Chapter XIV: In Order at Last

IT was a wonder that the Tucker family had any breakfast the next morning! That great, bare, cold, front room had such charms for them as were never known before.

Yet they did not open a bundle nor even pull away some of the wrappings to catch a glimpse of the mysterious inside. They contented themselves with hovering on the outside of things, and saying to one another that they must wait until breakfast was over. But the younger members of the family took many trips from the kitchen to the front room to see if that bundle by the door was probably a chair or what.

"It is too big for a chair," would Christie say, "and yet it is too low for a table, or a bureau, and besides, it feels soft and cushiony; I can't think what it is."

Then Karl, in his greater knowledge of the world, would explain:

"It is a chair, you see if it isn't, and that one over by the south window is just like it—a great cushioned chair. They cushion them all over, arms, and sides, and back, and everywhere, so you can't see the wood at all, and would think it was made of feathers or something. I saw one at the depot. It was all done up in this yellow-brown stuff, but yet you could sit down in it, and Nick said it was a library chair that the Burtons wanted down for their parlour; he said it was all cushioned with green stuff that looked like velvet and had flowers on it."

The only answer that Christie made to this was a long-drawn sigh; it expressed her silent wonder over the lovely things that there were in the world. And her desire to see inside this great cushiony bundle was stronger than ever, but all she said was: "Oh, dear! The coffee is boiling over, I smell it!" Then she ran.

The next visit to the front room grew out of a discussion as to whether the bedstead was narrow enough to go in that little niche between the chimney and the door, in Christie's room.

Karl believed that it was, while Christie thought not; of course the only way was to go and measure it. Karl was right, and Christie in admiration asked him how he knew.

"Why, I measured it by my eye," he said. "Men do that way, you know; I am practising it. I measure most everything I see in my mind, you know, and try to calculate whether it will go in some place that I think of, and most always I guess it right. This is an exact fit."

Mother Tucker came in search of them to tell Karl that she needed another pail of water, and she sat down on the roll of carpeting, and helped them guess what colours were in it, and which way of the room it ought to run, until the kitchen stove took things into its own hands again, and a smell of burning potatoes was wafted in at the open door. Then they all ran.

Breakfast was over at last. Christie was surprised to discover that she was not hungry at all, and she raised a hearty laugh by asking her father if he would have a piece of carpet, when she meant johnny-cake.

"Now bustle around," said Mother Tucker, "and get the dishes washed up, as fast as you are a mind to and then we will all go in and see things. Father can get in from the barn by that time, and Karl can finish his chores and be all ready to help us. Won't that be the best way, my girl?"

And Christie, piling the cups and saucers together in haste, smothered a sigh of impatience and said, "she guessed" it would.

There was no family worship in the Tucker household. Away back in Mrs. Tucker's Eastern home, the family used to gather every morning for the father to read in the Bible and pray. Mrs. Tucker often thought of it, and felt sorry to see her children growing up without any such memories. But Mr. Tucker was not a Christian, and she had never learned to pray before him, nor before her children. So the children, who had never been away from home a night in their lives, did not so much as know of this custom which belongs to Christian families.

So on this morning, each one sped at once to his or her work, and made all possible haste. And at last they met in the front room, and the business of untying knots, and ripping basting stitches, and unrolling burlaps, and wrapping papers, went on briskly amid constant exclamations of surprise and delight.

A bedstead with real flowers growing on it! At least that was the way they looked to Christie. A soft greenish ground, and pink fuchsias bobbing their heads up and down on it! A bureau to match, with a lovely glass set in an oval frame to fit on it. A charming bureau, washstand, with drawers and locks—all with these wonderful flowers growing on the polished wood. Then there were the chairs to match the other pieces, and the cunning little stand to match them all.

There was a centre table for the parlour, and a sofa, or rather couch—if they had known the proper name for it—which had the most lovely covering that Christie had ever imagined. She stood before it in wondering, silent delight, but Mrs. Tucker said:

"There, Christie, now you can see Brussels carpeting. That is real Brussels. Don't you see the flowers all over it, just as I told you? That is the way your Aunt Mary's carpet used to look in Boston."

But by this time, Karl was giving a peculiar little clucking noise with his tongue and his cheeks, which Christie knew meant wonder and delight. She turned quickly, just as he said, "Chris, look here!"

He had thrown aside the wrappings of the cushiony bundle, and behold a great arm-chair, the like of which none of them had ever seen before, upholstered until it was, Mr. Tucker declared, as good as any old-fashioned feather bed he ever saw, and covered with soft green cloth that actually had flowers stamped on it! It must certainly be much like the one at Burtons' that Nick had described, but think of it standing in their front room!

