Direct radiation from stoves, or other heating apparatus, except open fireplaces, is, moreover, economical of fuel, but, on the other hand, unless abundant ventilation is provided, the atmosphere in rooms thus warmed soon becomes unfit for respiration.

Now you may stop and think. Next time you shall have the conclusion of the whole matter.



LETTER XXXIX.

From John.

HOW TO DO IT.

MY DEAR ARCHITECT: I'm in a hurry. Let me ask you a few square questions. Give me square answers if you can; if not, say so. What kind of a furnace shall I get? I've interviewed about a dozen; each one is warranted to give more heat, burn less coal, leak less gas, give less trouble and more satisfaction, than all the others put together. I suppose you object to cast-iron, because it's liable to be heated red-hot and burn the air.

Is wrought-iron any better?

Shall I put the registers in the floors or in the partitions?

What do you say to steam?

How shall I ventilate?

Will it answer to have the ventilating flues in the outer walls?

There seems to be no doubt that the foul air should be drawn from the bottom of a room; but if it's cold, how am I to get it to the ventilator on the top of the house? If a room is as tight as a fruit-can, a chimney might draw like a yoke of oxen without doing any good, and Nebuchadnezzar's furnace wouldn't drive air into it unless, in both cases, the inlets and outlets were about equal! When I go to sleep in such a room I want to be sure the dampers won't get accidentally shut.

Give me your opinion on these points, but don't make a long story or a tough one. If a house is to be kept warm from turret to foundation-stone, I don't see that shutting up the spaces between the timbers would amount to much, except to stop sounds from echoing through them; but when the attic is as cold as out-doors, it's plain that the cold air will be always crawling down next the inside plastering of every room in the house if it finds a chance.

Yours,

JOHN.



LETTER XL.

From the Architect.

THE BREATH OF LIFE.

DEAR JOHN: No man ever built himself a house without getting out of patience before it was finished.

Among all the furnaces you have examined, a certain one is doubtless better for you than any other; when I find out which one, you shall be informed. Reliable testimony on the subject can only be given by some one who has tried different kinds in the same house under similar circumstances for a considerable time. As we never have two seasons alike, and do have about three new first-class furnaces every year, it is difficult to find this valuable witness. Printed testimonials are worth three or four cents per pound. I do not know that cast-iron furnaces are more liable to be overheated than others, and you cannot "burn the air" with them if they are, unless you burn the furnace too. You may fill a room with air, every mouthful of which has been passed between red-hot iron plates, not over half an inch apart, and I do not suppose the essential properties of the air will be perceptibly changed, or hurt for breathing when properly cooled.

The danger from cast-iron is in its weakness, not in its strength.

You speak of poison carbon. Carbonic acid is not poison. It is harmless as water,—just. It will choke you to death if you are immersed in it. Trying to breathe it in large quantities will strangle you. But we drink it with safety and pleasure, and may breathe a little of it, even as much as thirty per cent, for a short time, without serious harm. But carbonic oxide, which is also liberated from burning anthracite, is an active poison, and one per cent of it in the air we breathe may prove instantly fatal. Now it is fully proven that these gases laugh at cast-iron and pass through it freely whenever they choose. Wrought-iron plates are supposed to be more impervious. The popular notion that foul air must be drawn from the bottom of a room is based, I think, upon a superficial knowledge of the weight of carbonic acid, an ignorance of the law of the diffusion of gases,—upon a realizing sense of the cost of coal, and an insensibility to the worth of fresh air. Even such unreliable witnesses as our senses assure us that the air at the top of a high room—say the upper gallery of an unventilated theatre—is far less salubrious, though not overheated, than that below. We know, too, how quickly the sulphurous gas that sometimes escapes from those warranted furnaces not only ascends through the tin pipes, but rises in the open stairway if it has a chance. The hurtful carbonaceous gases doubtless go with it, and are then diffused through the room. The most forcible objection to allowing the air to escape through the ceiling is that it is a wanton waste, not only of heat, but of the fresh air that has just come from the north pole by way of the furnace and cold-air box, and which, by virtue of its warmth, goes in all its purity straight to the ceiling. Accordingly the heavy cold air lying near the floor and laden with poison must be drawn out through the ventilating flue, till the upper warmth and freshness fall gently on our heads, like heavenly blessings.

