AN ECONOMICAL EXPERIMENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3726, 25 June 1883, Page 4

AN ECONOMICAL EXPERIMENT.

DARBY AND JOAN ATTEMPT AN ELEGANT SIMPLICITY AND FIND IT EXPENSIVE.

" We'll stain the floor this summer," said Joan Van Rensellaer; "it's cooler for hot weather ; everybody's doing it." "Who'll do the staining?" said Darby Livingston. " Oh, I'll do it. Mrs Dye did hers, and ever so much cheaper than the painter. She's given me her 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 burned umber and sienna; also, half and half linseed oil and turpentine, with a little Japanese dryer. That's tho first coat. That must dry. Then fill all the cracks with red putty. Tho second coat is half and half burned sienna and umber to one-third 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 varnish. Ho was thenrequired to search for sundry tomato cans in which to mix tho stain. At any other time hundreds of empty tomato cans would have been seen kicking about the streets. He had for years been pursued and waylaid byjempty tomato cans. Now, not a tomato can to be found—all gone. Not 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 wero not wanted, they lay insultingly about his door and got under his feet. The ashmen put everything in their carts but tomato cans. Darby picked up half a dozen, determined never again to bo out of tomato cans. Then it was Joan's turn. She did the staining ancl 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 stained, first the floor, then herself, then tho washboards, in patches and blotches, then more of herself, and, finally, more or less of the hard-finished wall, in spatters and blotches. "Hello!" cried Darby, breaking rudely in on tho poor girl, hard at work on her knees. " AVho's been squirting tobacco juice on this wall?" "It's the brush whicli spatters," said Joan. "Makes you terribly freckled don't it," said he. "Oh do shut up !" said she. " But see here," he continued, " the stain don't seem to equalize. 'Tisn't an equal thing. Here is a part of your floor butternut color, part yellow, part mahogany. How's that ? Looks like a map of Europe." '' Well, you sec the cans wore so small I had to make so many separate mixings of the stuff, ancl evory mixing somehow makes a different color-" "Oh, dear! how my knees do ache," said Joan. Joan stained all that day—the floor and herself, the washboards and the ceiling. Everything had to be taken out of tho two rooms being stained. They dined in the kitchen, wherein chairs, sofo, parlor table, extra coal scuttles, sewing machine, trunks, tubs, bedsteads, boxes and other furniture tried to mob tho 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 tho rooms till they wero dry," said she, reproachfully, to Darby. " "Twasn't me," ho said, stubbornly. "Who else could it have been. Do you mean that mino aro those huge footmarks ?" said she. "It was the cat," said he. "Pshaw ! I must have walked in my sleep." On the third day she puttied the cracks with red putty. She had no idea beforo how 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 smelled like a paint-shop. So did she. So did tho house. The third coat is now going on. Darby is buying extra pints of turpentine at the drug store at a high prico. Joan's back feels as if it had broken in the middle. Her knees have spavined, and sho can't get up without help, but she is resolved to stain or dye in tlic attempt.—San Francisco Chronicle.