THE SPARE ROOM | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 21, 1906

THE SPARE ROOM.

"Now, John."

Little Mrs. Beecher was guilty of button-holing her husband, just as he was all ready to go to his office.

"One moment, dear."

He didn't say, "Hurry, then!" He was too astonished, as she never hindered him, when once the coat was on and the hat in hand. "Bless her for it; she is a woman of sense!" he had always said to himself on his unimpeded way. Now here she was doing just like other women. What could it mean?

"You say you are willing I should arrange the house as I think best?"

"Perfectly."

"That's all; good-by. I won't stop you again."

"Good-by, dear."

The little woman stood a moment lost in thought, just where he had left her. Then she started with a laugh: "That's the last time I will ever listen to the tempter. The spare room shall be the back chamber."

Running upstairs, she just stopped to kiss Roly-Poly, the baby, and give him a toss, returning him to Adaline's care, who had him in charge, as it was Saturday. Then she hurried off.

For the next two hours there was no busier woman in all Briarfield than Mrs. Beecher. A neighbor looked in, and called her to the head of the stairs, where she leaned over, her pretty brown hair all tied up in a sweeping-cap.

"My! You ain't settled yet!" exclaimed the neighbor.

"All to rights except the spare room," called Mrs. Beecher over the railing.

"I always fix that first in my fall cleaning," observed the neighbor. "My!—supposing anybody should come and find you all sixes-and-sevens!"

"I should rather be caught by chance company than to have my family find me napping," laughed little Mrs. Beecher.

This was such a new idea that the neighbor had nothing to say only, "I'll drop in again when you ain't so driven," and Mrs. Beecher was free to hurry back to her "settling up" once more.

It wasn't very attractive, certainly, this little back room with its one window. And all the pretty furnishings in the world could not make it a fine place.

But Mrs. Beecher, bustling around, setting the bureau in one corner, putting a gay rug here, and a bright sofa pillow there, sang at her work, out of a satisfied heart.

When it was all done, and the supply of clean bed linen and towels put in the drawer ready to be arranged on the arrival of the chance company, the little woman gave a sigh.

"I hope John will like the change. I'm only sorry I kept Adaline in here so long."

But vain regrets not being in Mrs. Beecher's line, she hurried off to a large sunny room just around the hall.

Adaline was already there with the baby, wild to see her own things in the new room.

"I'm going to be perfectly happy, don't you know?" she said in a burst of confidence to Roly-Poly. "And I'm going to be awfully good, too."

"Um," said Roly-Poly. Mrs. Beecher paused by the open door.

"It's the most beautiful place," ran on Adaline; "see, Roly, the sun shines always here, and I never saw a bit in the other room—never the leastest bit," she added, emphatically.

The little mother's heart had a pang just then, and like a flash the pale cheeks that had greeted her at the breakfast table every morning came back to her now.

"Don't you ever tell, Roly," cried Adaline, in a stage whisper, "but I used to cry in there, and wish my papa could afford to buy a nice house, where the sun danced all around. Now promise; don't you ever tell; say, No, real loud."

"No," shouted the baby.

The tears came now into the eyes of the little woman hearing the unpleasant truths out there in the hall. But there was more to tell.

"I'm a big girl," Adaline was saying; "I'm company now, and I'm going to behave nice. I wonder why people don't always do so, and give the children who live at the house all the year round a good place. Don't you?"

"Ar—goo," said Roly-Poly.

"I wonder so, too," said Mrs. Beecher, softly, with all her heart, as she stole away.

"You're a wise woman," said John, when he came home to dinner, peering into the spare room. "I always wondered why you didn't take this room for the spare chamber, instead of giving up that splendid sunny one to people who only dropped in once in a dog's age."

"O John! why didn't you say so?" cried Mrs. Beecher. "There I've been worrying, afraid you wouldn't like to be different from other people, who always have one handsome room."

"I'd rather be hospitable to my own family first," said John, "and give them sunshine instead of doctor's stuffs. It's the best thing you've done in one spell, Martha. Come, there's the dinner bell."—Woman's Magazine.