Let me digress here to answer another question. No, don't put your ventilating flues in the outer walls if you expect the air to rise through them in cold weather; for it will not, if they reach the moon, unless it is warmer than that lying at their base. You may as well expect water to rise from the cistern to the tank in the attic because the pipe runs there, as that air will rise simply because there is a passage for it. Sometimes holes are made into the chimney-flues, but this is robbing the stoves or the fireplaces. It is better to build an independent flue so close that it shall always feel the heat from the black warm heart of the chimney, for warmed by some means it must be. Yet warm air does not choose to rise. It falls like lead unless lifted by something heavier than itself.

To return to the former point. When you can warm within a ventilating flue all the air passing through it more economically than you can warm the same quantity in the room from which it is taken, then you may admit the air to feed this same flue near the bottom and perhaps save fuel; but I doubt whether the remaining air will be any purer than if an equal amount had been allowed to escape near the ceiling. The answers to your square questions necessarily dovetail. The hot-air registers should always be in the partitions if possible. It saves sweeping dust into the pipes; it saves cutting the carpets; it lessens the risk of a debilitating warm bath to people addicted to standing over them; it diffuses the heat more evenly through the room; and, owing to this better diffusion, there is less waste through the ventilating outlet at the top of the room, if it should be there.

The foregoing refers to rooms heated on the furnace principle, where all that seems needful for complete ventilation is a sufficient outgoing of the air to cause a constant change. In theory, too, the warm air must cross the room to make its exit. Indeed, the plan of admitting it at the top and drawing the cold air from the base has been strongly urged by one of the most earnest and thoughtful advocates of thorough ventilation. In practice, this fresh air is apt to come from the region of the coal-bin and potato-barrels, especially in very cold weather, and I doubt whether it will find the door of escape sooner at one side than another, unless immediately over the entrance. As to your next inquiry, I do not think our winter quarters can be warmed so safely and healthfully in any other way as by steam or hot-water radiators; but the first cost of the modes now in use puts them beyond the reach of common people, the very ones who need them most. Whether it's the tariff on pig-iron, the patent royalties, the skilled labor, the artistic designs, the steam joints and high pressure, or all combined, that make the cost, I cannot say, but I have faith that some one of the noble army of inventors will, erelong, give us a system more economical in manufacture and simple in use than any at present known. It will hardly bring him a fortune, however. The real benefit to humanity will be too great for a temporal reward. Not only will this coming system be available for cheap and isolated houses, but when they stand compactly, one boiler will send its portable caloric to the dwellers on one entire square, as gas and water are now distributed.

If stoves or other local radiators are used, you must of course provide for the entrance of pure air as well as the exit of the impure. With two openings in the ceiling, the air will commonly ascend one and descend the other. Open fireplaces, whether for wood or coal, are in favor with those who have learned to love fresh air, besides being, for their cheerfulness, an unfailing antidote to melancholy, and other selfish, spiritual ills.

The truth in regard to their healthfulness is simply that they compel us to sacrifice a large amount of fuel to the goddess of ventilation, far more than would be needed to give us a better state of the atmosphere, if applied in some other way; for the fire itself is hungry for oxygen, fireplaces for wood are mightily prone to smoke, and anthracite coal releases its poisonous gases at times so rapidly that none but the most voracious chimney will carry them safely away. To answer your questions directly: with a good stove in the hall and in each of the rooms not commonly used, you would probably afford one or two open fires for those constantly occupied, and keep comfortable with less outlay for fuel than with a furnace. But you would need an accommodating fool to make your fires, and an industrious philosopher to keep them burning. In this matter of warming and ventilating the more you know the more you will wish to learn. My hope is to set you thinking and studying. Read Dr. George Derby's little book on Anthracite and Health, from which I have drawn already for your benefit; read the statistics of the increase of pulmonary diseases; get the physiological importance of fresh air so clearly before your mind's eye that your dinner seems a secondary consideration, and don't be deceived by any bigoted commentators, or forget to use your own common-sense.

