Chapter 5 - Page 2

prejudice in favor of
retiracy during the night-capped periods of existence. A bare
floor supported two narrow iron beds, spread with thin mattresses
like plasters, furnished with pillows in the last stages of
consumption. In a fire place, guiltless of shovel, tongs,
andirons, or grate, burned a log inch by inch, being too long to
to go on all at once; so, while the fire blazed away at one end,
I did the same at the other, as I tripped over it a dozen times a
day, and flew up to poke it a dozen times at night. A mirror (let
us be elegant !) of the dimensions of a muffin, and about as
reflective, hung over a tin basin, blue pitcher, and a brace of
yellow mugs. Two invalid tables, ditto chairs, wandered here and
there, and the closet contained a varied collection of bonnets,
bottles, bags, boots, bread and butter, boxes and bugs. The
closet was a regular Blue Beard cupboard to me; I always opened
it with fear and trembling, owing to rats, and shut it in anguish
of spirit; for time and space were not to be had, and chaos
reigned along with the rats. Our chimney-piece was decorated with
a flat-iron, a Bible, a candle minus stick, a lavender bottle, a
new tin pan, so brilliant that it served nicely for a pier-glass,
and such of the portly black bugs as preferred a warmer climate
than the rubbish hole afforded. Two arks, commonly called trunks,
lurked behind the door, containing the worldly goods of the twain
who laughed and cried, slept and scrambled, in this refuge; while
from the white-washed walls above either bed, looked down the
pictured faces of those whose memory can make for us--

"One little room an everywhere."

For a day or two I managed to appear at meals; for the human grub
must eat till the butterfly is ready to break loose, and no one
had time to come up two flights while it was possible for me to
come down. Far be it from me to add another affliction or
reproach to that enduring man, the steward; for, compared with
his predecessor, he was a horn of plenty; but--I put it to any
candid mind--is not the following bill of fare susceptible of
improvement, without plunging the nation madly into debt? The
three meals were "pretty much of a muchness," and consisted of
beef, evidently put down for the men of '76; pork, just in from
the street; army bread, composed of saw-dust and saleratus;
butter, salt as if churned by Lot's wife; stewed blackberries, so
much like preserved cockroaches, that only those devoid of
imagination could partake thereof with relish; coffee, mild and
muddy; tea, three dried huckleberry leaves to a quart of
water--flavored with lime--also animated and unconscious of any
approach to clearness. Variety being the spice of life, a small