Packing house

“ The packing of a big house takes about two days, and on the evening of the first day two of the servants and one of the household, the eldest daughter if possible, should go on to the new house; if, however, there is a long journey before them they should start almost as soon as the vans come, as the first will arrive Wednesday morning at the new abode, and someone should be there to receive it. ”

“ In packing household furniture for moving, have each box numbered, and then have a book, in which, as each box is packed, note down the number of the box, and the order in which its contents are packed, as this will save much labor and perplexity when unpacking. ”

“ We got a big Gladstone for the clothes, and a couple of hampers for the victuals and the cooking utensils. We moved the table up against the window, piled everything in a heap in the middle of the floor, and sat round and looked at it.
I said I’d pack.
I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person living. (It surprises me myself, sometimes, how many of these subjects there are.) I impressed the fact upon George and Harris, and told them that they had better leave the whole matter entirely to me. ”

“ They left their packs just inside the door of the log-cabin, indicated as "Bunk House for the men on No. 6, Above"—a fearsome place, where, on shelf above shelf, among long unwashed bedclothes, the unwashed workmen of a prosperous company lay in the stupor of sore fatigue and semi-asphyxiation. ”

“ When all these things are taken out for use on arrival, the space is very convenient for soiled clothing, it being quite separate and distinct from any other compartment. Do your own packing if you do not keep a maid. Have a place for everything, so that when you want anything in a hurry, or you feel tired, you will not have that interminable bug-bear of "having to unpack everything to find it." Many a good manager or housekeeper seems perfectly lost when she contemplates the possibility of "living in a trunk," as it is vulgarly called. ”

“ Beautiful for situation, up a winding road, past cascades and mountain waterfalls, upon a high plateau the home is found—a box house, one room, no windows, two beds, four chairs, a table, a few dishes, father, mother, seven children, dogs, cats, and chickens. At retiring hour the teacher is pointed to the corner and is told she is to sleep there. A pile of dirty, ragged quilts are pulled out from under the beds, some bags and rags rolled for pillows, and the family dispose of themselves for the night, with no change of clothing, scarcely the removal of shoes. ”

“ There is no glass, porch, or ornamentation without. Within is a fireplace, black and smoky, and usually unsteady with age. A bed or two, a table, a wooden chest, and a few chairs compose the furniture; while a stray show-bill or a newspaper makes up the decorations for the walls. Now and then one may find such a cabin kept scrupulously neat, with merry steaming fireplaces and hospitable door; but the majority are dirty and dilapidated, smelling of eating and sleeping, poorly ventilated, and anything but homes. ”

“ Many vacation homes are so obviously furnished with discarded town house furniture—odds and ends from different rooms—and with misfit draperies and scraps of old carpet. After a few seasons they are likely to look like a cross between a second-hand store and a rummage sale. Rooms containing such odds and ends can scarcely be called restful and yet a cabin home is supposed to exist for rest and relaxation. ”

“ You have your box so much more under your control if it is raised a little from the floor, and it is ever so much easier to pack and unpack. The taste and characteristics of the owners of the house, which you may be sure is to be found in all their surroundings, is never more apparent than in the spare room. ”

“ The inexperienced in such matters may be surprised, and if they have hearts they may be grieved, to learn that the fire-proof storage of the furniture of the average house would equal the rent of a very comfortable domicile in a small town, or a farm by which a family’s living can be earned, with a decent dwelling in which it can be sheltered. ”

“ But they did steal up on the porch of one bungalow, and they exclaimed like children when they beheld the big living-room, the huge fireplace, the built-in shelves and, beyond the living-room, what seemed to be the dining-room, with an enormous chandelier which may not, perhaps, have been of the delicate reticence of a silver candlestick, but whose jags and blobs of ruby and emerald and purple glass filled their hearts with awe. ”

“ Two of these were very well furnished, and in the after cabin there was a large and comfortable state-room, which both the boys decided to have been the captain’s. The furniture was all confused. The carpet was damp. It seemed as though the sea had been careering through these cabins and state-rooms. But the upper parts had been spared; and in the pantry where the boys at length found themselves, they saw, with a pleasure that cannot be described, the contents of the upper shelves as dry as when they were first put there. ”

“ On the screened back porch, which is equipped with laundry trays and closet, men coming from the fields may hang their outside work garments and, except in cold weather, wash before entering the house. Here a great deal of the dirty and messy work in preparing fruits and vegetables for canning may be done. Entrance from the screened porch to the bath or bedrooms reduces to a minimum the traffic through the kitchen and living room. In plan 6520 the screened porch might be divided by a lattice into work and living spaces. ”

“ The family would freely help my servants, and when the grooms had removed themselves and their horses to the inn stables, no one was disturbed. The boy prepared breakfast in the morning. The space allotted to us was always ample for my camp-bed, kit, and mosquito curtains. It opened, as a rule, upon the courtyard, around which the house is built. There was plenty of air, as one side was open; the flooring was of thick timbers, raised from the ground. If the weather proved inclement the place afforded warmth and shelter. ”

“ What's the use o' havin' furnished rooms that you never use? Yes, it does look pretty empty, but after livin' in a jungle of old mahogany these many years, you don't know what a blessed relief it is to have a few empty spots about the house. Every [Pg 113] house ought to have one or two empty rooms, Maria, jest for folks to rest their eyes on.
"Yes, I did keep one piece o' the family furniture, but it wasn't mahogany. It was that little plain rockin'-chair with the oak-split bottom; there it sets in the corner. ”

“ Antique hair trunks lined the sides, under the eaves, and quaint garments hung about on pegs. The attic was the only apartment in this strange house that received the light of day, for the two little windows like staring eyes were not boarded up. ”

