Kimball enterprise. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1883, 1883-06-01
Snit theirs I1lfatuation.
Nor = Love Story

IN d; sInit theirs lnfatuatiOn.
Not q Love Story.
~ make homs beautiful is q duty
rs. SmitheTs had always felt It to be so
q She had. therefore, knit tides, embroid-
cred lamp-rugs. worked paperracks and
thsbie-cloths, and filed the house with
y little womanly nick k-nacks. Her husband,
Mr.. Smithars, YES q solid, respectable
man. who had made money in trade
!; and could afford to spend it. He had
artistic taste, and scarcely ever opened
2 book, except perhaps the Bible of q
Sunday afternoon. 1t was an old habit
his mother had taught him, and he gen.
orally got half through the psa,m he
selected before he fell asleep. He could
not have told you the difference be-
tween the masterpiece ola great artist
and an auction '.pot- boiler" but he had.
from dealing in goods for along while, ac-
CURED a certain appreciation Of
color in upholstery and carpets,
and he liked to see things
handsome about him. The house
was full of soft, well-stuffed, puffy chairs
and sofas, with comfortable, low seats:
there We're beds into which one sank as
into downy: paradise a, splendid steam
heater kept up summer-like tempera-
ture, RI winter. The dining room table.
with its big claw feet, was hospitality
personfed: the side-board, with curly
carvings, held nice, silver water pitch
ers, tea-pots and jugs. On the mantel-
4 pieces We're the orthodox clocks, vases
and bronzes. There were heavy cor
nices above the window-curtains, and
\ they were looped back with massive
cords and tassels. All was perfection
at least its owner believed it to be SO:
certainly II. was comfortable and costly.
and very snowy.
sssassI like to come home to home ike
this, Mr. Slnithers used to say, rub
ping hls hands as he stood before the
tre. There is no nonsense about
So Mrs. Smithers thought herself. un-
til she went one morning to an amateur
Z lecture On Taste in furnishing" When
the speaker, a red-haired young lady in
purple dress, without wrinkle, like a
pre- Raphaelite figure, had finished her
lecture, OF which not one word was or.
iginal, poor Mrs. Smithers was in de-
spair. Taste was evidently something
she knew nothing about. She had been
! proud OF her home; now she felt that
she should be ashamed to let this
I purple young lady enter its doors,
How Inany things were wrong there
her carpets, her curtains, her rdoors, her
mantel pieces, her very chairs. Oh! if
J,.atf 4 tI,n,.t H.,
What would he have said? But Mr..
ness, He would be gone Il long willie.
\ would he learn while away that his
house was all wrong? He might. Then
IT came like an inspiration to poor Mrs.
Smithers that, as her dear Smithers
never was mean about the money. y
she might make his house right before
hereturned home.
Mrs. Smithers, though she prided
herself on her good taste, was not a lit
erary woman, and fancied that the Ter
ence Shook so often alluded to in the
lecture was some upl,olsterer. Proba-
bly, the purple young lady had her own
house furnished and arranged by him.
Mrs. Snithers on going home, looked
in vain for this famous upholsterer IN
the directory. Finally, she ventured
Terence Shook was and where his
Earthly Paradise" that the purple
young lady had spoken of, could be found.
Having received the revelation that
the Earthly Paradise was a book and in
this the sayings SO offer. quoted was to
be found Mrs. Snithers, at once pro-
cured it from bookseller and sat down
I to study it.
The result was such house-cleaning
+ as the world never saw before. Various
strange men and women, all the servants
and Mrs. Smithers herself, toiled from
morning until night for six weeks, and
at length on the very eve of her hus-
bands return, Mrs. Smither's delighted
with her saccess, went through her
home and declared it perfect.
And now a carriage drives up to the
door, Mrs. Smithers flies down stairs
and in moment quite vanishes in the
recesses OF an enormous ulster. A trunk
4 ls bumped in to the hall, a portmanteau
follows; the door bangs, and Mr.. Smith
ers looks about for his hat-rack with big
mirror, round knobs, and solid umbrel-
la stand. A long thin table, with rail
at either end meets the eye instead,
/ fanked On either side by rigid chair
with a marble seat and marble slabs let
into the bottom. The whole aspect of
the house is altered. The heavy carpets
and broad, silyered rods are taken up
from hall end staircase. There is no
sign of the register in the polished oak
en- floor The heavy walnut banlsters
are gone, and replaced by spindly oak
rails, each one conspicuously fastened
by brass riyet
Whats the matter? Had fire?"
asked the bewildered gentleman. He
doesn't look very much pleased; but
\ Mrs, Smithers is confident of the effect
of the parlors She glides forward and
draws back the portiers. There is no
door now.
You didn't tell me anything had hap
pened, said Mr.. Smithers. "Well, you
shall have it all fixed up nicely again.
What was it? Furnace fues evidently
the furnace isn't going. All your pretty
carpets, teo?" and he glances down at
the expanse of polished oak, relieved bv
Turkish rugs, and stops before the man
tel-piece. When he last saw it, it was of
marble, carved elaborately. Now it was
replaced by one of oak, which ran up to
the ceiling in series of shelves inter-
spersed with small looking glasses.
The portraits of Mr.. Smither's jolly old
papa and prim-looding mamma, which,
in massive gold frames, Ind filed either
/. 4 I,