IF there is any one thing on which I do pride myself more than another,
it is my ability to plan and lay out a house. No matter how remarkable
the shape of the lot may be, I can always devise an admirable
arrangement; and if architecture, not law, had been my fate, the public
would have been surprised at my productions. To be sure, chimneys have
an inconvenient habit of coming up through windows, and windows of
getting in the way of partitions, or locating themselves in odd and
unsymmetrical places; sometimes the only passage from the kitchen to the
front door, after my plan is completed, will turn out to be through
every room on the first floor, and occasionally the stairs will be
omitted; but these are matters for the practical builder to correct—the
great point is to mark out the general scheme scientifically.
Of course, therefore, the first thing to do toward building my intended
house was to prepare the plans. A large house—a huge pile of wood or
brick—is an abomination, and it costs so outrageously (the profit or
loss was never out of my mind); but there seems to be a limit in
reduction of size that can not be surpassed. I at once proceeded to lay
out an admirable plan for a house twenty-four feet square, a neat, nice,
cosy, comfortable little cottage; and this is an economical size,
because it requires precisely two lengths of board. I arranged for a
grand hall through the centre, and a piazza round three sides; there
were four rooms on each floor, and it would have been perfection had not
the parlor and dining-room proved to be only about seven feet by twelve,
which, after some careful measurements, was determined to be rather
small.
However, the plan had so many recommendations that I determined to make
an effort with it. In my younger days I had passed much time in
Connecticut, and had there seen houses of the nicest kind, attractive
inside and out, and which were said to cost only a few thousand dollars
apiece. A friend of mine, residing on Long Island Sound, had imported
one, which came to him cut out, sawed and marked, ready to be put up.
So, having determined to try something of the same nature, I inquired
the name of the maker, and sent him my plan, requesting an estimate.
Instead of returning me an estimate by which I could readily calculate
for a little increase of size, the stupid fellow replied that he would
come to New York and show me some plans of his own. I wrote a severe
letter in answer, saying that I wanted an estimate, not a plan. Since
then I have not heard from the gentleman, and believe he is still
studying out the beauties of my arrangement, and will, one of these
days, come before the world as a great architect on the strength of my
abilities.
Not to be put down or deterred, however, I made other plans, some of
which had the kitchen outside, some in the basement, and others on the
first floor. In one there was a piazza on all sides, in another there
was no piazza whatever; some had the servants in the garret, others
placed them in the cellar. I was ready to erect an entirely new house,
or to convert an old barn that was near the premises into two or three
houses. There was nothing that my resources were not equal to, and the
drawings would have furnished quite a new stock in trade for a young
architect.
My friends gave me their advice. They respectively assured me that I
could not live with my kitchen in a wing, and could not exist if it were
any where else; that I would be robbed if the servants were in the
attic, and robbed and murdered if they were on the ground floor; that no
house was worth building unless it were filled in with brick, and that
brick filling was a mere waste of money; that it would be hot as an oven
if it was not double boarded, or if it was double boarded and not double
plastered; that every floor must be deafened, or that the noise overhead
would be unendurable, and that deafening would be of no use whatever;
that the roof must be of gravel, or it would leak, and if made of gravel
it would break the entire building down; that oiling was the true mode
of protecting the woodwork, and that nothing whatever but paint would
answer; that the natural wood was the most beautiful trimming, and that
only stained or painted woodwork was decent; that the proper way was to
paper the walls, and that no paper would stick on fresh walls. There was
much more equally valuable advice, for which I was exceedingly grateful,
and desire again publicly to thank my friends.
