As the reader will have no trouble in recalling, we broke ground for our
house. That, however, was after we had altered the design so often that
the first lot of plans and specifications got vertigo and had to be
retired in favor of a new set. For one thing, we snatched one entire
floor out of the original design--just naturally jerked it out from
under and cast it away and never missed it either. And likewise this was
after we had shifted the site of the house from one spot to another spot
and thence to a third likely spot, and finally back again to the first
spot. This, however, had one thing in its favor at least. It enabled us
to do our moving without taking our household goods from storage,
and yet during the same period to enjoy all the pleasurable thrill of
shifting about from place to place. I find moving in your mind is a
much less expensive way than the other way is and gives almost as much
pleasure to a woman, who--being a woman--is naturally a mover at heart.
Finally, though, all this preliminary skirmishing came to an end and
we actually started work on our house. I should say, we started work on
what formerly we had thought was going to be our house. It turned out
we were wrong. As it stands to-day, two years after the beginning, in a
state approaching completion, it is a very satisfactory sort of house
we think, artistically as well as from the standpoint of being practical
and comfortable; but it is no longer entirely our house. The architect
is responsible for the general scheme of things, for the layout and the
assembling of the wood and the brick and the cement and the stonework
and all that sort of thing, and to him largely will attach the credit
if the effect within and without should prove pleasing to the eye.
Likewise, here and there are to be found the traces of ideas which we
ourselves had, but I must confess the structure is also a symposium of
the modified ideas of our friends and well-wishers mated to our ideas.
To me human nature presents a subject for constant study. For a thing so
widely distributed as it is, I regard it as one of the most interesting
things there are anywhere. It seems to me one of the chief peculiarities
of human nature is that it divides all civilized mankind into two
special groups--those who think they could run any newspaper better than
the man who is trying to run it, and those who think they could run any
hotel better than the man who is hanging on as manager or proprietor
of it. There are subdivisional classifications of course--for example,
women who think they can tell any other woman how to bring up her
children without spoiling them to death, and women who are absolutely
sure no woman on earth can tell them anything about the right way to
bring up their own children; which two groupings include practically all
women. And I have yet to meet the man who did not believe that he was
a good judge of either horses, diamonds, wines, women, salad dressings,
antique furniture, Oriental rugs or the value of real estate. And
finally all of these, regardless of sex and regardless, too, of previous
experience in the line, know better how a house intended for living
purposes should be designed and arranged than the individuals who are
paying the bills and who expect to tenant the house as a home when it is
done. By the same token--or by the inverse ratio of the same token--the
persons who are building the house invariably begin to have doubts and
misgivings regarding the worth of their own pet notions in regard to the
said house the moment some outsider offers a counter argument. I do
not know why this last should be so, but it is. It merely is one of the
inexplicable phases of the common phenomenon called human nature.
In our own case the force of this fact applied with a pronounced
emphasis. When the tentative draft of the house of our dreams was
offered for our inspection it seemed to us a gem--perfect, precious and
rare. Filled with pride as we were, we showed the drawings to every one
who came to see us. Getting out the drawings when somebody called became
a regular habit with us. Being ourselves so deeply interested in them,
we couldn't understand why our friends shouldn't be interested too. And
they were--I'll say that much for them; they were all interested. And
why not? For one thing, it gave them a chance to show how right they
were regarding the designing of a house; not our house particularly, but
anything under a roof, ranging from St. Peter's at Rome to the façade of
the government fish hatchery in Tupelo, Mississippi. For another thing,
it gave them a chance to show us how completely wrong we were on this
subject. Not a single soul among them but pounced at the opportunity.
Until then I never realized how many born pouncers--not amateur pouncers
but professional expert master pouncers--I numbered in my acquaintance.
Right from the beginning the procedure followed a certain ritual.
A caller or pouncer would drop in and have off his things and get
comfortably settled. We would produce the sketches, fondling them
lovingly, and spread them out and invite the attention of our guest to
probably the only perfect design of a house fashioned by the mind of man
since the days of the mound builders on this hemisphere. In our language
we may not have gone quite so far as to say all this, but our manner
indicated that such was the case.
