Page:The Fraternity and the Undergraduate (1923).pdf/126

 tions began. They persuaded me at the outset as treasurer of the corporation to have the house painted—it would look so much better and besides it was needing a new coat of paint pretty badly. The painting of course necessitated the fixing of the gutters, the pointing of the walls, and the repairing of the roof, until I was somewhat in the position of the woman who, having yielded to the temptation of buying new curtains for the parlor ended up finally by being compelled, in order to make things harmonize, entirely to refurnish the house. I was not at all sorry, however, for I realize that it is poor business policy not to keep the house in excellent repair, and my painting the exterior of the house stimulated the fellows within. They organized a kalsomining corps and retinted all the rooms from the basement to the dormitory; those artistically inclined mixed the colors, and the skilled laborers applied them. All the wood work was varnished or rubbed with oil, the rugs were cleaned, new curtains were bought, and the beds were thoroughly overhauled and put into shape. The house had not had such a cleaning since the last house party. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment was the straightening up of the closets. The fellows found things crammed into the remotest corners of those closets that they could not remember that they had ever possessed. They