The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-02-24
THEIR PALESTINE RUG.
BY NELLIE NELSON AMSDEN.

NI HEN Caroline Hunter married
w John higgins he was poor. and
they were glad to be able to cover the
floors of their little six-room house
with cheap mattings and three-ply in
grains, and were thankful that they
could pay the bill when it was present
ed the first of the following month.
But all that is changed, for John Winn
higgins is now rich man.
Caroline little knew how devotedly
John higgins could cling and hang and
fasten himself to fad, or l am sure
that after their great inheritance came
she would have hesitated long time
before letting that first simple little
Persian rug come into the new house.
The new house suited them to T at
first, but as John continued to gather
prayer rugs and ancient tapestries he
wished that there were more landings
TO the oaken staircase, and that all of
the floors had been built of hard woods
for the display of his expensive col
lection. So new house was built.
The next year, during a trip abroad,
he came upon a large and very expen-
frayed and excessively odd in coloring.
The seller brought out its mosaic eff
fects and showed Mr.. higgins that il
needed sunlight to bring out its won
drous coloring.
Then John turned to Caroline-Caro-
line, who was weary with three
months globe trotting after 'old car
pets as she now began to designate
them, in her mind, at least.
well, Cara, we have 10 sunny room
large enough for this. What do you
think we had better do about it?"
"Do?" was her reply. why, buy it.
of course, and build on. Make big
outdoor parlor or dining-room, or
something for this rag car-Turkish
rug, l mean" She meant it as bit of
sarcasm, but her enthusiastic husband,
intent on the wonders of the pattern
spread before him, did not perceive this.
Caroline" he made answer, that's
jlst what we'll do. I've always
thought we needed more porch room,
and an airy summer parlor would be
just the thing for this pattern"
q And so it went On till Caroline knew
that the house was made for the rugs,
not the rugs for the house. She felt
herself quite a slave to these revered
bits of carpet, so many of her unen-
gagged hours at home had to be spent
in seeing that the floors were perfectly
polished and that the man shook and
brushed the rugs carefully and that
they were again laid in their proper
places. for nothing eXasperated John
more than to bring in a friend, equally
mad on the subject, and to find that
q certain rag which he had expected
e. find in tie southeast corner of the
library had by mistake been placed be-
fore the threshold of the buffers pam
try.
What baseball is to most men an auc-
ticn sale of oriental rugs was to John.
AL their vacations, their many jour
neyings abroad, were mapped out in
sonn's MIND by the rarities in his col
lection; the winter in Cairo had given
them the dingy prayer mat on the first
landing; the fall after the baby died
and Caroline needed change they had
gone to Naples, and John had run over
TO Algiers and found that treasure in
purple and green before Carolines lit
tie desk; the couch covering in Johns
der was the product of that trouble
some journey to Bagdad the year they
lost all their baggage save the rugs:
the sleazy old square in blues. burnt
brick reds and ecstatic puppies, on
which stood the Chinese god in the IL
brary, had been found the year they
had the unpleasant encounter with the
Hunting ton-Browns in Damascus.
It was Caroline who kept the ac-
counts. One day, when she was a lit
fle overburdened with Johns enthusi-
assn over certain heavy ten-by-twelve,
which had cost a good many hundreds
of dollars, she reckoned up the small
fortune spent in buying and in duties,
ard reckoned tnat It might easily have
founded an orphan asylum.
She had a little mania, mild. of her
own, fad for collecting small toy dogs
in china. ivory and metals. Good ones
were rare and hard to find, but she
searched for them in London, Paris.
Nice, Naples. in little Swiss towns, in
New York and Chicago, and once found
one, little pink-b!anketed spaniel, in
Brooklyn.
1t was s1ch l change from the rugs.