He--for convenience in the illustration I shall make him a man, though
in the case of a woman the outcome remained the same--he would consider
the matchless work of inventive art presented for his consideration
and then he would say; “An awfully nice notion--splendid, perfectly
splendid! And still, you know, if I were----”
And so on.
Or perhaps it would be: “Oh, I like the general idea immensely!
But--you'll pardon my making a little suggestion, won't you?--but if I
were tackling this proposition--” And so on.
It has been my observation that all complimentary remarks uttered by a
member of the human race in connection with a house which somebody else
contemplates building end in “but.”
You just simply can't get away from it.
From the treasure-troves of my memory I continue to quote:
“But if I were tackling this proposition I would certainly not put the
dining room here were you've got it. I'd switch it over there right next
to the living room and give a vista through. See, like this!”
And out would come his lead pencil.
“But that would mean eliminating the main hall,” one of us would
venture.
“Of course it would,” Brother Pounce would say. “Next to giving a vista
through, cutting out the hall is the principal idea I had in mind. What
do you want with a hall here? For that matter, what do you want with a
hall any place that you can get along without it? Why, my dear people,
don't you know that hallways are no earthly good except to catch dust
and be drafty and make extra work for servants? And besides, in modern
houses people are cutting the hallways down to a minimum--to an absolute
minimum.”
We gathered that in a modern house--and, of course, a modern house was
what we devoutly craved to own--persons going from one part of it to
another didn't pass through a hall any more; they passed through a
minimum. The idea seemed rather revolutionary to persons reared--as we
had been--in houses with halls in them. Still, this person spoke as one
having authority and we would listen with due respect to his words as he
went on:
“All right, then, we'll consider the hallway as chopped out. By chopping
it out that gives us a chance to put the dining room here in this place
and give a vista through into the living room. Here, I'll show you
exactly what I mean--what did I do with my lead pencil? Because no
matter what else you do or do not have, you must have a vista through.”
Before he had finished with this alteration and taken up with the next
one we were made to understand that a house without a vista through
was substantially the same as no house at all. Ashamed that we had been
guilty of so gross an oversight, I would make a note, “Vista through,”
on a scratch pad which I kept for that very purpose. Under the spell
of his eloquence and compelling personality, I had already decided that
first we would build a vista through, and then after that if any money
was left we would sort of flank the vista through with bedrooms and a
kitchen and other things of a comparatively incidental nature.
Having scored this important point, the king of the pouncers--now
warming to his work and with his eyes feverishly lit by the enthusiasm
of the zealot--would proceed to claw the quivering giblets out of
another section of our plan. Hark to him: “And say, see here now, how
about your sun parlor? I can see two--no, three places suitable for
tacking on a sun parlor merely by moving some walls round and putting
the main entrance at the east front instead of the south front--funny
the architect didn't think of that! He should have thought of that the
very first thing if he calls himself a regular architect--and I suppose
he does. What's the idea, leaving off the sun parlor?”
Then weakly, with an inner sinking of the heart, we would confess that
we had not calculated on including any sun parlors in the general scope
and he for his part would proceed to show us how deadly an omission, how
grievous an offense this would be.
It is a curious psychological paradox that we dreaded these suggestions
and yet welcomed them, too. That is to say, we would begin by dreading
them--resenting them would perhaps be a better term--and invariably
would wind up by welcoming them. Nevertheless, there were times when I
gave my celebrated imitation of the turning worm. Jarred off my mental
balance by a proposed change which seemed entirely contrary to the trend
of the style of house we had in mind for our house, I would offer at the
outset a faint counter argument in defense, especially if a notion which
was about to be offered as a sacrifice on the altar of friendly counsel
had been a favorite little idea of my own--one that I had found in my
own head, as the saying went in the Army. Though knowing in advance
that I was fighting a losing fight, I would raise a meek small voice in
protest. Never once did my protesting avail. There was one stock answer
which my fellow controversialist always had handy--ready to belt me
with.
“One moment!” he would say, smiling the superior half-pitying smile
which was really responsible for Cain's killing Abel that time.
Abel smiled just exactly in that way and so Cain killed him, and if
you're asking me, he got exactly what was coming to him. “One moment!”
he would say. “You've never built a house before, have you?”