While warming our backs we may dispose of some adjacent matters. You can make a very pretty fireplace for wood of the common buff-colored fire-bricks, either alone or variegated with good common red bricks; a hearth of encaustic tile, pressed bricks, or even Portland cement. Let the hearth be a generous one, two and a half feet wide, and at least two feet longer than the width of the fireplace, if you mean it for actual use. You must not suppose I object to cheap things because they are cheap and therefore common. The more so the better if they have real merit; but the marbleized slate mantels so abundant have not enough intrinsic beauty to justify them in supplanting the more honest and unpretending ones of wood. Real marble ought to be too expensive for such houses as yours.



With a furnace your house becomes a lumber-kiln, and any wood that has not been tried as by fire will, under its influence, warp and crack and shrink; in carpenters' phrase, "it tears the finish all to pieces." The rapid shrinking of the joists and studs near the hot-air pipes is also apt to cause cracks in the plastering that would never appear if the whole frame could shrink evenly, for shrink it will more or less. The application of these remarks would be, putting in the furnace as soon as possible, and keeping it steadily at work drying sap from the wood and water from the plastering till it enters upon its legitimate mission of warming the house.

When you have read all this about heating and ventilating two or three times over, these conclusions will begin to crystallize in your mind:—

Open fires give the surest ventilation and the best cheer.

If stoves are used for economy, fresh air must be systematically admitted.

Furnaces are immensely useful to warm the bones of the house and as a sort of reserve force; but the heat they give is somewhat like a succession of January thaws.

If you begin to investigate you will discover a fearful amount of ignorance and indifference where you should find positive information, and the most discouraging obscurity or conflicting statements among those who profess to be wise in such matters.



LETTER XLI.

From John.

ETERNAL VIGILANCE.

MY DEAR ARCHITECT: You did well to send the key to your puzzles, else I might have frozen to death before finding out how to keep warm. But you've earned your discharge, which I forward herewith. Now I'm going to send you some grains of wisdom, gathered during my experience in building, which you may distribute at your discretion among your clients. When a man—I don't care if it's Solomon himself—undertakes to build a house, tell him from me, to wind up all other earthly affairs before beginning; wind them up so tight they'll run for a year or two without any of his help. Then turn over a new leaf,—learn to get through breakfast before seven A.M., in order to be on the ground every moment, from the time the first spadeful of dirt is thrown out till the last touch of paint is put on. You may make full-sized drawings for him of every stick and stone, write specifications by the yard, and draw up a contract that half a dozen lawyers can't expound, there'll still be a thousand little things that won't be done as he wants them.

The openings in the basement wall somehow get out of place, an inch or two too high or too low, or at one side, then the windows over them will look askew. The air-spaces in the wall will be filled up where they ought not to be, or left out where they ought to be filled; then the frost will go through one and the rats the other. If he uses colored mortar, it will be too dark or too light, or too something,—then he'll be obliged to paint the whole wall. The drains won't be put in the right place, or they'll pitch the wrong way; then he'll have to dig out new ones. The receivers for the stove-pipes will be forgotten or set in the ventilating-flues; then he might as well have no chimney. The masons will drop bricks and mortar and trowels down the flues; then he'll have to climb upon the roof with a brick tied to a rope and try to churn them out. Just at the place where the flues ought to be plastered outside and in, against the floor and roof timbers, the masons can't reach, and like as not they'll turn a brick up edgewise if a joist happens to crowd; then his house will burn up and never give him any more trouble.

