The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-06-28
A SUMNER CHANGE.
How One Woman Gets it Without
Leaving Her Own Home.
The Philosophy of Complete Set Of New I'm.
pressions-A Summer Widower Rsgains
His Wife-A Second Honeymoon.
Special to THE MORNING GALL

This Is the season when the city
house greets you with pursed-up lips
and hands behind Its back, as If to say:
whats your business here? Don't you
know that every well-regulated person
leaves town before the Fourth of Julyp +"
Its windows are boarded and its doors
bolted and barred. If, perchance, any life
strs behind its masque of desolation, 1t
walks with bated breath in dim rooms,
amid white-clothed furniture and book
cases swathed in sheets, like ghost prowl-
ing at night in graveyard.
One house in tree-shaded street does
not share this aspect of desolation. The
turf in its front yard is green and not dust
covered. There are wide, cOol-looking
awnings above its windows and honey
suekle vine hich chambers up by the front
steps is in full blossom. The woman of
this establishment is one whose name most
of you, PROBABLY. would recognize. Though
her books have a fame that is growing. she
has not rid herself of certain old-fashioned
view of wifely obligations. Why should
l." she said to q bird of passage yester-
day at quaint little lunch that was q fare
we'll banquet in view Of the BIRDS lifting,
why should l be my husbands better-(off
half and recuperate,' while me lives at
stuffy clearinghouse and is deprived of the
home comforts that make the heat of the
city endurabe? What we all need in the
summer is change. | have taken the money
that two months in the mountains or at the
seashore would cost me and contriyed an
entire change for myself, for my husband
and for our two grown-up sons right here.
It's fair play all round
Fair play is something so admirable and,
in the matter OF summer vacations, so rare,
that by your leave | am going to describe
for the benefit of summer widowerS" in
city or country, her "change." ut has
transformed the house so completely" said
its mistress, THAT we quite forget we
are in town and fancy ourselves, when the
moon comes up and the scent is strong from
the honeysucklcs away off in some reStful
spot in a second honeymoon. We've not
spent a summer together in two years.
The boys laugh at US because we actually
hold hands"
The change began with the hall. should
like to see what my friend, the literary
woman with her ideas about "a complete
alteration of surroundings" would do with
the conventional city hall, but as it hap
pens-nOw please don't tell me it always
does happen SO in utOpian sketches, be-
cause this tale is true-it so happens that
her house is in a new and rather unconven-
tlonal block and, moreover, Is on corner.
Thus it comes about that her hall is of the
nature Of a small reception room, with
stairway on the left, fireplace opposite the
l0Fs. The finish is oak, and the tones of
the wallpaper a pale olive and cream.
From this hall she has removed the carpet.
IT WAS A RICH DEEP RED
And it is a part of her theory that red is to
be banished in June that it may come back
with double cheer in November-and had
dark oak stain applied to the tOor This
was a part of her spring cleaning" during
which the aforementioned husband and
sons went on a weeks fishing excursion.
Just in front OF the stairs she has placed
rug of soft, coOl-lo0king col0rs, and in the
door-waYS, in lieu of the heavy chenille per-
there's. she has hung two of the bamboo and
bead curtains that are sold in the Japanese
stores, but are made at home very easily by
stringing the ban boo aud beads on fish,
lines fastened to pine strip. To get
wholly new impression she has taken
out the hat-rack, substituting pretty little
glass of oak with iron hooks and small
oval mirror in the middle. The room thus
gained Is given to reed bottOmed piazza
chairs, ready when the sun is gone to be
taken outside. In the fireplace stands big
jug mottled olive and brown and filled
when | saw it with daisies. He becomes
| another man. she says, 1.-THE minute he en-
tiers this other hall"
When "he passes into the parlors his
bitterness must be intensified. These are
in line front and rear. the back parlor be-
ing fitted as a library. Here. too, the car
pets have come up and the heavy curtains
down. The woodwork is cherry. | think
my friend was tempted to enamel it-thlnk
of the itching of ones fingers with enamel
at % cents pot-but she bravely refrained.
japanese mating which is so firm
and close of texture and so odd
in design, with its scattered hero
glyphs OF brown Eastern characters, and
wlthal so cheap. costing only 20 cents
yard. The walls are papered a delicate
pink, and this, though reluctantly. she has
suffered to stay, and turned to the windows
for further expression of her revolutionary
ideas. My windows" she says, ARE the
eyes of my house. through which look
These eyes she has new lidded for
the refreshment of vacation gazing
with Undiscovered cretOnne in one
OF the summer designs OF scattered sprays
on cream ground. "CretOnne sounds
cheap at 80 cents the yard" she answered
doubtiDgly, but these curtains had to be
lined with cream-colored sateen Cream
aud gold are the colors for lining. because
the more delicate sateens fade and tine
cost Of making was so much that, although
they are SO very pretty, L should take
Chinese silk hanginss if | had it 10 do over
again"
For sash curtains inside the draperies
she has used cream-colored muslin, fiecked
with large spots of pink and ecru. 1t comes,
l think, fifty inches wide and costs 40 cents
yard.
But the furniture my parlor things"
this in half-apologetic explanation, needed
uphostering, so instead of putting them
into linen overalls, just sent them away"
In their stead she has not put in
GREAT MANY ARTICLES,
For nobody wants to see summer vaca-
ton house crowded, but has bought few
pieces of wicker furniture, which costs less
than rattan and can't be twisted into
shapes so preposterously ugly. These she
has left of their natural color and fitted
with India silk cushions. The gem Of the
room is long wicker lounge with two
heads, over which, that it may still be cool
and yet not too hard to the feelings, has
been thrown one of those queer-looking
Bagdad curtains that everybody thinks so
artistic. These are woven by hand by the
native workmen IN stripes nine inches wide.
Five sUlid colOred stripes are then Sewed to-
gether and the figured pattern put on in
loose-meshed stitchery. My friends cur
tain is brown. stitched with pink and cream,
and the lounge is beaped with six puffy
cretonne cushions. Here that happy -"
l wonder if mightn't call him Richard, es-
peciallv as 1t isn't his name, stretches him.
self when his head aches and his limbs grow
tired. You don't have company in the city
in summer and you can stretch yourself.
even in your parlor, on something cool and
clean and long, and forget care.
In the back parlOr In window recess
stands student chair in wicker, in which,
as l understand the situation, Richard"
when he isn't lying on the lounge, reads his
newspapers. 1t has high square back and
broad, roomy seat; 1t Is cushioned with
cretonne and it has basket at its side for
| waste literature.
From the high wood overmantels in both
rooms all the familiar bric-a-brac has been
taken away. IF l saw that little Hindoo
| idol [ took such delight in all winter, l am
| sure / should find out" said my friend,
ssthat I hadn't roallxy q " Tia mol
| ished wood has been left to show Itself cool
and bare, with here scarf Of India silk
and there rose jar or quantity shaped
| pitcher. Some of the pictures have been
taken down and etchirgs substituted.
"My one extravaganceH smiled the lady,
as she pointed to delightful marine in
rest Richards eyes. feel Obliged to find
space somewhere TO say that Richard is a
broker. but that believe lie is apprecative.
These summer parlOrs do not run to
| screens. but to cut off draughts where all
| the windows are open Is a frame of light