“No,” I would confess, “but--but--”
“Then, pardon me, but I have! What I am trying to do is to keep you from
making the mistakes I made. Almost anybody will make mistakes building
his first house. I only wish I'd had somebody round to advise me as I'm
advising you before I O. K.'d the plans and signed the contract. As it
was, it cost me four thousand dollars to pull out two walls so that we
could have a sun parlor. If you go ahead and build your house without
having a sun parlor you'll never regret it but once--and that'll be all
the time you live in it. Look here now, while I show you how easily you
can do it.” And so on and so forth until we would capitulate and I'd
write “Memo--sun parlor, sure,” on my little pad.
Take for example the matter of sleeping porches.
Personally I have never been drawn greatly to the idea of sleeping
outdoors. I used to think an outdoor bedroom must be almost as
inconvenient as an outdoor bathroom, and with me bathing has always been
a solitary pleasure. I have felt that I would not be at my best while
bathing before an audience. That may denote selfishness on my part,
but such is my nature and I cannot change it. I suppose this prejudice
against bathing before a crowd is constitutional with me--hereditary, as
it were. All my folks were awfully peculiar that way.
When they felt that they needed bathing they also felt that they needed
privacy. I sometimes think that my family must have been descended from
Susanna. She was a Biblical lady and so did not have any last name,
but you probably recall her from the circumstance of her having been
surprised while bathing by two snoopy elders. Whenever one of the Old
Masters ran out of other subjects to paint, he would paint a picture of
Susanna and the elders. In no two of their pictures did she look alike,
but in all of them that I've ever seen she looked embarrassed. Yes,
I dare say Susanna was our direct ancestress. Like practically all
Southern families, ours is a very old family and I've always been led
to believe that we go back a long way. True, I've never heard the Old
Testament mentioned in this connection, but in view of the fact of our
family being such an old or Southern family I reckon it is but fair to
presume that we go back fully that far if not farther.
Indeed I have been told that in my infancy a friend of the family, a man
who had delved rather into archeology, on calling one day remarked that
I had a head shaped exactly like a cuneiform Chaldean brick. It was
years later, however, before my parents learned what a cuneiform
Chaldean brick looked like and by that time the person who had paid me
the compliment was dead and it was too late to take offense at him. And
anyhow, in the meantime the contour of my skull had so altered that it
was now possible for me to wear a regular child's hat bought out of
a store. I point out the circumstance merely as possible collateral
evidence showing semiprehistoric hereditary influences to corroborate
the more or less direct evidence that as a family we antedate nearly
all--if not all--of these Northern families by going back into the very
dawn of civilization. I have a great aunt who rather specializes in
genealogies and especially our own genealogy and the next time I see her
I mean to ask her to consult the authorities and find out whether
there is a strain of the Susanna blood in our stock. If she confirms my
present belief that there is I shall be very glad to let everybody know
about it in an appendix to the next edition of this work.
As with taking a bath outdoors, so with sleeping outdoors; this always
was my profound conviction. I had a number of arguments, all good
arguments I thought, to offer in support of my position. To begin with,
I am what might be called a sincere sleeper, a whole-souled sleeper.
I have been told that when I am sleeping and the windows are open
everybody in the vicinity knows I am actually sleeping and not lying
there tossing about restlessly upon my bed. I would not go so far as
to say that I snore, but like most deep thinkers I breathe heavily when
asleep. On board a sleeping car I have been known to breathe even more
heavily than the locomotive did. I know of this only by hearsay, but
when twenty or thirty passengers, all strangers to you, unite in a
common statement to the same effect you are bound to admit, if you have
any sense of fairness in your make-up, that there must be an element of
truth in what they allege.
Very well, then, let us concede that I sleep with the muffler cut out
open. In view of this fact I have felt that I would not care to sleep
in the open where my style of sleeping might invite adverse comment. In
such a matter I try to have a proper consideration for the feelings of
others. Indeed I carried it to such a point that when we lived in the
closely congested city, with neighboring flat dwellers just across a
narrow courtyard, I placed the head of my bed in such a position that I
might do the bulk of my breathing up the chimney.
