Polished air-tight stove (new and deadly invention), with pipe passing
through a board which closes up the discarded good old fireplace. On
each end of the wooden mantel, over the fireplace, a large basket of
peaches and other fruits, natural size, all done in plaster, rudely, or
in wax, and painted to resemble the originals--which they don't. Over
middle of mantel, engraving--Washington Crossing the Delaware; on the
wall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-lightning crewels by
one of the young ladies--work of art which would have made Washington
hesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen what advantage was
going to be taken of it. Piano--kettle in disguise--with music, bound
and unbound, piled on it, and on a stand near by: Battle of Prague;
Bird Waltz; Arkansas Traveler; Rosin the Bow; Marseilles Hymn; On a Lone
Barren Isle (St. Helena); The Last Link is Broken; She wore a Wreath of
Roses the Night when last we met; Go, forget me, Why should Sorrow o'er
that Brow a Shadow fling; Hours there were to Memory Dearer; Long, Long
Ago; Days of Absence; A Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home on the Rolling
Deep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on the rack, where the plaintive
singer has left it, RO-holl on, silver MOO-hoon, guide the TRAV-el-lerr
his WAY, etc. Tilted pensively against the piano, a guitar--guitar
capable of playing the Spanish Fandango by itself, if you give it
a start. Frantic work of art on the wall--pious motto, done on the
premises, sometimes in colored yarns, sometimes in faded grasses:
progenitor of the 'God Bless Our Home' of modern commerce. Framed in
black moldings on the wall, other works of arts, conceived and committed
on the premises, by the young ladies; being grim black-and-white
crayons; landscapes, mostly: lake, solitary sail-boat, petrified clouds,
pre-geological trees on shore, anthracite precipice; name of criminal
conspicuous in the corner. Lithograph, Napoleon Crossing the Alps.
Lithograph, The Grave at St. Helena. Steel-plates, Trumbull's Battle of
Bunker Hill, and the Sally from Gibraltar. Copper-plates, Moses Smiting
the Rock, and Return of the Prodigal Son. In big gilt frame, slander
of the family in oil: papa holding a book ('Constitution of the United
States'); guitar leaning against mamma, blue ribbons fluttering from
its neck; the young ladies, as children, in slippers and scalloped
pantelettes, one embracing toy horse, the other beguiling kitten with
ball of yarn, and both