The Brick Moon and Other Stories Part 25

We have eight splendid The plumbers' work always children. gives way at the wrong time, and the plumbers' bills are awful.

We have money enough, The furnace will not heat the though we know what to do house unless the wind is at the with more. southwest. None of the chimneys draw well.

George will not have to go We hate the Kydd School.

to Bahia next year. The master drinks and the first a.s.sistant lies. But we live in that district; so the boys have to go there.

Tom got through with scarlet Lucy said "commence" yesterday, fever without being deaf. Jane said "gent," Walter said "Bully for you," and Alice said "n.o.bby." And what is coming we do not know.

Dr. Witherspoon has accepted How long any man can live the presidency of Tiberias under this government I do College in Alaska. not know.

FELIX AND FAUSTA CARTER

GOOD. EVIL.

Governments are stronger But as the children grow every year. Money goes farther bigger, their clothes cost than it did. more.

All the boys are good and But the children get no well. So are the girls. good at school, except They are splendid children. measles, whooping-cough, and scarlet fever.

Old Mr. Porter died last But the gas-meter lies; week, and Felix gets promotion and the gas company wants to in the office. have it lie.

The lost volume of Fichte But the Athenaeum is always was left on the door-step last calling in its books to examine night by some one who rang the them, and making us say where bell and ran away. It is rather Mr. Fred Curtis's books are.

wet, but when it is bound will As if we cared.

look nicely.

The mistress of the Arbella But our drains smell School is dead. awfully, though the Board of Health says they do not.

We have to go to evening parties among our friends, or seem stuck up. We hate to go, and wish there were none. We had rather come here.

The increasing worthlessness of the franchise.

With these papers they gathered all in the study just as the clock struck nine, and, in good old Boston fashion, Silas was bringing in some hot oysters. They ate the oysters, which were good--trust Anna for that-- and then the women read the papers, while the smoking men smoked and pondered.

They all recognized the gravity of the situation.

Still, as Julia said, they felt better already. It was like having the doctor come: you knew the worst, and could make ready for it.

They did not discuss the statements much. They had discussed them too much in severalty. They did agree that they should be left to Felix to report upon the next evening. He was, so to speak, to post them, to strike out from each side the quant.i.ties which could be eliminated, and leave the equations so simplified that the eight might determine what they should do about it-- indeed, what they could do about it.

The visitors put on their "things"--how strange that that word should once have meant "parliaments!"--kissed good-by so far as they were womanly, and went home.

George Haliburton screwed down the gas, and they went to bed.

CHAPTER II

STRIKING THE BALANCE

The next night they went to see Warren at the Museum.

That probably helped them. After the play they met by appointment at the Carters'. Felix read his

REPORT.

1. NUMBER.--There are twenty-one reasons for congratulation, twenty-four for regret. But of the twenty-four, four are the same; namely, the cursed political prospect of the country. Counting that as one only, there are twenty-one on each side.

2. EVIL.--The twenty-one evils may be cla.s.sified thus: political, 1; social, 12; physical, 5; terrors, 3.

All the physical evils would be relieved by living in a temperate climate, instead of this abomination, which is not a climate, to which our ancestors were sold by the cupidity of the Dutch.

The political evil would be ended by leaving the jurisdiction of the United States.

The social evils, which are a majority of all, would be reduced by residence in any place where there were not so many people.

The terrors properly belong to all the cla.s.ses. In a decent climate, in a country not governed by its vices, and a community not crowded, the three terrors would be materially abated, if not put to an end.

Respectfully submitted,

FELIX CARTER.

How they discussed it now! Talk? I think so! They all talked awhile, and no one listened. But they had to stop when Phenice brought in the Welsh rare-bit (good before bed, but a little indigestible, unless your conscience is stainless), and Felix then put in a word.

"Now I tell you, this is not nonsense. Why not do what Winslow and Standish and those fellows thought they were doing when they sailed? Why not go to a climate like France, with milder winters and cooler summers than here? You want some winter, you want some summer."

"I hate centipedes and scorpions," said Anna.

"There's no need of them. There's a place in Mexico, not a hundred miles from the sea, where you can have your temperature just as you like."

"Stuff!"

"No, it is not stuff at all," said poor Felix, eagerly. "I do not mean just one spot. But you live in this valley, you know. If you find it is growing hot, you move about a quarter of a mile to another place higher up. If you find that hot, why you have another house a little higher. Don't you see? Then, when winter comes, you move down."

"Are there many people there?" asked Haliburton; "and do they make many calls?"

"There are a good many people, but they are a gentle set. They never quarrel. They are a little too high up for the revolutions, and there is something tranquillizing about the place; they seldom die, none are sick, need no aguardiente, do what the head of the village tells them to do--only he never has any occasion to tell them. They never make calls."

"I like that," said Ingham. That patriarchal system is the true system of government."

"Where is this place?" said Anna, incredulously.

"I have been trying to remember all day, but I can't.

It is in Mexico, I know. It is on this side of Mexico.

It tells all about it in an old 'Harper'--oh, a good many years ago--but I never bound mine; there are always one or two missing every year. I asked Fausta to look for it, but she was busy. I thought," continued poor Felix, a little crestfallen, "one of you might remember."

No, n.o.body remembered; and n.o.body felt much like going to the public library to look, on Carter's rather vague indications. In fact, it was a suggestion of Haliburton's that proved more popular.

Haliburton said he had not laid in his coal. They all said the same. "Now," said he, "the coal of this crowd for this winter will cost a thousand dollars, if you add in the kindling and the matches, and patching the furnace pots and sweeping the chimneys."

To this they agreed.