Besides--so I was wont to argue--what in thunder was the good of having
a comfortable cozy bedroom with steam heat and everything in it, and a
night lamp for reading if one felt like reading, and a short cut down
to the pantry if one felt hungry in the small hours, and then on a cold
night deliberately to crawl out on a wind-swept porch hung against
the outer wall of the house and sleep there? I once knew one of these
sleeping-porch fiends who was given to boasting that in wintertime he
often woke to find the snow had drifted in on the top of him while he
slept. He professed to like the sensation; he bragged about it. From his
remarks you gleaned that his idea of a really attractive boudoir was the
polar bear's section up at the Bronx Zoo. I was sorry his name had not
been Moe instead of Joe--which was what it was--because if it had only
been the former I had thought up a clever play on words. I was going to
catch him in company and trap him into boasting about loving to sleep in
a snowdrift and then I was going to call him Eskimo, which should have
been good for a laugh every time it was spontaneously sprung on a fresh
audience.
In short, taking one thing with another, I have never favored sleeping
porches. But after listening to friends who either had them or who were
so sorry they didn't have them that they were determined we should
have a full set of them on our house, we concurred in the consensus of
opinion and decided to cast aside old prejudices and to have them at
all hazards. I believe in the rule of the majority--of course with a
few private reservations from time to time, as for instance, when the
majority gets carried away by this bone-dry notion.
I recall in particular one friend who was especially emphatic and
especially convincing in the details of offering suggestions and advice,
and--where he deemed such painful measures necessary--in administering
reproof for and correction of our faulty misconceptions of what a house
should be. But then he was a Bostonian by birth and a Harvard
graduate and had the manner--shall we call it the slightly
superior manner?--which so often marks one who may boast these two
qualifications. When you meet a well-bred native Bostonian who has been
through Harvard it is as though you had met an egg which had enjoyed
the unique distinction of having been laid twice and both times
successfully. Our friend was distinctly that way. When he had rendered
judgment there was no human appeal. It never occurred to us there could
be any appeal.
So we incorporated sleeping porches and vistas through and sun parlors
and a hundred other things--more or less--into the plan. Obeying the
wills of stronger natures than ours, we figuratively knocked out
walls and then on subsequent and what appeared to be superior counsel
figuratively stuck them back in again. We lifted the roof for air and we
lowered it for style. We tiled the floors and then untiled them and put
down beautiful mental hardwood all over the place. We rejected paneled
wainscotings in favor of rough-cast plaster and then abolished the
plaster for something in the nature of a smooth finish for our walls.
By direction we tacked on an ell here and an annex there. If we had kept
all the additions which at one period or another we were quite sure we
must keep in order to make our home complete we should have had a house
entirely unsuitable for persons of our position in life to reside in,
but could have made considerable sums of money by renting it out for
national conventions.
On one point and only one point did we remain adamant. Otherwise we were
as clay in the hands of the potter, as flax to the loom of the weaver;
but there we were as adamant as an ant. We concurred in the firm and
unswervable decision that--no matter what else we might have or might
not have in our house--we would not have a den in it. By den I mean one
of those cubby-holes opening off a living room or an entrance hall that
is fitted up with woolly hangings and an Oriental smoking set where
people are supposed to go and sit when they wish to be comfortable--only
nobody in his right mind ever does. In my day I have done too much
traveling on the Pullman of commerce to crave to have a section of
one in my home. Call them dens if you will; I know a sleeping-car
compartment when I see it, even though it be thinly disguised by a pair
of trading-stamp scimitars crossed over the door and a running yard of
mailorder steins up on a shelf. Several earnest advocates of the den
theory tried their persuasive powers on us, but each time one or the
other of us turned a deaf ear. When her deaf ear was tired from turning
I would turn mine a while, and vice versa. There is no den in our home.
Except over my dead body there never shall be one.