While ruminating over these statements and my various different
projects, I was struck with the appearance of a neat little house in one
of the streets of the village. It was a parallelogram, which is the most
practical and economical shape for a house, and had a modest little
piazza in front, and a pretty French roof above. The internal
arrangement, with such modifications as my superior experience
immediately dictated, was absolute perfection. The building was only
twenty-four feet by thirty-six, yet there were seven comfortable rooms
on the first and second floors, the parlor moderately large, the
dining-room long and narrow to suit a dinner-table, and the bedrooms of
admirable proportion. I determined at once, with the heroism of
self-control, to abandon my own fancies, and to look and think no
farther; but, having completed my modifications, gave them to a
draughtsman, to be expressed in builders’ signs and particularized with
specifications. This event suggested the following beautiful sentiment:
It often happens that, while we are roaming over the world to gratify
our desires, the precise article for the purpose is at our very doors.
The drawings and specifications were soon made out in gorgeous style;
there was a beautiful picture of what the house would look like, with an
amount of finish and moulding that did the draughtsman great credit,
showing the inside and outside, sections and ground plans, stairs and
closets; and the specifications provided how every nail was to be
driven, and were completed with a minuteness that would set imposition
at defiance. When finished, they were submitted to several builders for
estimates.
This happened at a time when, although the inflation of gold had passed
its culminating point, labor and materials were at their highest. The
builders, smarting under the recollection of unprofitable contracts made
on a rising market, were deaf to my eloquent observations on the
certainty of a rapid fall in the value of articles at a time when the
war was manifestly drawing to a close. They had lost faith not only in
the ninety-days’ theory of our leading modern statesman, but that the
rebellion would die other than a lingering death, and refused
obstinately to be convinced. Some of them offered to oversee the work on
a commission, by which ingenious arrangement the more they wasted the
more they would make. Others charged nearly double what was the fair
value, insisting upon allowing for a farther rise in prices. One man was
so entirely overcome that, after keeping the plans a month, he returned
them secretly, ran away, and was never heard of afterward.
New York being pretty much exhausted by this time, application was made
to the carpenters of Flushing. With one exception, they declined the
job, as they called it, entirely; but this one put in the lowest
estimate that had yet been made, so that the reader will perceive that
Flushing contains not merely the finest building-lots and the gentlest
cows, but the most intelligent and enterprising carpenters. There was
only one difficulty in the way of closing with this proposal, and that
was, as he coolly informed me, that he could not finish the house till
next winter. Now I wanted a summer residence, not a winter one. The city
is a sane man’s home in bleak and stormy weather, but in the summer
solstice the green fields and fragrant pastures, limpid brooks and shady
trees, tempt an equally sane man (meaning myself, of course) into the
country. It is true, much time had been wasted over specifications and
estimates, especially by the man who ran away, and the spring was pretty
well advanced; but that house had to be done by July. So, as it was
impossible to accept the services of the intelligent Flushing mechanic,
or to make use of the admirably planned Flushing house, it became
necessary to cast about for some other means of accomplishing the
object.
Over against the eastern end of that barren and crooked point of land
known as Cape Cod, which, projecting into the ocean, considers the
object of its being accomplished when it protects and shelters the “Hub
of the Universe,” lie three islands that were, in early days, according
to unquestionable tradition, the estate and property of an elderly
gentleman who was blessed with three daughters. On his death the ladies
are supposed to have divided the property among them. The daughters’
names were Anna, Martha, and Naomi, and their names appertain to the
islands still. The largest is called Martha’s Vineyard, showing that
Martha had the good sense to cultivate the luscious fruit, although the
strict Puritan customs of those times may have forbidden her enjoying
its juice, except, perhaps, in the Puritan way—on the sly. Anna took
the next largest island, which from that day has been called Nantookit,
or Nantucket, the graceful Anna being vulgarized into the familiar Nan.
Naomi’s land has since been converted into Nomansland; and well it
might, for no man would have been contented with such a portion while
brothers carried off the broad acres of the neighboring islands, and few
women, except such submissive creatures as Naomis and Cinderellas are
popularly supposed to be.