“ I came to the caretaker’s cottage, but it was locked and he was away. The big house was closed too. So I called up the moving company, gave them my name, and had them take your most valuable things to the warehouse. ”

“ I can’t find another house, so I’m going to put my furniture in storage. I’ve told the men to come for it tomorrow.”
“All right,” I said. “If I can’t find an apartment to suit, I’ll put my stuff in storage, too, and stay at a hotel for a while. ”

“ There are two shelves, one above the other, made up as beds, a piece of furniture with drawers and a looking-glass in it, a fixed basin such as those you see in bathrooms, and a few pegs to hang things on, and that is all. Our cabin trunks, which we sent on ahead, are here before us, and through the open round port-hole we catch a glimpse of grey water. We are lucky indeed to get a cabin to ourselves, for in many, not a bit larger than this, there would be a third bunk or bed, and a stranger would be forced in on us. ”

“ But the arrival of our pack-mules leaves us no 144 time for reproaches or complaints. The caravan completely blocks the circulation of the neighborhood. The pack-mules, too broadly loaded, get stuck fast in the narrow street, and we are compelled to back them out and discharge the cargoes at a neighboring street-intersection. Our folding beds and chairs, our gaily-colored rugs and cushions, our kitchen outfit, and our photographic kit are heaped up in the public thoroughfare, pending the disappearance of the animals. ”

“ Summer-guests who come to drink mountain air can build their cabins wherever they find a convenient plateau, and contract with the next farmer for all the comestibles they may need in addition to their canned provisions. They can cook at their own fireplace. A log-house can be made as airy as any tent, and is out and out more comfortable. ”

“ Well, he would just have to be on the continual lookout. For one thing he would stop at a store on the way back and purchase a couple of big steamer rugs and a long warm cloak. He could smuggle them into the cottage somehow and have the servants bring them out for common use as if they belonged to the house. ”

“ The whole side of the hill where we are is cut up in plots, which form gardens planted with trees, and here and there is a dwelling-house. We had all our baggage landed and carried by the crew to our house, except a few boxes, which being wood were not infectious, and were carried by porters. Two guardians are assigned us—one of them must be always at the house, to see that no person touches us, or any of our articles; the other we may send on errands, such as to do our marketing. They are not to touch us, nor we them. ”

“ In the mountains, and sea-coast parts, it has ever been the custom to set the cabin door open at night, and keep up a fire on the hearth, that the way-faring man, and the lone stranger, should he be benighted, could see by the light that there is welcome for him, and if they have but one bed, the family get up and give it to the stranger, sitting up, and having the fire kept bright through the night. ”

“ Our little twelve-foot cabin, it must be remembered, was bed-room, sitting-room, dining-room, storeroom, and kitchen, all in one. Everything we wanted for sleeping, reading, eating, and drinking, had to be arranged in its proper place. The butter and candles, the soap and cheese, the salt and sugar, the bread and onions, the oil-bottle and the brandy-bottle, for example, had to be put in places where the motion of the vessel could not roll them together, and where, also, we could any of us find them at a moment's notice. ”

“ Then there were new settlements and detached log-cabins and frame-houses, full of interest for strangers from an old country: cabins with simple ovens, outside, made of clay; and lodgings for the pigs nearly as good as many of the human quarters; broken windows, patched with worn-out hats, old clothes, old boards, fragments of blankets and paper; and home-made dressers standing in the open air without the door, whereon was ranged the household store, not hard to count, of earthen jars and pots. ”

“ Look into any of these houses, everywhere the same piles of rags, of malodorous bones and musty paper, all of which the sanitary police flatter themselves they have banished to the dumps and the warehouses. Here is a “flat” of “parlor” and two pitch-dark coops called bedrooms. Truly, the bed is all there is room for. The family tea-kettle is on the stove, doing duty for the time being as a wash-boiler. By night it will have returned to its proper use again, a practical illustration of how poverty in “the Bend” makes both ends meet. ”

“ What was I to find in the cabins, and the offices, and the pantries, and the caboose-house? The caboose-house reminded me that I was getting hungry, and that it was near dinner-time. I had expected to make my meal of dry crackers and cold bear-meat; but it occurred to me, that, on such an occasion as the present, a luxurious repast would be more appropriate, as well as more agreeable, and that very possibly I might find in the caboose-house the materials for gratifying my appetite. ”

“ Our porch is one of those accommodating porches with plenty of room, a standing invitation to company. Whenever company comes I have to convert myself into a moving van and tote all the furniture out from the parlor.
The Duke of Mont Alto, and the Duchess, dropped in one evening with the Purdys, and I began to move the parlor. What with spade pushing and furniture moving, I've got Sandow backed off the board. It's wonderful what a little regular training will do for a fellow! ”

“ Inside there, in some secret rooms that had been constructed off of the main apartments, the goods would be unpacked, put in different boxes, carried through the tunnel to the gardener's house, and thence shipped as "old furniture" to various unscrupulous agents who disposed of them. ”

“ To expand in a northward direction, by cutting a door in the wall of our living room that would lead into cabin two, would be the simplest method of adding two rooms, but it would also be very expensive, chopping down our income by about one thirteenth. ”

“ The chief characteristic of the house was that it looked like a home, its tasteful decoration and contents indicating that the inhabitants had come to stay. Most houses in the East have an unmistakeable air of being mere temporary shelters, where the owners are lodging till they can get away to their household goods now warehoused "at home." ”

“ Remain in this cabin; if these men knock at the door, open at once, don’t keep them waiting, and let them come in and rest; if they want refreshment, give them only bread and water; if they ask you questions, you know what you are to answer. ”