While on this general subject I may add that if anybody succeeds in
sticking a Japanese catalpa on our lawn it will also be necessary to
remove my lifeless but still mutely protesting remains before going
ahead with the planting. I have accepted the new state income tax in
the spirit in which it seems to be meant--namely, to confiscate any odd
farthings that may still be knocking round the place after the Federal
income tax has been paid, and a very sound notion, too. What is money
for if it isn't for legislators to spend? Should the Prohibitionists put
through the seizure-and-search law as a national measure I suppose in
time I may get accustomed to waking up and finding a zealous gent with
a badge and one of those long prehensile noses especially adapted for
poking into other people's businesses, such as so many professional
uplifters have, prowling through the place on the lookout for a small
private bottle labeled “Spirits Aromatic Ammonia, Aged in the Wood.”
With the passage of time I may become really enthusiastic over the
prospect of having my baggage ransacked for contraband essences every
time I cross the state line. My taste in pyjamas has been favorably
commented on and there is no reason why my fellow travelers should not
enjoy a treat as the inspector dumps the contents of the top tray out on
the car floor. The main thing is to get used to whatever it is that we
have got to get used to.
But I have a profound conviction that in the matter of a Japanese
catalpa on the lawn, just as in the matter of a den opening off the
living room and taking up the space which otherwise would make a
first-rate umbrella-and-galosh closet, I could never hope to get used.
Nor do I yearn for a weeping mulberry tree about the premises. I dislike
its prevalent shape and the sobbing sound it makes when especially moved
by the distress which chronically afflicts the sensitive thing. Nature
endowed our abandoned farm with a plenteous selection of certain
deciduous growths common to the temperate zone--elms and maples and
black walnuts and hickories and beeches and birches and dogwoods and
locusts; also pines and hemlocks and cedars and spruces. What the good
Lord designed as suitable arboreal adornment for the eastern seaboard is
good enough for me. I have no desire to clutter up the small section of
North America to which I hold the title deeds with trees which do not
match in with the rest of North America. I should as soon think of
putting a pagoda on top of Pike's Peak or connecting the Thousand
Islands with a system of pergolas.
Having got that out of my system, let us get off the grounds and back to
the house proper. As I was remarking just before being diverted from
the main line, a den was about the only voluntary offering which we
positively refused to take over. Every other notion of whatsoever nature
was duly adopted and duly carried on to the architect He was a wonderful
man. All architects, I am convinced, must be wonderful men, but him
I would call one of the pick of his breed. How he managed to make
practical use of some of the ideas we brought to him and fit them
into the plan; how without hurting our feelings or the feelings of our
friends he succeeded in curing us of sundry delusions we had acquired;
how he succeeded in confining the ground plan to a scale which would
not make the New York Public Library seem in comparison a puny and
inconsequential edifice; and how taking a number of the suggestions
which came to him and rejecting the others he yet preserved the
structural balance and the suitable proportions which he had had in his
mind all along--these, to my way of thinking, approximate the Eighth
Wonder. No, it is the first wonder; the remaining seven finish place,
show and also ran.
After a season of debate, compromise and conciliation, when the gray
in his hair had perceptibly thickened and the lines in his face had
deepened, though still he wore his chronic patient smile which makes
strangers like him, the final specifications were blue-printed and the
work was started. A lady to whom I have the honor of being very closely
related by marriage removed the first shovel load of loam from the
contemplated excavation. She is not what you would call a fancy shoveler
and the net result of her labor, I should say offhand, was about
a heaping dessert-spoonful of topsoil. Had I guessed what that
inconsequential pinch of earth would subsequently mean to us in joy I
should have put it in a snuffbox and carried it about with me as the
first tangible souvenir of a great accomplishment and a reminder to
me never again to look slightingly upon small things. Bulk does not
necessarily imply ultimate achievement. If Tom Thumb had been two feet
taller and eighteen inches broader than he was I doubt whether he would
amounted to much as a dwarf.
Well, we reared the foundations and then one fine April morning our
country abandoned its policy of watchful waiting for one of swatful
hating. While we were at war it did not seem patriotic to try to go
ahead. There was another reason--a variety of reasons rather. Very
soon labor was not to be had, or materials either. Take the detail of
concrete. Now that the last war is over and the next war not as yet
started, I violate no confidence and betray no trust in stating that
one of our chief military secrets had to do with this seemingly harmless
product. We were shooting concrete at the Germans. In large quantities
it was fatal; in small, mussy. And while the Germans were digging the
gummy stuff out of their eyes and their hair our fellows would swarm
over the top and capture them. And if you are not sure that I am telling
the exact truth regarding this I only wish you had tried during active
hostilities--as I did--to buy a few jorums and noggins of concrete.
