_Paper-hanging is not a natural gift_

One day I measured up our walls, and the next I went to town and bought
the paper that was to cover them. I think it generally pays to do that,
provided you can get somebody to hang it. There is a very pretty margin
in wall-paper, and when you get a good deal of it that margin gnaws into
one's substance. Shopping around the department stores, picking up
remnant bargains, is the thing. I ran onto a lot of bedroom paper of a
quaint chintzy pattern at four cents a roll, or about one-fifth what it
would have cost in the regular way. I took enough of it for all the
upper rooms, with some to spare, and was sorry there were not more
rooms, so I could take it all. Then I found a gorgeous remnant of the
glazed-tile variety for the kitchen, and still another for our
prospective bath-room. A dull-green cartridge-paper for our living-room,
"best" room, and my tiny study behind the chimney cost me eighteen cents
a roll. The total bill was sixteen fifty-nine, and I got at least twice
the pleasure out of the size of that bill that I would have had in
earning double the sum in the time I spent. Figure out the profit in
that transaction if you can. Whatever it was, it was satisfactory, and
indeed few things in life are sweeter than the practice of our pet and
petty economies. We all have them. I once knew a very rich man who would
light a match and race from one gas-jet to another until he burnt his
fingers, lighting as many as he could before striking a second match. He
would generally say something when his fingers began to smoke, but to
have lighted all the jets at both ends of his long room was a triumph
that made this brief inconvenience of small account. I have also seen
him spend more time, and even money, utilizing some worn-out appliance
than a new one would cost. He was not a stingy man, either, not by any
means, but those things were ingrained and vital. They helped to
provide his life with interest and satisfaction--hence, were worth
while.

To go back to the papering: I bought some tools--that is to say, a
paste-brush, and a smoothing-down brush, and a long pair of scissors,
for I had a suspicion that my painters would be at their fall farming
presently, in which case Westbury, who I was satisfied could do
anything, had agreed to beautify our walls.

As a matter of fact, I hung most of that sixteen dollars and fifty-nine
cents' worth of paper myself. When I got back, my painters