Of this group, Nantucket was once flourishing and populous, with a large
tonnage of whalemen, and a goodly population of whaling-men—where money
was so plenty and morals so pure that theft was unknown and hackmen
charged fair prices. This modern Arcadia, however, was sadly affected
by the rapid diminution of whales, was injured by the invention of
kerosene, and ruined by the discovery of petroleum, the barbarous names
of which had been, until lately, unknown in all that country. Whales
tried, for a time, to compete with these innovations, but, finding the
effort useless, gave up in disgust, and retired to their northern homes
beyond the reach of man. This would have made little difference if ships
were used in obtaining petroleum; but, although enthusiasts suppose it
comes from the decayed bones of whales that existed when this old world
was young, they had been buried “deeper than ever plummet sounded”
beneath the accumulations of modern dust; so the whalemen, being
useless, were sunk in Charleston Harbor, and the whaling-men sought
“green fields and pastures new” in California.
Nan’s inheritance went to decay, and her people were our people—that
is, they learned to cheat, and the hackmen imitated their fellows.
Population diminished, building lots were worthless, and one half the
houses were vacant. But the inhabitants were a Scriptural people, and,
remembering how the patriarchal tribes, when water and grass became
scarce, struck their tents and struck out for better quarters, they
pulled down every man his house—and not only that, but every woman her
house—and carried them over to the main land. It was at the zenith of
this exodus that my troubles culminated, and hearing of a spot where the
inhabitants had each a house to sell, and wanting the article myself,
without more ado I ordered one to be delivered at Flushing.
It was not necessary to see the new domicile; it was sufficient that it
came from Nantucket, the home of purity and truth, and to be put up by a
Nantucketan, doubtless a specimen of these qualities. He contracted to
pull it down, transport it to Flushing, and erect it on the premises
aforesaid, as we lawyers say, by the seventh day of July then next
ensuing; and if he failed so to do, then he was to forfeit and pay the
sum of ten dollars for each and every day’s default and delay over and
beyond such day as aforesaid; provided, however, nevertheless, if he
finished and completed such house before the first day of July, he was
to receive a further sum of ten dollars a day for each day that the same
should be so finished and completed before the said last mentioned, to
wit, the first day of July then next ensuing. His name was Sille—not
silly, as our New York builders would call him if they read those
provisions which, I think, do not disgrace my profession, and which of
themselves are more than worth, to the reader, the cost of this book.
The contractor soon sent me a rough diagram of the house. It was not
exactly according to my views; instead of being an economical
parallelogram, it was made up of angles and eccentricities; the
architecture was of the conglomerate style, the main building being
Doric and the extension Corinthian; the former having a peaked roof so
perpendicular that it seemed as if it never would come to a point, and
that a fly would have difficulty in maintaining a foothold on it, and
the latter being so flat that a ball would hardly roll off the eaves.
The whole was ornamented with an unlimited amount of trimming and
moulding, and there were windows of all shapes and characters. There was
stained glass in the front and rear doors, plain glass in some windows,
and parti-colored panes in others; there were windows where no one would
expect them, and blanks where one would naturally expect windows. It
might have been called a model of surprises. To a person who prided
himself on his abilities for laying out a plan economically and
advantageously, this was discouraging; but, after all, to a philosophic
mind, so long as the necessary accommodation is obtained, the particular
plan makes little difference.
Flushing is a small place, and any unusual occurrence throws it into a
wild state of excitement. Some one had been moving a house down its
main street in the ordinary manner, with rollers and a windlass, and its
slow rate of progression led to much animadversion, and many remarks
that in a country village pass for jokes. One by-stander wanted to know
whether it had stopped at the corner to take a drink, another desired to
inquire whether it was going to the city for a visit, and a third
sarcastically pointed out its rate of speed as an example for the
railroad company to imitate. The Flushing Gazette took the matter up,
and had an editorial every week on the progress of the house. So the
reader can imagine what was the effect when the Flushingites learned
that a stranger was about bringing a house from Nantucket. The Gazette
entered into the subject with spirited hilarity, hoping that it would
move faster than the “pattern house,” and wondering whether it would
sail down or come by land—suggesting that the other houses, the old
settlers, ought to call on the new-comer—and generally made itself
quite facetious over the affair.