Trying would have made a true believer of you, too. And the same might
be said for steel girders and cow hair to put into plaster so it will
stick, and ten-penny nails. We were firing all these things at the
enemy. It must have disconcerted him terribly to be expecting high
explosives and have a keg of ten-penny nails or a bale of cow hair burst
in his midst. Without desire to detract from the glory of the other
branches of the service, I am of the opinion that it was ten-penny nails
that won the war. And in bringing about this splendid result I did my
share by not buying any in large amount for going on eighteen months.
I couldn't.
War having come and concrete having gone, the contractor on our little
job knocked off operations until such time as Germany had been cured
of what principally ailed her. Even through the delay, though, we found
pleasure in our project. We would perch perilously upon the top of the
jagged walls and enjoy the view the while we imagined we sat in our
finished dream house. We could see it, even if no one else could. In
rainy weather we brought umbrellas along. The fact that a passerby
beheld us thus on a showery afternoon I suppose was responsible for the
report which spread through the vicinity that a couple of lunatics were
roosting on some stone ruins halfway up the side of Mott's Mountain. We
didn't mind though. The great creators of this world have ever been the
victims of popular misunderstanding. Sir Isaak Walton, sitting under
an apple tree and through the falling of an apple discovering the
circulation of the blood, is to us a splendid figure of genius; but I
have no doubt the neighbors said at the time that he would have been
much better employed helping Mrs. W. with the housework. And probably
there was a lot of loose and scornful talk when Benjamin Franklin went
out in a thunderstorm with a kite and a brass key and fussed round among
the darting lightning bolts until he was as wet as a rag and then came
home and tried to dry his sopping feet before one of those old-fashioned
open fireplaces so common in that period. But what was the result?
The Franklin heater--that's what. With such historic examples behind us,
what cared we though the tongue of slander wagged while we inhabited
our site with the leaky heavens for a roof to our parlor and the far
horizons for its wall. Not to every one is vouchsafed the double boon of
spending long happy days in one's home and at the same time keeping out
in the open air.
On the day the United Press scooped the opposition by announcing
the cessation of hostilities some days before the hostilities really
cessated, thereby scoring one of the greatest journalistic beats since
the Millerites prognosticated the end of the world, giving day, date and
hour somewhat prematurely in advance of that interesting event, which
as a matter of fact has not taken place yet--on that memorable day the
country at large celebrated the advent of peace. We also celebrated the
peace, but on a personal account we celebrated something else besides.
We celebrated the prospect of an early resumption of work in the
construction of our house.
During the months that followed I learned a lot about the intricacies
and the mysteries of house building. Beforehand, in my ignorance I
figured that the preliminary plans might be stretched out or contracted
in to suit the shifting mood of the designer and the sudden whim of his
client, but that once the walls went up and the beams went across and
the rafters came down both parties were thereafter bound by set metes
and bounds. Not at all. I discovered that there is nothing more plastic
than brickwork, nothing more elastic than a girder. A carpenter spends
days of his time and dollars of your money fitting and joining a certain
section of framework; that is to say, he engages in such craftsmanship
when not sharpening his saw. It has been my observation that the average
conscientious carpenter allows forty per cent of his eight-hour day to
saw sharpening. It must be a joy to him to be able to give so much time
daily to putting nice keen teeth in a saw, knowing that somebody else is
paying him for it at the rate of ninety cents an hour. Watching him at
work in intervals between saw filing, you get from him the impression
that unless this particular angle of the wooden skeleton is articulated
just so the whole structure will come tumbling down some day when least
expected. At length he gets the job done to his satisfaction and goes
elsewhere.
