Hew to the Coils!

IN these days of specialization, I yearn to be known as the only woman who has ever cut a spring-coil mattress in two with a pair of dressmaker shears. I made the first incision at 1.30 P.M., and at 6 P.M. I was tying up!

This, let me assure you, was not a case of insane exuberance, but a sombre, economic necessity. Either I operated, or else I forked out thirty dollars for a new mattress. In view of the facts, I preferred to take a chance.

I know nothing whatever of the structural anatomy of mattresses in general; I do know the last intimate detail of this mattress. And I consider that it was poorly planned, badly constructed, and cheaply put together. I bought it in good faith, at a fair price, from a reputable shopkeeper.

My mattress suffered from an acute prolapsus in the abdominal cavity. Whenever I lay on it, there was a sinking through all the midriff section; so that, instead of being lightly buoyed up, I rested upon a series of flat wires, round as plates. It was not a comfortable position.

The first stages of puzzled concern directed me towards bolstering. (‘Priming’ would perhaps be the popular political term.)

I folded a soft blanket beneath the affected parts. The results were far from satisfactory. The plate-like wire rings were merely snubbed. I then added a folded blanket to the top of the mattress — slightly improved conditions, but an exasperating slowing-up of bedmaking each morning.

This phase lasted several sullen weeks. I lay awake nights considering the problem; and, ringing faintly through the coils, I could hear my own heart beating. Sound became lost in those caverns below me, and wandered in lonely, forlorn spirals up and down the length and breadth of the mattress. (Skeptics tune in some sleepless night, and listen to that dread ticking away of yourself!)

This mattress, so ran my thoughts, is six years old. It has never been abused. It has never been jumped on, bounced on, or employed as a springboard for youthful, childish ardor. Though far from an umbrella rib, my distributed weight should not depress a healthy subject to this low level.

Growing irascible from lack of sleep, I appealed to the proprietor of the shop where the mattress was originally bought. ’I occupy the cottage only six months of each year,’ I said, ‘so the age of the thing can be divided in half.’

‘I’m sorry, nothing can be done. We don’t send them back for repairs. Unless you buy a higher-priced, guaranteed article . . .’ He smiled kindly, and shrugged.

I went home, and endured more sleepless nights. The less I slept, the more stubborn I became. I would not buy a new mattress, if I had to stand my exhausted body up against the wall and sleep on my feet! The lower those springs sank, the higher went my dander.

At last I seized the shears. The top covering was blue with a quiet woven pattern in excellent taste. It gave no hint of the scandals lurking inside! This ripped nicely, with an easy, soothing sound.

Next I encountered a thickness almost impossible to penetrate — corresponding, not to press the simile too brutally, to layers of fat through which, I understand, surgeons are often required to probe.

To my surprise, the thickness was not felt, but a sickly-colored cotton! If I know cotton (and who is there to say I do not?), this was about as poor quality of material as I ever encountered. It was the sort of stuff you might contemplate putting into a pillow for a dog basket, until your humanitarian principles rose up and roared against it.

I burrowed deeper. Several inches farther in, I arrived at buckram. Only that’s too fancy a name for the covering. It was the color of unwashed potatoes, and possessed every appearance of a close, earthy association with that estimable vegetable. In fact, you could shoot peas through it. You could shoot marbles, and never shiver a strand!

A madness seized me. What were the springs like — those spineless props which had been letting me down, night after night! I tore away the potato sacking and revealed the springs. They looked guileless enough. They stood up like so many orderly morning-glory tendrils. I felt slightly abashed. (To this day I believe those springs to be innocent.)

I poked farther and with increased determination. Ah . . . the cross wires! They were laid like railroad ties, clipped at regular intervals to two coil springs. They were limp, slack, and twisted. They were attached to nothing whatever at their ends. They simply stopped, all among the smother of cotton.

With the shears I pried loose the small clips. I snaked out a wire. Fifteen minutes of additional prying brought forth the opposite wire on the other side of the mattress.

The whole thing fell in two, yawning horribly! And I laughed with ghoulish satisfaction.

The top and bottom of the mattress seemed unaffected by their years of service. They were still sprightly and resilient. Right! Quite! And the rest of it! These, then, I would place together, end to end, for the future middle of the bed. I would endeavor to cover the raw cut ends as best I could, and let them taper off at top and bottom.

And this I did, thereby saving myself thirty dollars. More to the point, I am sleeping comfortably.

If there be a moral to the tale, I’m sure it will involve looking back to the days when, in squalls of goose feathers, housewives dumped the insides of their fat, billowing beds into bags, to air on the line. Later, when good hair mattresses required renovating, the owners were pretty certain of their quality. But now, in this age of modern devices, we sleep on sounding caverns whose depths are seldom plumbed.

Therefore, regardless of those mattress makers of pure and proven reputation, I say: ‘Hew to the coils! Let the clips fall where they may! ’