The Adventures of a Suburbanite. Ellis Parker Butler

I. THE PRAWLEYS

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      ISOBEL was born in a flat, and that was no fault of her own; but she was born in a flat, and reared in a flat, and married from a flat, and, for two years after we were married, we lived in a flat; but I am not a born flat-dweller myself, and as soon as possible I proposed that we move to the country. Isobel hesitated, but she hesitated so weakly that on the first of May we had bought the place at Westcote and moved into it.

      The very day I moved into my house Millington came over and said he was glad some one had moved in, because the last man that had lived in the house was afraid of automobiles, and would never take a spin with him. He said he hoped I was not afraid; and when I said I was not, he immediately proposed that we take a little spin out to Port Lafayette as soon as I had my furniture straightened around. I thought it was very nice and neighbourly and unusual for a man with an automobile to begin an acquaintance that way; but I did not know Millington's automobile so well then as I grew to know it afterward.

      I liked Millington. He was a short, Napoleon-looking man, with bulldog jaws and not very much hair, and I was glad to have him for a neighbour, particularly as my neighbour on the other side was a tall, haughty-looking man. He leaned on the division fence and stared all the while our furniture was being moved in. I spoke to Millington about him, and all Millington said was: “Rolfs? Oh, he's no good! He won't ride in an automobile.”

      At first, while we were really getting settled in our house, Isobel was bright and cheerful and seemed to have forgotten flats entirely but on the tenth of May I saw a change coming over her, and when I spoke of it she opened her heart to me.

      “John,” she said, “I am afraid I cannot stand it. I shall try to, for your sake, but I do not think I can. I am so lonely! I feel like an atom floating in space.”

      “Isobel!” I said kindly but reprovingly. “With the Millingtons on one side and the Rolfs on the other?”

      “I know,” she admitted contritely enough; “but you can't understand. Always and always, since I was born, some one has lived overhead, and some one has lived underneath. Sometimes only the janitor lived underneath—”

      “Isobel,” I said, “if you will try to explain what you mean—”

      “I mean flats,” she said dolefully. “I always lived in a flat, John, and there was always a family above and a family below, and it frightens me to think I am in a house where there is no family above me, and not even a janitor's family below me. It makes me feel naked, or suspended in air, or as if there was no ground under my feet. It makes me gasp!”

      “That is nonsense!” I said. “That is the beauty of having a house. We have it all to ourselves. Now, in a flat—”

      “We had our flat all to ourselves, John,” she reminded me; “but a flat isn't so unbounded as a house. Just think; there is nothing between us and the top of the sky! Not a single family! It makes me nervous. And there is nothing beneath us!”

      “Now, my dear,” I said soothingly, “China is beneath us, and no doubt a very respectable family is keeping house directly below.”

      Isobel sighed contentedly.

      “I am so glad you thought of that!” she cried. “Now, when I feel lonely, I can imagine I feel the house jar as the Chinese family move their piano, or I can imagine that I hear their phonograph.”

      “Very good,” I said; “and if you can imagine all that, why cannot you imagine a family overhead, too? The whole attic is there. Very well; I give up the entire attic to your imagination.”

      Then I kissed her and went into the back garden. My opinion is that the man that laid out that back garden was over-sanguine. I am passionately fond of gardening, and believe in back gardens; but at the present price of seed and the present hardness of hoe handles, I think that back garden is too large. This is not a mere flash opinion, either; it is a matter of study. The first day I stuck spade into that garden I had given little thought to its size, but by the time I had spaded all day I began to have a pretty well-defined opinion of gardens and how large they should be, and by the end of the third day of spading I believe I may say I was well equipped to testify as an expert on garden sizes. That was the day the blisters on my hands became raw.