Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-01-28
OUR SPARE ROOM.
From Chambers Journal.

When Mivins and myself first began life as
a married couple, there was nothing upon
which we Drided ourselves more in our nice
little house in Nandeleur Terrace than upon its
Spare Room. Every apartment in that modest
mansion was dear to us, and had cost me many
tear. Mivins had left the furnishing of it
to me from the very first, and nobody can tell,
who has not experienced it, what trial that
is. What responsibility is druggets and bed
furniture, and dining tables, and easy chairs,
and gilt mirrors, which you must have, if a
house is to be house, and chandeliers which
need ha" TO put them into, if they are to
bear looking at after the first week, down to
the rolling towel in the back kitchen. which
talk OF the excellence of machinery in these
d. IS either does not roll, nine DAYS out of
ten, or else comes down with run
However, as | say, we furnished our house,
and especially that Spare Room. 1t had
statues on the mantelpiece, although it was
but bedroom, and picture of the Battle of
Waterloo, two feet by three, and fly catcher,
and a sofa, with an antimacassar which Grand
mamma Grueby worked herself, and took
three and Il half years about it, off and on, i'll
expectation Of my marriage day. Moreover,
the bed shut up, and didn't look like Il bed
unless you knew; and there was a wooden
that altogether when party had got up, and
the place was put i'll order, you might have
inquired whether it wasn't the drawing-room.
If matters had turned out different. this might
have been the nursery, perhaps; but that
was not to be, and our Spare Room it was,
and is, and i'll all probability will remain so
long we stop in Vandelcur Terrace-and
we have lease of the house for nincty-ninc
years, | believe. However, of course, when
we took the place we could not tell what
might happen, and it was of no use hiring il
house only just big enough for ourselves and
no more; and so that's how we came to have
our Spare Room. We are not rich peonIe
Mivins and | but we are in what one NAV
call easy clrcumStanccS-tha is, we should
be so, If 1t were not for that extra chamber
which, for my part, and although it does look
so spruce and elegant | wish were walled up,
or thrown into the dining room (as it might
be, only that they say the doing away with
the party-wall would bring down the house, !
for really the trouble it has cost me, and the
expense it has been to poor dear Mivins, no
body knows.
w hat l should be most particular about in
the way of advice to all young people setting
up housekeeping, and especially in town, is
this: Whatever house you take, my Young
friends, whether big or little, be sure you have
no such thing as Spare Room. If you must
look out for cOntingencies-and nothing is
worse, rs far as my experience goes, or so
likely to prove disappointment provide an
apartment IN ddydtce, as it were, at least don't
furnish it. Then you can say to all friends
from the country who write to say that they
are coming through Town-always " through
even If they stop a week-that YOU would be
above all things delighted to receive them.
only you have no extra sleeping accommodate
ton whatever Of course, they will reply
that anything will do for them; that YOU NAV
litter them down where you please, that they
know how to rough it, and only require that
welcome which they are well aware they will
receive at your hands, &c. The variety of
ingenious selt-invitatiOns which these good
people give themselves is most extraordinary.
But to all OF them you can reply, with truth,
that it is Il thousand pities, bat YOU have no
Spare Room. All happy pair, who have re-
ceived hint to this effect while there was
yet time, ard protited by it There is bach
elor of my acquaintance who has adopted
this course in respect to his drawing room :;
it is very beautiful apartment, but entirely
unfinished, with the tritiing exception of a
wreath of plaster-howers on the ceiling, above
the place where the chandelier is expected to
hang. He entertains his unmarried friends
and smokes in all his rooms indifferentlv :;
but, when he is called upon by ladies, he
takes them into the drawing room, and re-
marks: Z" When l marry, this shall be fur
nished exactly as the lady of my choice shall
direct--who, indeed shall also have her way
IN every other particular" 1t is extraordinary
how respected that man is in domestic circles.
although he has not the most distant intention
of marriage, and would not exchange the
privilege of smoking in his bedroom las he
had once the indelicacy to confde to mel for
tve-and-forty wives. There is therefore,
nothing more advantageous and cheaper than
an unfinished room; while to married per-
sons of small income it is Indispensable. If
they once furnish their Spare Room, it is all
over with them-their house is made a hotel
of at once.
Knowing you have Il Spare Room" writes
Aunt Bertha, %" make no apology for craving
your hospitality for few DAYS The Nav
meetings begin at Exeter Hall on the 18th,
and would not miss that dear good man, Mr.
Howler, upon any account; it is uncertain
when his address will be delivered, but per
haps Mr.. Mivins will be so good as to procure
me this information" Aunt Bertha does not
think much of poor dear Mivins in his spirit
so much to me, who knows his real worth, and
what genuine good creature, without one
halfpenny worth of cant, he is but she puts
great faith i'll his information regarding every
thing metropolitan, ever since he once put
her into bus which dropped her at the very
door OF Mr.. Surgeons Tabernacle. 1t is a
very difhcult matter for my husband, who is
only concerned with city matters to find out
about Mr. Howler, whose name he has never
heard IN his life; but this is the least of the
evils Aunt bertha's coming occasions U.s. The
house is placed under religious martial law
for week certain, and the servants mani.
mously give us warning after the first twelve
hours of her..
Then my cousin Dick informs US, by letter
that he would not stoop to ask favor of any
other persons in the world but ourselves-his
character being, as we know, independent to a
fault; but that he is very anxious to exhibit
a terrier at the Islington dog show, and feeline
sure that we should never forgive his putting
up at an inn, why, he will make use of ouI
Spare Room; and he ventures to say that we
have some sort of kennel for little dos
that can stand in a corner of that apartment
as he dares not let it sleep out of his sight
Dick is certainly great change after Aun
Bertha; but, Indifferent guest as she was,
can scarcely say he is an improvement. HI
keeps hours which, except that they are al
ways late, are very uncertain, and is not to b.
trusted to extinguish the light in the lobby
nor even to put the chain up, after he has 60
in-when he does get ina feat which h
sometimes finds little difficult. don't meal
to say he gets tipsy; but he is so unused t.
latch-keys, that he will tumble for half al
hour at the ont-door-while Mivins and
lie terrified with the idea that it is burglars
The last time this occurred, we felt the NOR
certain Of this inasmuch that after about