The war with the masons is short and sharp; that with the carpenters long and tedious. There are ten thousand ways you don't want a thing done, only one that suits you. Setting partitions looks like easy work; I don't believe a house was ever built in which all of them and the doors through them were in just the right places. I know they 're not in mine. I'd give three times the cost of the door if one of them could be moved, two inches, and as much more if another could be made six inches wider. I tried to have one of the mantels set in the middle of one side of the room, but somehow it got fixed just enough away from the centre to look everlastingly awkward.

The rough work gets covered up pretty quickly, but it pays to keep watch and see that the spikes are put in where they belong; that the back plastering reaches quite up to the plate and down to the sill; that timbers are not left without visible means of support, or hung by "toe-nails" when they ought to be well framed and pinned. It's hard to make a carpenter believe that plastering cracks because his joists and furrings and studs won't hang together, but it's true a good many times. You like, also, to have something more than a good man's assurance, that the furnace pipes are "all right," and will sleep better on windy nights if you have seen all exposed corners guarded by a double lining.

The gas-man had his work to do over because some of the drop-lights were not in the centre of the ceilings.

I tremble to think of what might have been if I had left the painter to his own devices. It seems very clear to say you'll have the outside painted a sort of a kind of subdued gray, with trimmings a little darker, bordering on a brown; but unless you stand over the paint-tub with a loaded revolver, you'll get anything but what you expect. It may be a great deal better, but it won't be what you wanted. By the way, there's a great responsibility resting on the painters,—I don't mean the old masters, nor the young ones either, who seem to have forgotten that outside decoration was once considered quite worthy the tallest genius,—but the more modest artisans, who call themselves house and sign painters. Their broad brush often makes the beauty or the ugliness of a whole village. I'm ready for any suggestions on the subject. Hanging the doors is another point that needs watching. They'll be sure to open the wrong way. I've had three changed already, and I'll never hang another door with less than three butts, whatever its size. I suppose they always settle more or less. Why don't the workmen make allowance for it in fixing the catches? I tremble when I think of the painters, but I rejoice at my watchfulness when I reflect on the plumbing. The chances for leaking and freezing and bursting; the hidden pipes and secret crooks that were possible and only avoided by constant oversight! Now I can put my hand on every foot of pipe in the house, know where it goes to, what it's for, and that it won't burst or spring a leak with fair usage. I don't call it just the thing to drive a tenpenny nail square through a lead pipe, pull it out, and say nothing about it. You want to be on hand, too, when the trimmings are put on, and see that they are not too high or low, or fixed so you will bruise your knuckles every time you pull out the drawers or open the cupboard doors. Speaking of cupboards, there's no end to the bother if you don't just camp down in the pantry and stay there till the top shelf is up and the bottom drawer slides in its groove. In spite of our efforts, Mrs. John says there's no place for her tallest covered dish except the top shelf, which she can't reach without a step-ladder. You'll never know whether you are specially bright or the joiners extra stupid, but it's certain your way won't be their way, whichever is right. I say the man who pays his money should take his choice. But I haven't time to tell the whole story. It's the same thing from first to last. The only sure way of having a thing done well is to do it yourself; the next best is to tell some one else precisely how to do it and then watch them till it's done. The worst of these little blunders is, that they won't improve with age. They stare at you every time you see them, and they'll rise up before your great-great-grandchildren, monuments of your carelessness and ignorance.

I told you my house was half done when it was well begun; now that it is almost done it seems to me only fairly begun.

Yours, JOHN.



LETTER XLII.

From the Architect.

SAVED BY CONSCIENCE.

Dear John: We are just beginning to learn the importance of color. I don't allude to the wonderful revelations of the spectroscope almost passing belief, but the new departure in the useful art of house-painting.