After signing his agreement, Mr. Sille disappeared, it was supposed, to
look up the house, and the foundation was rapidly completed by a
resident mason; but neither he nor the house reappeared. Weeks went by;
the prophecies of the incredulous were being confirmed; those who had
“known better” all along were in high spirits; the evidence was
altogether against the success of the new enterprise, and were among the
most favorable. It was rumored that contractor, house, and all had gone
down in a storm on the Long Island Sound. In the midst of these dreadful
rumors, a vessel appeared one morning at the dock near the premises, and
landed bricks, beams, and timbers—evidently what had been once a house,
and what must be a house again. The whole aspect of affairs changed;
hilarity succeeded gloom; doubts disappeared; hopes grew into
certainties; and the mason who was building the foundation engaged all
the carts, trucks, and wagons in the village to transport what he called
“the stuff” to my premises. He drove down in a great state of
excitement—only to find the gate to the dock closed and locked.
Here was an unexpected block to the wheels of progress. There was a
high, strong gate. On one side, all the vehicles of Flushing; on the
other, a mass of timber, joists, boards, and shingles, supposed to
represent a house. On careful investigation, it turned out that an
Irishman named Barney—whether it was something Barney or Barney
something, no one ever knew, as he was invariably called simply
Barney—had hired the dock, and demanded “his damages” before he would
allow “the stuff” to leave. Here was a predicament—my house landed, all
the transportation of the village ready to remove it, and an obstinate
Irishman named Barney barring the way. He was immovable, however,
insisting upon “his damages;” so the carts, and wagons, and trucks drove
away, and the Irish character came under a lively discussion. The
inhabitants of the Emerald Isle are certainly a magnificent race,
especially when their biographer does not happen to own a house which
has strayed on their land, and does want to run for alderman; and if
they did not lie, steal, cheat, rob, murder, get drunk, perjure
themselves, quarrel, fight, and insist upon damages unreasonably, they
would be almost as good as other nations. Barney was evidently a
superior Irishman, and, as no one had ever landed a load of house at his
dock before, and probably never would again, he felt that the dignity of
tenants was at stake, and must be sustained.
When these facts were reported to me I took down my law-books, and
prepared a rod for Mr. Barney. There was the clear right to land at a
public dock; there was the clear wrong of detaining property belonging
to another. Damages began to loom up before my eyes, and a very pretty
case as introduction to a lucrative legal practice in the place of my
newly-intended residence. Vistas of writs, and suits, and appeals, and
new trials, rose in my mind in graceful array, and I thanked Barney, who
was reported to be not only “ugly,” but responsible, with all my heart.
There were two difficulties in the way of legal action—first, that
until the suit was terminated the residence could not be built;
secondly, that Sille, who would have to be plaintiff, had disappeared
from the sight of man. Now the house might be delayed, as the damages
would thus be increased; but a suit without a plaintiff was beyond
ordinary legal remedies, and was not provided for even by the new Code
of Procedure. So Barney, Irishman-like, in spite of law, justice, sense,
or hospitality, kept my house, or rather intended house, by “force and
arms,” and the cellar and foundation were completed alone.
A cellar is a delightful part of a house, it is so cool in summer and
warm in winter; it is such a nice place to store “things,” as the
housewives call them; but to have all cellar and no house is carrying
the point too far. It is a pleasant place when surmounted by the proper
amount of beams and mortar, but alone is like an alligator’s
countenance, altogether too open. I am not particular, and could have
made out during the summer months, probably, if the cellar had only been
upside down.