"Mother," said Christie, her face aglow, her voice in a tremble of excitement, "sit down in it; oh, mother, do. I want to see how you look."

"For pity's sake!" said Mrs. Tucker, which was what she always said when she did not know how to express her feelings. "Why, it is large enough for the whole family to sit in at once. Dear me! It must be stuffed with feathers! I never saw anything softer, and it just fits into your back. I could sleep here as well as not. Come up here, baby, there is room for you."

So the baby climbed gleefully into the great, soft corner, and Nettie climbed to the other side, and behold there was room for both!

But Karl had dashed at the other "cushiony bundle." And in a few minutes, he wheeled it forward and said, "Father, take a seat."

And Christie curled in a little heap at her mother's feet, and hid her head in her mother's lap, and Karl leaned on the arm of his father's chair, and Mr. Tucker, as he took a seat beside the mother, and looked around on his family, said with a curious quiver in his voice: "I reckon these are the chairs that the Governor sent to our little girl, eh, mother?"

I'm sure it was not any wonder that Christie cried. Though when Karl asked her presently what in the world she was crying about, she looked up and laughed, and said she was sure she didn't know.

"Look here," said Mother Tucker briskly, trying to rise from her couch, "let's drag the carpet into the other room; this room is too full to get a good view of it, and it is chilly here, besides. I'll tell you what it is, Jonas, now that the front room is going to get furnished for us in the most unheard-of way, we must just get that stove and set it up here, and have a fire now and then, and come in and look at the things, now won't we?"

And the father, as he stooped to take hold of an end of the great roll of carpeting and help Karl drag it to the kitchen, answered that he guessed they would try for it.

Ever since the Tuckers had built their little home, they had talked and planned together about furnishing the front room. Each spring the mother had cheerily said that by fall they must try and manage it; in the summer they could get along without the front room very well, because they spent so much time out of doors, and every fall she had cheerily said that the crops had not been quite so good this summer as they had hoped, and they must try to get along without furnishing the front room until spring. The winters were so cold it was more comfortable in the kitchen, anyway, and next spring they would try for it. So the springs and autumns had come and gone, and left the front room floor bare, and three chairs for the only furniture.

The children had not lost faith in their father and mother, for they knew that the resolve was as strong as ever to furnish the front room as soon as they could. But they had begun to understand that, with the best of intentions, the furnishing might still be a great way off, and here it had come in the night!

"Dropped down in the snowstorm," said Karl, "or might as well, for all that we knew about."

Oh, that carpet! How shall I describe to you what it said to the beauty-loving little girl as her father and Karl spread the glowing thing on the floor and matched the breadths and then stood back in silent enjoyment. Christie looked and laughed, and said:

"Oh, mother, only see the red berries! Doesn't it seem as though we could pick them? Oh, look at baby, she is going to try!"

Sure enough, the baby, after gazing in silence for a minute, scrambled down in haste, a business-like look on his face, stepped into the very centre of the glowing carpet, seated himself and dived after a handful of leaves and berries, then looked at his empty hand in grave surprise. Everybody laughed, but there was more than laughter in Mrs. Tucker's voice as she said:

"It does remind me of the woods, Jonas—of that piece just behind grandfather's further barn where we walked one afternoon, and picked checkerberries for grandma, and gathered leaves to press for mother. Don't you remember?"

"And promised each other to walk through the wood together, always, after that," said Father Tucker, and there was an unusual sound in his voice.

"Yes, I remember it."

"And did you always walk together?" asked Nettie, who thought it sounded like a story of which she wanted to hear the end.

Then they laughed—that father and mother—until the tears started in their eyes, but the father answered Nettie:

"Yes, we did, right straight through the woods, some of them thick, and dark, but after all we most always found leaves and berries."

"'Always,'" said the mother.

And the older children dimly understood.

But Nettie looked from one to another with a wondering little sigh, and said, "I wish you'd take me wiv you."

"Why, we did!" said father and mother, and then they went off again into shouts of laughter.

And even Karl and Christie were a little puzzled to know what it was all about.

Altogether, the Tuckers never had such a day.

To be sure, before its close, the mother said that it was very fortunate that such days were rare; she did not know what would become of them if it were otherwise.

Strange things happened in the kitchen. Matters that were not used to taking care of themselves ran wild, and did as they pleased. The bread-sponge pleased to get light before anybody thought of such a thing, and ran over the pan, making a sticky mess of the bread blankets, and then finding itself still unattended to, it sulked and soured and had to be coaxed and patted and sweetened with soda, and tasted at last, Christie said, more like "Sarah Ann's bread" than any that she had ever eaten in her mother's house before. This was only one of the many things that happened which should not have been.