The old weather-stained, unpainted walls were not unpleasant to see; even the unmitigated red, that sometimes made a bright spot in the landscape, like a single scarlet geranium in the midst of a lawn, had a kind of amiable warmth, not to be despised; but there is no accounting for the deluge of white houses and green blinds that prevailed a few years ago. If nature had neglected our education in this respect we might be excused for our want of invention.

With infinitely varied and ever-changing colors smiling upon us at all times and in all places, it is blind wilfulness not to see and strive to imitate them. We need not look to the sky nor even to the woods in their summer brightness or autumn glory. The very ground we tread glows and gleams with the richest, softest tints of every hue and shade. Look through a hole in a piece of white paper and try to match on the margin the color you find. Turn in a dozen different directions, avoid the trees and the sky, and you will have, in summer or winter, a dozen different colors. Look in the same places to-morrow, and they will all be changed, an endless variety. Some one of these soft and neutral tints should clothe the body of your house. Enliven it, if you choose, with dashes of crimson, green, or even blue and gold, but use these bright colors carefully. Aim to make your house (in this as in all other respects) in harmony with its surroundings, not defiant of them. Your proffered advice shall be duly applied, for it's true that a man may easily occupy all his leisure time, be it more or less, in watching the building of his home, however carefully the work may be laid out before he begins. No two builders will interpret and execute the same set of plans exactly alike.

There are different habits of training and tricks of trade. What seems finished elegance to one is coarse awkwardness to another; and when you enter upon the more artistic part of the work, there are fine shadings impossible, even with the best intent, to any save the cultured hand and eye. The inability to perceive and therefore to bring out these delicate expressions in the execution of the work must be borne patiently. We can pardon failure when it follows an humble, honest effort.

The unpardonable sin of builders is their wilful attempt to improve the architect's design by making alterations in cold blood, through sheer ignorance and conceit. They will reduce the size of the doors and windows; substitute some other moulding for that on the drawing; or tell you they have made a bracket, or a bay-window, or a cupola, for Mr. Rusticus that looked first-rate, and advise you to have the same thing. No thought of harmony or fitness, no fine sense of a distinctive idea, pervading the whole, and giving it unity and character, ever enters their heads. Argument and persuasion are alike useless. Your only safety lies in finding some young builder, who is not yet incurably wise in his own conceit, or an old one, who has learned that, while architects are not infallible, the taste and opinions of a man who studies faithfully a special department, are entitled to more respect than even his own. As you say, these defects are commonly incurable. Neither is there any redress. The builders will either tell you they "couldn't help it," "did the best they knew how," "thought the lumber was seasoned," "understood the plans that way," or else insist that it's better so,—and maybe ask you to pay extra for what you do not like. As to your own right to spoil the house by any alterations that strike your fancy or accommodate your purse, that is unquestioned. Architects who insist upon your having what you don't want or choose to pay for, exceed their prerogatives, and bring disfavor upon us considerate fellows. We never try to dissuade a man from carrying out his own ideas. We only beg him to be certain that he has a realizing sense of what he is undertaking, then help him to execute it as well as we can. The more he leaves to our discretion the more hopefully do we work.

All this is too late for you, but you may pass it along to Fred, the schoolmaster, Miss Jane, and any other friends or neighbors who may be in an inquiring mood. Tell them, too, there is no safety, even with the utmost vigilance, unless every workman carries with him that old-fashioned instrument, a conscience. Give me credit here for great self-control. This is the place for some preaching of the most powerful kind, but I refrain, knowing you are too much engrossed with the finishing of your house to heed it. Do you remember how it is recorded in terse Scripture phrase that "Solomon builded a house and finished it"? Evidently the finishing was then quite as important and onerous a matter as the building. I think it is a great deal more so. The carpenters and masons, to whom you pay a certain sum of money, build it. Before they come and after they go you exercise upon it your noblest, manliest faculties. Yet it will never be done. The walls may not grow any larger or the roof any higher, but every year will add some new charm, some new grace and harmony without and within. More and more the ground around it, the trees, the walks, and the grateful soil will assimilate themselves to its spirit. More and more each article of furniture will grow to be an essential part of the home, dear for its comfort, and beautiful in its fitness and simplicity. More and more you will learn the worthlessness of boastful fashion, and the exceeding loveliness of truth.