The foundation was built, the mason was out of work, and myself out of
humor, when we were both again raised to the pinnacle of happiness by
the arrival of another vessel, which fortunately selected another dock,
and landed another house. On inquiry, it appeared that this was my
house. Lest the reader may suppose that Nantucket was so overflowing
with houses that they floated down the Sound and drifted ashore any
where, it must be explained that the first house was merely the
workshop. So the carts and trucks reappeared, and this time carried away
the débris of what was once the house of some bluff seafaring
man—timbers that were shivered, as he had no doubt often requested they
should be, doors, windows, shingles, pieces of roof, floor-boards,
posts, moulding, and a thousand other odds, ends, bits, and pieces, in
the most admired confusion—and deposited them upon my entire five
acres, scattered hither and thither, as though they were component parts
of five houses instead of one.
As Mr. Sille had not come with the house, but was to arrive the next
day—for it appeared he had been storm-bound in some of the numerous
“bights,” as the Yankees call them, of Nantucket or Martha’s
Vineyard—he sent a watchman who was to sleep among the “stuff,” and
prevent Mr. Barney’s compatriots from converting it into firewood.
Mr. Sille was to arrive the next day. Week after week went by, but he
did not appear. The house lay on the ground as though a hundred-pound
rebel shell had dropped into the cellar and scattered it to the four
winds of heaven; the watchman waited, watched, and prayed, doubtless,
for relief, till his money was spent, and his shoes worn out, and his
coat thread-bare; I alternated between imbecility and fury; Barney even
was overcome, and sent word begging to have the workshop, which had been
placed on top of a pile of his hay, removed; and Flushing made it the
regular fashionable evening drive to visit my five acres to see how the
house was—not getting on.
In about a month, when the mason had almost become crazy, myself
frantic, and Barney idiotic, Sille reappeared from Nantucket or some
other remote spot, looking like the ghost of his former self, and
announced that he had been at the point of death. Not taking into
consideration for a moment my losses and sufferings, he absolutely
wanted sympathy; in the first place, he must nearly drown himself, and
now he must catch the erysipelas, and expect me to feel for any one but
myself. I asked him sternly whether this was his habit with every house
that he moved, and explained that it must not happen again; that I had
been sick too—very sick of the whole affair; that the watchman had
become demoralized and run away; that it was nearly midsummer, and that
all Flushing was laughing at us.
The watchman lived in a little place not larger than a good-sized
dog-kennel that he constructed from pieces of roof, and the boys of the
neighborhood considered it fine sport to pay him a visit of a dark
night, and signalize their presence by a shower of stones. His food was
never luxurious, being cooked by himself under many disadvantages and
with few utensils; and when his money became scant, it was supplied
mainly through the charity of the neighbors. He had no bedding and no
change of clothes; and when a murder was committed near by, and the
murderer was hunted through the place by constables, officers, and half
the people as posse comitatus, accompanied by all the dogs in the
village; and the crowd, yelling, screaming, and fighting, rushed over
the watchman’s kennel at midnight, waking him out of sleep, he could
stand it no longer, but incontinently fled to parts unknown; so that
Sille had not arrived too soon, and found every thing needing care and
attention. He went to work at once, and, bringing order out of chaos,
began rapidly to construct the confused mass of material into the form
and stature of a dwelling.
Murders are abhorrent things to me; either from some natural
idiosyncracy, or from the training of my profession, which teaches
obedience to the powers that be, and prefers technicalities to violence,
I have a positive objection to murdering any one or being murdered
myself—especially the latter. It is so dirty and bloody, the body is
so dreadful to look at and so hard to dispose of, and the whole affair
so sudden and altogether unpleasant. I was anxious to know, before
settling in Flushing, whether murder was one of the institutions, and
was to be guarded against like chills and fever, musquitoes, and other
similar visitations.