The baby was busy. Who ever knew an extra day in a family with a baby that he didn't do a hundred unexpected and distracting things? This baby tipped over a pail of water on himself, and had to be dressed "to his skin," the mother said, whatever that strange sounding sentence means, but this did not compare with the last thing he tipped over, which was a bowl of molasses, and in that he dabbled, curly head and all, until when discovered, he was a sight to behold. Besides, he bumped his head twice, and got a sliver in his finger. Altogether, I think the most of the members of the Tucker family breathed a sigh of relief when the day was done, and they felt that by the next morning they would probably awaken to take the world more naturally.

From that time for a week, much work was done. It was not the busy season on the little farm, so the mother gave herself steadily to the unusual work of putting the front room in order. The carpet was matched and cut and sewed. Everybody helped. The father, with Karl's help, matched and cut it. Karl, with a large needle, whipped the ends. Christie and her mother sewed on the heavy seams.

Nettie threaded needles, and the baby believed himself to be assisting, when he took his small hand and gave the carpet a few earnest smacks. Nobody could understand just what that meant, until Karl suddenly rolling over on the floor, declared amid bursts of laughter that he believed that he was whipping it!

After the sewing, came the tacking. What a thing it was, to be sure, to get that heavy Brussels carpet laid smoothly and tacked firmly. Mr. Tucker, winter day though it was, mopped his hot forehead again and again with his handkerchief, and declared that he would not have dreamed of its being such a job, and the people who ought to get the best wages going were the carpet men. But at last it was down, and beautifully down, too, trust Jonas Tucker for doing well whatever he undertook.

"The last tack is in!" he called to the mother and Christie, one afternoon. "Now come and look at it. It was a job, I tell you, and I never should have got it smooth if Karl hadn't held on like a soldier. But isn't it a beauty?"

I really suppose you have no idea what a difference that carpet seemed to make in the great front room. The walls had been made very white before it went down, and of course the woodwork was as clean as hands could make it, but who would have supposed that the bright carpet would seem to set everything about it into a glow of beauty! Then they moved in the furniture. It had occupied an unused room during this time, and been carefully covered, so that really they had never half seen its beauty. But when they took their places, the couch in the pretty niche between the mantel and the south window, and a lovely table in the centre of the room, and the great chairs which seemed to fill up all the broad spaces at the right and left of the front windows, and the other chairs arranged by the tasteful hand of the mother, I am sure I wish I could give you an idea how the room looked to them.

The three-cornered piece of furniture over which Christie and Karl had wondered before it was unpacked, was still an object of curious interest to Christie. It was tall, and had what she called a steeple top, beautifully carved, and it had many shelves, and it fitted into one of the corners of the long room as though it had been made for that particular spot. But what was the name of it, and what was to go on all those pretty shelves?

"They can't be for dishes," said puzzled Christie, "for people don't keep dishes in their front rooms, do they, mother?"

And the mother laughed, and said some people did, she supposed, but they had none to spare for the parlour. Then she brought forth her Eastern knowledge for the benefit of her little girl who had not been outside of her own plain home.

"I know the name of it, Christie; it is a whatnot; and people keep their pretty things on it—vases, you know, and shells, and treasures of any kind, and books."

"Books," repeated Karl wistfully. What the boy wanted was books.

"Books!" repeated Christie eagerly. What the girl meant to have, some day, was books.

"Well, we haven't any yet. We'll fill ours with books when we get them, won't we, Karl? But we have no vases, nor shells, nor treasures of that kind; what will we put on until we get some? I like the name of it—'whatnot.' Hasn't it a pretty sound? What can we put on it?"

Then the mother stood thoughtfully looking into the days that were gone. At last she spoke:

"We might bring out the big Bible, Christie, for the lower shelf, and the pictures of your grandfather and grandmother. I have one of mine; your Grandfather Tucker died before such things as pictures were known. Then I have a few shells your Uncle James brought from the Pacific coast. Oh, we can dress it up, I think."

No sooner said than done. So the handsome Bible, one of Mrs. Tucker's wedding presents, was brought out of its hiding-place in a large old trunk, and carefully laid in its place on the whatnot. The first time a family Bible had appeared in the Tucker family.

"There never seemed to be any place for it," said Mrs. Tucker, as she carefully took the tissue paper from the clasps. "I laid it away for safe keeping. But I always meant to get it out when we furnished the room. It fits nicely on that shelf; I like to see it."

And neither she nor her daughter realized that new furniture was beginning already to work for the honour of the "Elder Brother."