LETTER XLIII.

From John.

FINAL AND PERSONAL.

MY DEAR ARCHITECT: We've moved in. The house wasn't done but the plastering was dry, and the paint too, what there is of it, and enough rooms were finished to hold us comfortably. Mrs. John thought we should somehow feel better acquainted if we took possession while things were in a chaotic state, before the house had a chance to put on airs, and make us feel like intruders; that it would fit us better if it wasn't entirely hardened before we crawled into it. I told her 't would be a great deal easier to wait till everything was cleared up and we could take a fresh start, but she couldn't see it in that light. Said she'd known lots of folks to be completely overpowered by a new house, and she proposed to take it while it was sort of helpless, and would be under obligation to her. It's better, too, according to her notions, to get familiar with the rooms before furnishing them, and—I've forgotten what other reasons, all good enough but not exactly correct, as I've since found out. I'd noticed some unusual and rather suggestive performances of late, but wasn't quite prepared for a request to rent the old house the very day we moved. Matters seemed to culminate one night after the schoolmaster had received your sketches and estimates for his brick beginnings. I can't say as to their merits architecturally, but they cleared one of the rough places in a certain course that never runs quite smooth. The dining-room and kitchen arrangements are all right, and the establishment is already begun. It will take all summer to finish it, and, meantime, Sister Jane will have an opportunity to reduce some of her fine theories to practice in our old cottage. Whether they will all stand the test remains to be seen. I only hope these two wise people won't pin their sole chance of domestic happiness to scientific housekeeping, and if common-sense and dutiful intentions fail, as they sometimes will, that love will come to the rescue. Fred will build next year. He's concluded it's better to have his work well done than done too quickly.

Yours, JOHN.



BY WAY OF APPENDIX.

A CHAPTER FROM ACTUAL EXPERIENCE.

"Now you can stay just as long as you please, and I wouldn't have you feel hurried, on any account; but if you're really going to go pretty soon, I'd like to know when it's to be, so I can lay my plans accordingly."

Thus our good landlady, when we said our new house was beginning to look nearly ready for us. A most reasonable request, and we, always cheerfully responsive to such, replied, "By all means; certainly; quite right: we'll see the workmen to-day and find out just when the new domicile will be ready for us."

In pursuance of this object, straightway then we flew to the carpenter. "Tell us, O worthy master!" we cried, "when shall the new house be done?"

"Wal, let me see." And he scratched his head with the scratch-awl. "It's a'most done now. Ther ain't much more to do. We've pretty much finished up. Ther's the doors to hang and trim, 'n' the closet shelves 'n' things to fix up; the stairs ain't quite done, n'r the front steps. I d'nno; ther's a number o'little jobs 'round,—don't amount to much,—coal-bin, thresholds, and one or two things you want to change; take three or four days, I guess, if the plumbers and furnace folks get out of the way; week, mebbe."

"You think, then, by a week from next Saturday—to-day is Thursday morning—you will have everything cleared up?"

"O yes, easy!"

Alas! ingratitude is not confined to republics. We thought it a most kind and judicious thing to grant nine days, when but three or four—six at the most—had been asked. Worldly wisdom would have said, "No, sir; three days you can't have; it must all be done to-morrow night." But we are not worldly-wise; innocent, confiding, and rejoicing, we went our way,—went our way to the plumber.

"O good plumber!" quoth we, "how long will it take you to complete the work you have begun so well?"

"How long? 'Twon't take no time. Just as soon as the copper comes for the tank, I shall finish it all up. There ain't much of it, anyhow; it's all done but that."