A day or two after the occurrence, I applied to my invaluable friend
Weeville for information, and inquired whether murders were a common
event in that neighborhood. His manner in reply was very encouraging. He
had lived in Flushing nine years, and this was the first case of the
kind. It was the most peaceable place he knew; in fact, he had hardly
ever heard a loud word spoken. He pictured it as the abiding-place of
angels or Quakers, and put my scruples entirely at rest. Violence, or
disputes even, among the Flushingites were not heard of, and murders
were far rarer than deaths by lightning.
The day after this conversation there was a little friendly contest
among various fire-companies at the peaceable village to determine which
engine could throw the highest stream of water; and what was my
amazement, on reading the accounts in the daily papers, to learn that
the contest wound up in a free fight; that knives, pistols, and clubs
were freely used, and that four persons were killed and forty wounded.
For a family of semi-angels this was doing well. The philosophy of
averages furnished one consolation, however—Flushing had evidently
concentrated into one day its allowance of murders for the next five
years.
None of Sille’s men were in the fight, although at first I anticipated
finding my cellar a hospital, and expected a renewed experience in the
matter of lint and bandages, such as occupied so much of our time during
the war. He kept on steadily adding boards, and windows, and siding, and
beams together, till they took on the semblance of a house. To be sure,
it was rickety and open as yet: one man fell between the timbers,
another out of a window, and a third from the roof—but that did not
hurt the house.
Two Irishmen were one day at work digging a well, and I commenced
moralizing at their fate—doomed to a lower existence than hewers of
wood and drawers of water, not sufficiently intelligent, even, to cut
sticks, and condemned to carry wood and dig for water; their life one of
weary, heart-rending, back-breaking toil; no time for pleasure, no
chance to cultivate the intellect and develop the mind—a miserable
life, little better than death itself.
Musing on their hard lot, I peered down into the deep hole they were
making in the ground during the intense heats of summer, wondering how
soon science would raise the lowest of men above the condition of beasts
of burden, when one of them, glancing up, perceived me, and inquired,
“Was I the boss?” I answered in the affirmative, and he informed me that
it was customary for the boss to “stand something” when he first came on
the ground. Moved by my sympathies, I stood a dollar apiece, explaining
that it must not be wasted in liquor, to which they assented with great
hilarity. Alas for sympathy, and charity, and the milk of human
kindness! those wretched men immediately clubbed their two dollars
together, and, converting them into gin, knocked off work and proceeded
to get drunk. They remained incoherent, as the term goes that is applied
to their betters, all the next day. As it was essential that the well
should be finished as rapidly as possible, my feelings changed, my
sympathy died a premature death, and I never stood any thing of the kind
again.
What with drunken Irishmen and injured workmen, murdered villagers and
fighting firemen, the country house progressed slowly toward completion.
The walls, it is true, arose like mushrooms—those delicious vegetables,
which I must pause to compliment—in a night; the roof climbed into
place, partitions grew and floors were laid, windows crept into their
sash-cases, and doors and blinds were hung, but “the end was not yet.”
The seventh day of July had come and gone, and the country house bid
fair to be finished about Christmas time.
Of the cost of the progressing dwelling it is not pleasant to speak; but
as this veritable history depends greatly, for its value to future
generations, upon its accuracy and minuteness, I will admit the expense
was not despicable. Labor was high, as the Nantucket builder explained,
and timber was high, and bricks were high, and Irishmen occasionally got
high, and altogether he was compelled—much against his wishes—to
charge a high price. As the building progressed, or rather failed to
progress, it was suggested that he may have charged enough to leave a
surplus to cover a few days’ delay at ten dollars a day; but that would
hardly have accorded with the proverbial honesty of Nan’s dower island.
I concluded to hire a house near by, which, although not the one I
expected to occupy, was doubtless as good, and had the advantage of a
tight roof and solid walls. Here I could conveniently watch the progress
of the undertaking without being so deeply interested as if my lodging
depended on it. As distance is supposed to lend enchantment to the
view, the distant prospect of the completion of my house should have
been enchanting; and as summers invariably return every year, it would
be only a question of a few months, and my summer house would be merely
a next summer house.
