We found ourselves obliged to give up the idea of a furnished house. We would have taken an unfurnished one and furnished it ourselves, but we had not money enough. We were dreadfully afraid that we should have to continue to board.
It was now getting on toward summer, at least there was only a part of a month of spring left, and whenever I could get off from my business Euphemia and I made little excursions into the country round about the city. One afternoon we went up the river, and there we saw a sight that transfixed us, as it were. On the bank, a mile or so above the city, stood a canal-boat. I say stood, because it was so firmly imbedded in the ground by the river-side, that it would have been almost as impossible to move it as to have turned the Sphinx around. This boat we soon found was inhabited by an oyster-man and his family. They had lived there for many years and were really doing quite well. The boat was divided, inside, into rooms, and these were papered and painted and nicely furnished. There was a kitchen, a living-room, a parlor and bedrooms. There were all sorts of conveniences--carpets on the floors, pictures, and everything, at least so it seemed to us, to make a home comfortable. This was not all done at once, the oyster-man told me. They had lived there for years and had gradually added this and that until the place was as we saw it. He had an oyster-bed out in the river and he made cider in the winter, but where he got the apples I don't know. There was really no reason why he should not get rich in time.
Well, we went all over that house and we praised everything so much that the oyster-man's wife was delighted, and when we had some stewed oysters afterward,--eating them at a little table under a tree near by,--I believe that she picked out the very largest oysters she had, to stew for us. When we had finished our supper and had paid for it, and were going down to take our little boat again,--for we had rowed up the river,--Euphemia stopped and looked around her. Then she clasped her hands and exclaimed in an ecstatic undertone:
"We must have a canal-boat!"
And she never swerved from that determination.
After I had seriously thought over the matter, I could see no good reason against adopting this plan. It would certainly be a cheap method of living, and it would really be housekeeping. I grew more and more in favor of it. After what the oyster-man had done, what might not we do? HE had never written a book on housekeeping, nor, in all probability, had he considered the matter, philosophically, for one moment in all his life.
But it was not an easy thing to find a canal-boat. There were none advertised for rent--at least, not for housekeeping purposes.
We made many inquiries and took many a long walk along the water-courses in the vicinity of the city, but all in vain. Of course, we talked a great deal about our project and our friends became greatly interested in it, and, of course, too, they gave us a great deal of advice, but we didn't mind that. We were philosophical enough to know that you can't have shad without bones. They were good friends and, by being careful in regard to the advice, it didn't interfere with our comfort.
We were beginning to be discouraged, at least Euphemia was. Her discouragement is like water-cresses, it generally comes up in a very short time after she sows her wishes. But then it withers away rapidly, which is a comfort. One evening we were sitting, rather disconsolately, in our room, and I was reading out the advertisements of country board in a newspaper, when in rushed Dr.
Heare--one of our old friends. He was so full of something that he had to say that he didn't even ask us how we were. In fact, he didn't appear to want to know.
"I tell you what it is," said he, "I have found just the very thing you want.""A canal-boat?" I cried.
"Yes," said he, "a canal-boat."
"Furnished?" asked Euphemia, her eyes glistening.
"Well, no," answered the doctor, "I don't think you could expect that.""But we can't live on the bare floor," said Euphemia; "our house MUST be furnished.""Well, then, I suppose this won't do," said the doctor, ruefully, "for there isn't so much as a boot-jack in it. It has most things that are necessary for a boat, but it hasn't anything that you could call house-furniture; but, dear me, I should think you could furnish it very cheaply and comfortably out of your book.""Very true," said Euphemia, "if we could pick out the cheapest things and then get some folks to buy a lot of the books.""We could begin with very little," said I, trying hard to keep calm.
"Certainly," said the doctor, "you need make no more rooms, at first, than you could furnish.""Then there are no rooms," said Euphemia.
"No, there is nothing but one vast apartment extending from stem to stern.""Won't it be glorious!" said Euphemia to me. "We can first make a kitchen, and then a dining-room, and a bedroom, and then a parlor--just in the order in which our book says they ought to be furnished.""Glorious!" I cried, no longer able to contain my enthusiasm; "Ishould think so. Doctor, where is this canal-boat?"The doctor then went into a detailed statement. The boat was stranded on the shore of the Scoldsbury river not far below Ginx's.
We knew where Ginx's was, because we had spent a very happy day there, during our honeymoon.
The boat was a good one, but superannuated. That, however, did not interfere with its usefulness as a dwelling. We could get it--the doctor had seen the owner--for a small sum per annum, and here was positively no end to its capabilities.
We sat up until twenty minutes past two, talking about that house.
We ceased to call it a boat at about a quarter of eleven.
The next day I "took" the boat and paid a month's rent in advance.
Three days afterward we moved into it.