"And when is the aforesaid copper coming?"

"When is't a coming? Any time. Shouldn't be surprised if 'twas here now."

"You can finish it then surely within a week."

"Within a week? I sh'd think likely,"—the last remark backed up by such a smile as made further question impossible.

Once more we pursued our investigating tour, saying to the prompt proprietor of the centrifugal-stove store, "Is that new furnace that is to make June of January, that never does what it ought not to do or leaves undone what ought to be done, that asks a mere handful of coal every twenty-four hours and runs itself, ready for its trial trip?"

"It is, sir."

"Registers all set and—"

"Well, no; the registers can't be set till everything else is out of the way."

"Ah, yes, of course; but 't won't take long to do that?"

"They shall all be set in the twinkling of an eye, at a moment's notice."

And now it only remained to hie away to the painter. So we hied and hailed him.

"Tell us, O man of many hues! how much time will you need to paint and stain and grizzle and grain and tint and stripe and fill and shellac and oil and rub and scrub and cut and draw and putty and sand-paper and size and distemper and border and otherwise exalt and glorify the walls and woodwork of our house, after the other workmen are through, making allowance for what you have already done and will be able to do while they are still at work?"

"I tell you what it is, Mr. Architect, it shall be done just as soon as possible. The fact is, we've got the heft of it done now. We shall follow the carpenters up sharp, and get through almost as soon as they do."

Outwardly serene, but smiling triumphantly within, we went to our daily roast-beef, and in the sweet simplicity of a blissful ignorance and a clear conscience assured our patient hostess that the dog-days and her unworthy guests should go out together. Yet we never told a lie or wilfully deceived any man, much less a woman.

But we anticipate. At the close of the third day we essayed to examine progress at the new house. As we approached, a dim and doubtful but wondrous pleasant anticipation took possession of our fancy. What if it should, indeed, be finished! The carpenter had suggested three or four days,—three had already passed. The painter was to get through almost as soon, the plumber would surely be out of the way, and there would be only the furnace registers. It was, perhaps, too good to be true, and we lingered to give the notion time to grow. Opening the door at last, we received something the same shock the traveller feels when he encounters a guide-post telling him the next town is half a mile farther on than it was three miles back. But we've not lived forty years without learning to bury our "might-have-beens" with outward composure, whatever the internal commotion. We remembered there was still a week, and resolved to keep a sharp lookout that no time was wasted; an idle resolution, for the workmen were as anxious to get through as we were to have them. Faithful industry and attention we may demand, haste we have no right to ask. But our men actually hurried. We were instant in season and out of season, and can testify, with both hands in our empty pockets, that there was not an hour wasted. Yet our full-blown hopes fell, as the roses fall, leaf by leaf; drop by drop our patience ebbed, till, ere the close of the week, we sank slowly down on a pile of black-walnut shavings in the calmness of despair.

To make a long story short, we gave up, beaten, trespassed a week on our long-suffering hostess, then went to visit our rich relations. They were glad to see us when we came, and wondered how long we were going to stay. We thought best to let them wonder, which they did for the space of a few weeks, when we folded our nightgowns and silently stole—not the spoons, but ourselves—away.

We mentioned the calmness of despair. From that depth it is often but a single step to the serenity of faith, on which sublime height not the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds hath power to vex or make afraid, much less a few pine shavings and the want of a little paint. Despair is never endless; it's a short-lived emotion at the worst, a selfish one at the best. Moralizing thus, it was by some means revealed to us that people are happy in paying twenty-five dollars a week at Martha's Vineyard and Mount Desert for the blessed privilege of living in unfinished and unfurnished rooms,—breathing plenty of fresh air, typhoid malaria thrown in,—and eating such food as the uncertain winds and waves may waft thither. If at Mount Desert why not at Rock Rimmon, especially as the cost is somewhat less, the fresh air equally abundant, with nothing more malarious than the pungent perfume of the pines, and all the products of the civilized world within easy reach? Moreover, our third, fourth, and fifth stories—the floor of the latter just above the ridge pole, its ceiling just beyond the stars—were, for all purposes of use and comfort, ready for occupation. So we entered, hung up our hats, and told the busy builders we had come to stay.

