Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/30

 our new home. The room we were occupying had at least one favorable feature,—it was very large. A high ceiling of wood was painted an ugly dull brown, the other woodwork in two shades of brown. The artist designing the wall-paper must have been either color-blind or color-mad. Soiled and defaced, the paper was torn off in some places, in others it hung in long, fluttering, mildewed strips. There were four gloomy doors, and four high narrow windows, crisscrossed by many panes,—all dreary enough, surely. For consolation we looked to the wide old fireplace of stone, piled high with blazing logs, shining for us as shines a beacon-light to the drowning mariner. The adjoining room was of comfortable dimensions,—woodwork blue as the sky; walls embellished with trailing blue roses; three windows, five panes of glass missing, for which oilcloth was substituted. At the two side windows hung remnants of Nottingham lace curtains, stained by rain and yellowed by time. As we touched them, fragments fell at our feet, like the decaying wedding finery of Miss Havisham. In a closet connected with the room we found a mouse-eaten volume of the “Lives of Eminent Women,” and a stuffed China pheasant, with one eye gone, as well as the larger part of its feathers,—a sorry-looking object.

The dining-room was small and extremely dark, depressing wall-paper and paint increasing the gloom. Beyond was a kitchen, big enough to furnish forth a