morning and the last I +went to every night. Coming home, I never stopped in hall or +living-room, but hurried straight to her. All there was in that home +then was Marjorie's room! We lived our lives within it. And gradually, +her strength returned and we were happy again.</p> + +<p>But only for a brief time.... Early the following summer I was called +home by Doctor Johnson. When I reached there, he met me at the front +door, smiling as though to reassure me.</p> + +<p>"You and Bud are going to get out," said he. "Marjorie has scarlet +fever."</p> + +<p>Bud had already been sent to his aunt Florence's. I was to gather what +clothing I should need for six weeks, and depart.</p> + +<p>If I had been fond of that home before, I grew fonder of it as the days +went by. I think I never knew how much I valued it until I was shut out +from it. I could see Mother and Marjorie through the window, but I was +not to enter. And I grew hungry for a sight of the walls with their +finger marks, and of the ink spot on the rug. We had been six years in +the building of that home. Somehow, a part of us had been woven into +every nook and corner of it.</p> + +<p>But Marjorie was not thriving. Her cheeks were pale and slightly +flushed. The removal of tonsils didn't help. Followed a visit to my +dentist. Perhaps a tooth was spreading poison through her system. He +looked at her, and after a few minutes took me alone into his private +office.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Eddie," he said. "I am afraid it isn't teeth. You have a +long, hard fight to make—if it is what I think it is."</p> + +<p>Tuberculosis had entered our home. It had come by way of typhoid and +scarlet fevers. The specialist confirmed Doctor Oakman's suspicions, and +our battle began. The little home could serve us no longer. It was not +the place for such a fight for life as we were to make. Marjorie must +have a wide-open sleeping porch; and the house lacked that, nor could +one be built upon it.</p> + +<p>And so we found our present home. It was for sale at a price I thought +then I should never be able to pay. We could have it by making a down +payment of seventy-five hundred dollars, the balance to be covered by a +mortgage. But I neither had that much, nor owned securities for even a +small fraction of it.</p> + +<p>But I did have a friend: a rich, but generous friend! I told him what I +wanted; and he seemed more grieved at my burden than concerned with my +request. He talked only of Marjorie and her chances; he put his arm +about my shoulders, and I knew he was with me.</p> + +<p>"What do you need?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Seventy-five hundred dollars in cash."</p> + +<p>He smiled.</p> + +<p>"Have a lawyer examine the abstract to the property, and if it is all +right come back to me."</p> + +<p>In two days I was back. The title to the house was clear. He smiled +again, and handed me his check for the amount, with not a scratch of +the paper between us.</p> + +<p>I suggested something of that sort to him.</p> + +<p>"The important thing is to get the house," he said. "When that is done +and you have the deed to it and the papers all fixed up, you come back +and we'll fix up our little matter." And that is how it was done.</p> + +<p>So into our present home we moved. We had a bigger and a better and a +costlier dwelling place. We were climbing upward. But we were also +beginning once more with just a house. Just a house—but founded on a +mighty purpose! It was to become home to us, even more dearly loved than +the one we were leaving.</p> + +<p>For four years it has grown in our affections. Hope has been ours. We +have lived and laughed and sung and progressed.... But we have also wept +and grieved.</p> + +<p>Twice the doctor had said we were to conquer. Then came last spring and +the end of hope. Week after week, Marjorie saw the sunbeams filter +through the windows of her open porch; near by, a pair of robins built +their nest; she watched them and knew them and named them. We planned +great things together and great journeys we should make. That they were +not to be she never knew.... And then she fell asleep....</p> + +<p>Her little life had fulfilled its mission. She had brought joy and +beauty and faith into our hearts; she had comforted us in our hours of +loneliness and despair; she had been the little cheerful builder of our +home—and perhaps God needed her.</p> + +<p>She continued to sleep for three days, only for those three days her sun +porch was a bower of roses. On Memorial Day, Mother and I stood once +more together beside a little mound where God had led us. Late that +afternoon we returned to the home to which Marjorie had taken us. It had +grown more lovely with the beauty which has been ours, because of her.</p> + +<br><hr style="width: 45%;"><br> + +<p>The home is not yet completed. We still cherish our dreams of what it is +to be. We would change this and that. But, after all, what the home is +to be is not within our power to say. We hope to go forward together, +building and changing and improving it. To-morrow shall see something +that was not there yesterday. But through sun and shade, through trial +and through days of ease and of peace, it is our hope that something of +our best shall still remain. Whatever happens, it is our hope that what +may be "just a house" to many shall be to us the home we have been +building for the last fifteen years.</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 65%;"><br><br> +<a name="HOME"></a><h2>HOME</h2> + +<p>By Edgar A. Guest</p> + +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">A heap o' sun an' shadder, an' ye sometimes have t' roam</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Afore ye really 'preciate the things ye lef' behind,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">An' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em allus on yer mind.</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">It don't make any differunce how rich ye get t' be,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">How much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great yer luxury;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped round everything.</span><br> +<br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' livin' in it;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Within the walls there's got t' be some babies born, and then</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Right there ye've got t' bring 'em up t' women good, an' men;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn't part</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">With anything they ever used—they've grown into yer heart:</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore</span><br> +<br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Ye hoard; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumbmarks on the door.</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Ye've got t' weep t' make it home, ye've got t' sit an' sigh</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">An' watch beside a loved one's bed, an' know that Death is nigh;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">An' in the stillness o' the night t' see Death's angel come,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">An' close the eyes o' her that smiled, an' leave her sweet voice dumb.</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an' when yer tears are dried,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an' sanctified;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">An' tuggin' at ye always are the pleasant memories</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">O' her that was an' is no more—ye can't escape from these.</span><br><br> +<br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Ye've got t' sing an' dance fer years, ye've got t' romp an' play,</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">An' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 'em each day;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Even the roses 'round the porch must blossom year by year</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Afore they 'come a part o' ye, suggestin' someone dear</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Who used t' love 'em long ago, an' trained 'em jes' t' run</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The way they do, so's they would get the early mornin' sun;</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Ye've got t' love each brick an' stone from cellar up t' dome:</span><br> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home.</span><br><br> +<br> +<p>[<i>From "A Heap o' Livin'"</i>]</p> +<br> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10393 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |