Ralph Barbour - Center Rush Rowland

The easy-chair was not as easy as it looked. About the only thing easy, except its appearance, was the price. It was one of those brown-oak contraptions with a back that let down to form various angles with the seat. Unfortunately each succeeding angle was more uncomfortable than the last. “Old Man Mission,” observed Mart, “may have been a dandy carpenter, but he was a mighty poor comforter!” They picked up some hanging book shelves for sixty cents and two rugs only half worn out for a dollar apiece and, finally, an oak table-desk with a column of drawers at one side, one of which would open without the use of a jimmy. Leaving instructions to have the furniture delivered not later than five o’clock, they returned to “Maggy’s.”

Mart heroically paid Mrs. Magoon a dollar, much to that lady’s bewilderment, and then they went up to the room. A decrepit walnut washstand was already in place, but Ira couldn’t see that its presence added much to the apartment. They tried it in three places and at last returned it to its original position, restoring the casters which it had sprinkled around the room in its travels. Then Mart threw himself into the plush chair and stretched his legs out and viewed the room thoughtfully.

“Better make a list of things to buy, old man,” he advised. “All ready? Paper of tacks and a hammer – better get a real hammer and not one of those playthings; a hammer’s always useful – , two brass curtain rods – By Crickey, we forgot curtains! Never mind, though, we’ll get those at Alston’s. We can get the rods there, too. And you’d ought to have a cloth for that table. Every fellow ought to have a cloth on his table, I should think. And – let’s see – ” He looked around the room inquiringly.

“I guess that’s enough for today,” said Ira. “The next thing is to get my trunk over from the station. I suppose there’s an expressman around somewhere.”

“Come on down with me at five and give your check to Harris. He does most of the school work and won’t mind lugging it up two flights. Some of them expect ten cents more for that. Let’s get cooled off a bit and then buy the curtains, eh? Curtains will make a lot of difference, I tell you! I’ll borrow a yard-stick or something from Maggy and measure the windows.”

When that had been done they sailed forth again. There was one excellent feature about Ira’s abode, and that was its convenience to the shops. Alston’s dry goods store was only a half block away, across School Street, and soon they were viewing muslin and scrim curtains which an obliging saleslady hung over big brass rods. Mart found that he might as well have spared himself the trouble of taking measurements, for the curtains were all the same length. They finally selected two pairs of what the young lady called “cross-barred muslin” and purchased rods and fixtures. Subsequently they visited a hardware store and bought the hammer and the paper of tacks and a small quantity of nails. When they got back to Number 200 Main Street they found an expressman struggling upstairs with the leather couch, followed grimly by the landlady who exhorted him at every step to “mind the plaster now!”

When the new purchases were in place the room did look a lot better, and when Mart had, after much difficulty, put up the rods and pinned the curtains over them the two boys viewed the result with deep satisfaction. “It’s the little touches that do it,” proclaimed Mart. “Now when we get a cloth – ”

But they had forgotten the cloth for the table, as well as the “drape” for the couch, and had also neglected to provide anything in the way of a cushion for the window seat. “But Rome was not built in a day,” said Mart cheerfully. “I forget how long it took, but it was more likely a week. Now, in a week you won’t know this place, Rowland. Got any pictures to hang on this lovely yaller paper?”

“No, but I can get some,” answered Ira, regarding the paper distastefully. “Wish I could get enough to hide the walls entirely!”

“Put up half a dozen and hang a pennant over the door and stick a few posters around and you won’t notice the walls at all. And if I were you I’d buy a can of brown paint and go over this border again. That colour on there now makes me sort of faint. What time might it be?”

“Twenty to five.”

“Geewhillikins! Where’s the afternoon got to? Here, I’ll knock this window seat together and then beat it. Where’s that hammer? Don’t tell me – Oh, all right! Toss it over. Nails? Thank you, sir. Now then, you rickety, tumble-down, lob-sided bunch of boards, how do you go, anyhow? I say, Rowland, there’s a leg missing! I didn’t notice that, did you? Never mind. It won’t matter if you don’t sit on that corner, and some time you can nail a piece of board on there. Say, this thing is a regular Chinese puzzle! Know what I think? Well, I think he’s gone and sold us parts of two different seats!”

But he wronged Mr. Jacobs, for ultimately the sections fitted together, and when they did the two boys looked at the result in silence and then burst into howls of laughter. The window seat had been built for a corner! No matter how they struggled with it it remained L-shaped! If half of it ran across a window the other half stuck out into the room at right angles like a sore thumb! Ira subsided on the bed and Mart sprawled himself on the floor and they laughed until they were weak.

“Well,” said Mart finally, “either you’ve got to change your room or this seat, and I guess the seat’s the easier. Now look here. If we turn this end around, so, and tack a couple of short boards on here – ”

“Oh, don’t!” begged Ira. “Don’t spoil it! It – it’s beautiful!”

“Oh, well, if you won’t be serious,” laughed Mart, dropping his hammer. “Let’s leave it until tomorrow. I’ve got to meet Brad at five-twelve. Put your hat on and come along. Bring your trunk check, by the way. Hang it, quit laughing! Get a move on, you – you idjit!”

“Y-yes, but – but look at it, Johnston!” gasped Ira. “Isn’t it — funny ?”

“It’s killing,” agreed the other, grinning. “I say, why not leave it that way just for a joke?”

“I – I’m going to! I – l-like it!”

“Well, don’t cry, old man! Pull yourself together! Here’s your hat. Now come on. We’ve only got eight minutes.”

The railway station was four blocks south and by the time Ira had arranged for the delivery of his trunk and rescued his suitcase from the parcel room those eight minutes were gone and the express was rumbling in. Mart left Ira at the waiting-room door, with instructions not to move until he returned, and was presently pushing his way through the throng of arriving students in search of his roommate. Ira, however, concluded that he would only be in the way. The chums would of course have lots to say to each other and he didn’t believe that either of them would really be any happier for his presence. So, before the new arrivals had more than overflowed the platform, he was on his way uptown again, the heavy suitcase, into which at the last moment he had forced a lot of things that had been intended for the trunk, tugging at his arm. Station carriages, filled to capacity with merry youths, began to pass him before he reached Main Street and turned toward his lodgings, but he saw nothing of Mart.

He had a bath in the wonderful enamelled tub on the floor below and felt cooler and generally better for it. After he had returned to his room and made himself as comfortable on the bed as the hard, lumpy mattress would allow he heard the sound of arrivals. Voices and footsteps and the banging of doors came to him. Downstairs a spirited battle began for the possession of the bathroom. Across the hall from his closed door a youth with a strident voice sang loudly and opened and shut drawers most ungently. In spite of the noise, Ira, who had slept but poorly on the train the night before, drowsed off presently and knew no more until there came a banging at his portal. Half awake, he admitted the expressman with his trunk, paid for it in a stupor and then subsided on it to gather his faculties. His blinking gaze rested on the window seat and he began to chuckle at the perfectly idiotic way in which it thrust one decrepit end into the room. By that time he was sufficiently awake to find his key and open the trunk, after which he donned fresh underwear and his second-best suit of blue serge, spruced himself up and thought of supper. However, there was no great hurry about that, he concluded. Since he had decided to get his meals at the restaurants for awhile he was not required to observe regular hours. It was only a little past six, and there was his trunk to unpack and his things to find places for.