AN ECONOMICAL EXPERIMENT.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4551, 6 August 1883, Page 2

AN ECONOMICAL EXPERIMENT.

DAEBr AHD JOAN ATTBMFT AN Er,E(JANT BIM> PilOlTr AND FIND IT BXPENSIVE. " We'll stain the floor this summer," said Joan Van Rensellaer; "it's cooler for hot weather ; 'everybody's doing it." 14 Who'll do the staining ?" laid Darby Livingston. V Oh, I'll do it. Mrs Dye did hers, and ever so much cheaper than the painter. She's given me a receipe. Now, I'll tell you what you must get for me at the paint shop." Darby groaned internally. "First coat—Half and half of bhrned umher and sienna ; also, half and half linseed oil and turpentine, with a little Japanese dryer. That's the first coat. That must dry. Then fill all the cracks with red putty. The second coat is half and half burned sienna and umber to onethird oil and two-thirds turpentine, with a great deal of Japanese dryer. Then varnish.There!" , '„,.., ;;..,..

Darby was next seen carrying! many pint bottles from a paint-shop and emitting in the street-car a strong smell of turpentine and Tarnish. He was then required to search for sundry tomato cans in which to mix the stain. At any other time hundreds of empty * tomato cans would hare been seen kicking about the streets. He had for years been pursued and waylaid by empty'"(omat&cans. Now not a tomato can to be found—all gone." Wot a neighbor or friend had an empty tomato can. A full day was'required to hunt up two empty tomato cans:wherein to mix the floor stain., When these were found all the absent tomato cans: again appeared. Now that they were not wanted, they lay insultingly about his door and got under his feet. The ash. men pat everything in their carts but tomato cans. Darby picked up half a dozen, determined never again to be out of tomato cans.

Then it was Joan's turn. She did the staining and varnishing. A friend loaned her a brush; it was a small brush, too small by half; A bigger brush would have painted twice as much in half the time. There was a great deal of mixing the first day of burned umber, sienna, oil and turpentine. Joan strained, first the floor, then herself, then the washboards, in patches and blotches, then more of herself, and finaljy, mpre or less of the hard-finished wall, in spatters and blotches.

" Hello!" cried Darby, breaking rudely in on the poor girl, hard at work on her kneos. " Who's been squirting' tobacco juice on this wall?" "It's the brush which spatters," said Joan. "Makes you terribly freckled: don't it,' said he. ': ; . "Ohdo shut up 1" said he. " But see here," he continued; «the stain don't seem to equalise. '-'Tisn't an equal thing. Here is a part of your floor butternut color,-^art yellow, part maho* gany. How's that? Looks like a map of Jiurope.' • • " Well, you see the cans were so small I had to make so many separate mixings of the stuff, and every'mixing somehow makes a different color." . , ;• Oh, dear! how my knees do ache," said Joan. Joan stained all that dartre floor and herself, the washboards and the ceiling, Everything had to be taken out of the two rooms being stained, lney dined in the kitchen, wherein chaira. sofa, parlor table, extra coal scuttles! sewing machine, trunks, tuba, bedsteads, boxes, and other furniture tried to mob the happy pair and get on their table. The floor was not dry next day^ At early morn Joan, going forth to 'inspect her work, discerned through the two rooms a double line of male foot-tracks imprinted on the still sticky surface. "I told you not to go in the rooms till they were dry," said she, reproachfully, to Darby. *

" Twasn't me," said Darby, stubbornly. " Who else could it have been?^ Do you moan that mine are those iroge^boU marks ?'' said she;

"It was the cat," said he. "Pshaw! I mu3fc have walked in my sleep," On the third day she puttied the cracks with red putty. She had no idea beforehow much putty some cracks wanted. They seemed hungry for red putty. Darby was kept on the trot after putty; also, more turpentine, oil, umber, sienna,, Japanese dryer and varnish. Darby smelledTikfe a pamt shop. So didshe. So did the house. me third coat is now going on. Darby is buying extra pints of turpentine at tha drug store at a. high price, Joan', back feels as if it had ,broken in the middle Her kneesjiaya gpaTined, iind she can't get up without help, Kttt she is resolred to stamor dyein the attempt.-San FranCisco Chronicle. **»v-

. The old maxim that..« Man nron™™ •• troying the peace of both of^^Ltf;