Treating of a Novel Style of Dwelling-house

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After I reached home came supper and the delightful evening hours, when over my pipe (I had given up cigars, as being too expensive and inappropriate, and had taken to a tall pipe and canaster tobacco) we talked and planned, and told each other our day's experience.

One of our earliest subjects of discussion was the name of our homestead. Euphemia insisted that it should have a name. I was quite willing, but we found it no easy matter to select an appropriate title. I proposed a number of appellations intended to suggest the character of our home. Among these were: "Safe Ashore," "Firmly Grounded," and some other names of that style, but Euphemia did not fancy any of them. She wanted a suitable name, of course, she said, but it must be something that would SOUND like a house and BE like a boat.

"Partitionville," she objected to, and "Gangplank Terrace," did not suit her because it suggested convicts going out to work, which naturally was unpleasant.

At last, after days of talk and cogitation, we named our house "Rudder Grange."

To be sure, it wasn't exactly a grange, but then it had such an enormous rudder that the justice of that part of the title seemed to over-balance any little inaccuracy in the other portion.

But we did not spend all our spare time in talking. An hour or two, every evening was occupied in what we called "fixing the house," and gradually the inside of our abode began to look like a conventional dwelling. We put matting on the floors and cheap but very pretty paper on the walls. We added now a couple of chairs, and now a table or something for the kitchen. Frequently, especially of a Sunday, we had company, and our guests were always charmed with Euphemia's cunning little meals. The dear girl loved good eating so much that she could scarcely fail to be a good cook.

We worked hard, and were very happy. And thus the weeks passed on.