Which we have done; and now it's the first of October. The leaves are falling, the rooks are calling, the crickets are crawling, and the katydids are—well, squalling. There's a work-bench bigger than Noah's ark in the drawing-room, another in the library, next size larger, five tool-chests in as many different rooms, a thousand feet of lumber in the front hall, and nine hundred and thirty-seven different colored paint-pots in the guest-room,—more or less. We pry into cupboards and drawers with our finger-nails, we keep next the wall going up stairs, draw water through a straw, and to open doors we thrust a square stick through a round hole and twist and turn till the stick breaks or the door opens. Generally the stick breaks.

But we are no longer desperate. The sound of the builder's axe and hammer mingles harmoniously with the rattling of dishes and the drumming of the piano. A profound peace possesses our souls, for Nature's own infinite glory is around us, and we go from our castle in Spain to our cottage by the sea, from our house of active industry to our restful home in the New Jerusalem, with the opening and the closing of a door. We are not anxious or impatient, being well assured that steadfast industry will finally conquer and our house be finished as far as mortal house should be. Which leads us to remark just here, that a man ought never to think his house is quite complete; he will not, if he is wise, and grows as long as he lives. Our present point is the inevitable delay in the outward finishing to which home building is especially subject,—a difficulty familiar to all who have tried it, but which people cannot always get out of by jumping squarely into it as we have done.

There are various reasons for it. A superficial view of building is one. The masons are scarcely noticed before the foundation-walls are laid; the walls shoot up in a single day; the roof spreads its saving shelter as easily as though it were a huge umbrella; the windows open their eyes in new-born wonder; the chimneys breathe the blue breath of home life out into the world; the painter touches the clapboards with his magic wand; and, with one accord, all men cry out, and especially all women, "Wal, I do declare! That air house goes up in a hurry, don't it? Guess there hain't much but green lumber gone into that. Folks'll be movin' in 'n a few days. Ketch me goin' into a house like that! I'd a good deal druther live in an old house than die in a new one."

But, for some reason, the folks don't move in. Week after week passes without visible change till we hear no more of haste, but owner and neighbors grow impatient, and can't for their lives see why that house wa'n't done weeks and weeks ago! In point of fact, when it appeared almost wholly built, it was hardly begun. The work thus far had been of the sort that can be quickly executed, much of it done by machinery. Even after the plastering is dry, the floors laid, the windows in, and perhaps the greater part of the interior woodwork in place, the actual labor of finishing is but fairly begun.

Changes always cause delay more or less serious. Whoever makes alterations in his house builds four houses. There is the first doing it, which is one; then there is the "cussing and discussing," the hesitating and final deciding to make the change, equivalent, at least in time and nervous wear and tear, to the original work, which is two; the undoing is three; and the final adjusting it to your mind is four. Woe to him by whom the change cometh, but come it will. It can be wholly avoided only by having things done as you do not want them and will never be satisfied to leave them. Of course, the want of plans is a fruitful source of alterations. We are too modest and too sensible to say all plans should be drawn by an architect, but carefully prepared they must be, and, what is commonly more difficult, thoroughly understood by the party most interested, that is, the owner.

Another reason why the lengthened sweetness of finishing is so long drawn out comes from the constant increase of "modern improvements,"—accessories deemed essential to the completeness of home comfort and convenience. Nowhere is the fertility of inventive genius more apparent than in these household appliances, to all of which the apostolic injunction applies, "Prove and hold fast the good." Hold fast and be grateful, for they are the world's best benefactors whose work makes happier homes.

THE END.

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