第97章 The House Beautiful(2)
Opposite,in gilt frame,grandpa and grandma,at thirty and twenty-two,stiff,old-fashioned,high-collared,puff-sleeved,glaring pallidly out from a background of solid Egyptian night.
Under a glass French clock dome,large bouquet of stiff flowers done in corpsy-white wax.Pyramidal what-not in the corner,the shelves occupied chiefly with bric-a-brac of the period,disposed with an eye to best effect:shell,with the Lord's Prayer carved on it;another shell--of the long-oval sort,narrow,straight orifice,three inches long,running from end to end--portrait of Washington carved on it;not well done;the shell had Washington's mouth,originally--artist should have built to that.These two are memorials of the long-ago bridal trip to New Orleans and the French Market.
Other bric-a-brac:Californian 'specimens'--quartz,with gold wart adhering;old Guinea-gold locket,with circlet of ancestral hair in it;Indian arrow-heads,of flint;pair of bead moccasins,from uncle who crossed the Plains;three 'alum'baskets of various colors--being skeleton-frame of wire,clothed-on with cubes of crystallized alum in the rock-candy style--works of art which were achieved by the young ladies;their doubles and duplicates to be found upon all what-nots in the land;convention of desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to a card;painted toy-dog,seated upon bellows-attachment--drops its under jaw and squeaks when pressed upon;sugar-candy rabbit--limbs and features merged together,not strongly defined;pewter presidential-campaign medal;miniature card-board wood-sawyer,to be attached to the stove-pipe and operated by the heat;small Napoleon,done in wax;spread-open daguerreotypes of dim children,parents,cousins,aunts,and friends,in all attitudes but customary ones;no templed portico at back,and manufactured landscape stretching away in the distance--that came in later,with the photograph;all these vague figures lavishly chained and ringed--metal indicated and secured from doubt by stripes and splashes of vivid gold bronze;all of them too much combed,too much fixed up;and all of them uncomfortable in inflexible Sunday-clothes of a pattern which the spectator cannot realize could ever have been in fashion;husband and wife generally grouped together--husband sitting,wife standing,with hand on his shoulder--and both preserving,all these fading years,some traceable effect of the daguerreotypist's brisk 'Now smile,if you please!'Bracketed over what-not--place of special sacredness--an outrage in water-color,done by the young niece that came on a visit long ago,and died.
Pity,too;for she might have repented of this in time.
Horse-hair chairs,horse-hair sofa which keeps sliding from under you.Window shades,of oil stuff,with milk-maids and ruined castles stenciled on them in fierce colors.
Lambrequins dependent from gaudy boxings of beaten tin,gilded.
Bedrooms with rag carpets;bedsteads of the 'corded'sort,with a sag in the middle,the cords needing tightening;snuffy feather-bed--not aired often enough;cane-seat chairs,splint-bottomed rocker;looking-glass on wall,school-slate size,veneered frame;inherited bureau;wash-bowl and pitcher,possibly--but not certainly;brass candlestick,tallow candle,snuffers.
Nothing else in the room.Not a bathroom in the house;and no visitor likely to come along who has ever seen one.
That was the residence of the principal citizen,all the way from the suburbs of New Orleans to the edge of St.Louis.When he stepped aboard a big fine steamboat,he entered a new and marvelous world:chimney-tops cut to counterfeit a spraying crown of plumes--and maybe painted red;pilot-house,hurricane deck,boiler-deck guards,all garnished with white wooden filigree work of fanciful patterns;gilt acorns topping the derricks;gilt deer-horns over the big bell;gaudy symbolical picture on the paddle-box,possibly;big roomy boiler-deck,painted blue,and furnished with Windsor armchairs;inside,a far-receding snow-white 'cabin;'porcelain knob and oil-picture on every stateroom door;curving patterns of filigree-work touched up with gilding,stretching overhead all down the converging vista;big chandeliers every little way,each an April shower of glittering glass-drops;lovely rainbow-light falling everywhere from the colored glazing of the skylights;the whole a long-drawn,resplendent tunnel,a bewildering and soul-satisfying spectacle!
In the ladies'cabin a pink and white Wilton carpet,as soft as mush,and glorified with a ravishing pattern of gigantic flowers.
Then the Bridal Chamber--the animal that invented that idea was still alive and unhanged,at that day--Bridal Chamber whose pretentious flummery was necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect of that hosannahing citizen.Every state-room had its couple of cozy clean bunks,and perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet;and sometimes there was even a washbowl and pitcher,and part of a towel which could be told from mosquito netting by an expert--though generally these things were absent,and the shirt-sleeved passengers cleansed themselves at a long row of stationary bowls in the barber shop,where were also public towels,public combs,and public soap.
Take the steamboat which I have just described,and you have her in her highest and finest,and most pleasing,and comfortable,and satisfactory estate.Now cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt,and you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago referred to.Not all over--only inside;for she was ably officered in all departments except the steward's.
But wash that boat and repaint her,and she would be about the counterpart of the most complimented boat of the old flush times:for the steamboat architecture of the West has undergone no change;neither has steamboat furniture and ornamentation undergone any.