Along comes a steamfitter and he, whistling merrily the while, takes a
chisel or an adze or an ax and just bodaciously haggles a large ragged
orifice in the carpenter's masterpiece. Through the hole he runs a Queen
Rosamond's maze of iron pipes. He then departs and the carpenter is
called back to the scene of the mutilation. After sharpening his saw
some more in a restrained and contemplative manner, he patches up the
wound as best he can. Enter, then, the boss plumber accompanied by a
helper. The boss plumber finds a comfortable two-by-four to sit on and
does sit thereon and lights up his pipe and while he smokes and directs
operations the assistant or understudy, with edged tools provided for
that purpose, tears away some of the cadaver's most important ribs and
several joints of its spinal column for the forthcoming insertion of
various concealed fixtures.
Following the departure of these assassins the patient carpenter returns
and to the best of his ability reduces all the compound fractures that
he conveniently can get at, following which he sharpens his saw--not the
big saw which he sharpened from eight-forty-five to ten-fifteen o'clock
this morning, but the little buttonhole saw which he has not sharpened
since yesterday afternoon; this done, he calls it a day and goes home
to teach his little son Elmer, who expects to follow in the paternal
footsteps, the rudiments of the art of filing a saw without being in
too much of a hurry about it, which after all is the main point in this
department of the carpentering profession.
And the next day the plumber remembers where he left his sack of smoking
tobacco, or the steam fitter's attention is directed to the fact that
when he stuck in the big pipe like a bass tuba he forgot to insert
alongside it the little pipe like a piccolo, and therefore it becomes
necessary to maltreat the already thrice-mangled remains of woodwork. A
month or so later the plasterers arrive--they were due in a week, but a
plasterer who showed up when he was expected or any time within a month
after he had solemnly promised on his sacred word of honor that he meant
to show up would have his card taken away from him and be put out of the
union. Hours after Gabriel has blown his trump for the last call it is
going to be incumbent upon the little angel bell hops to go and page the
plasterers, else they won't get there for judgment at all.
Be that as it may and undoubtedly will be, in a month or so the
plasterers arrive, wearing in streaks the same effects in laid-on
complexion that so many of our leading débutantes are wearing all over
their faces. The chief plasterer looks over the prospect and decides
that in order to insure a smooth and unbroken surface for his plaster
coat the plumbing and the heating connections must have their elbows
tucked in a few notches, which ultimatum naturally requires the good
offices of the carpenter, first to snatch out and afterward to hammer
back into some sort of alignment the shreds and fragments of his
original job. When this sort of thing, with variations, has gone
on through a period of months, a house has become an intricate and
complicated fabric of patchworks and mosaics held together, as nearly as
a layman can figure, by the power of cohesion and the pressures of dead
weights. The amazing part of it is that it stays put. I am quite sure
that our house will stay put, because despite the vagaries--perhaps I
should say the morbid curiosity--of various artificers intent on taking
the poor thing apart every little while, it was constructed of materials
which as humans compute mutabilities are reasonably permanent in their
basic characters.
It was our desire to have a new house that would look like an old
house; a yearning in which the architect heartily concurred, he having
a distaste for the slick, shiny, look-out-for-the-paint look which is
common enough in American country houses. In this ambition a combination
of circumstances served our ends. For the lower walls we looted two of
the ancient stone fences which meandered aimlessly across the face of
our acres. According to local tradition, those fences dated back to
pre-Revolutionary days; they were bearded thick with lichens and their
faces were scored and seamed. In laying them up we were fortunate enough
to find and hire a stonemason who was part artificer but mostly real
artist--an Italian, with the good taste in masonry which seems to
be inherent in his countrymen; only in this case the good taste was
developed to a very high degree. Literally he would fondle a stone whose
color and contour appealed to him and his final dab with the trowel of
mortar was in the nature of a caress.
On top of this find came another and even luckier one. Three miles away
was an abandoned brickyard. Once an extensive busy plant, it had lain
idle for many years. Lately it had been sold and the new owners were
now preparing to salvage the material it contained. Thanks to the
forethought of the architect, we secured the pick of these pickings.
From old pits we exhumed fine hard brick which had been stacked there
for a generation, taking on those colors and that texture which only
long exposure to wind and rain and sun can give to brick. These went
into our upper walls. For a lower price than knotty, wavy, fresh-cut,
half-green spruce would have cost us at a lumber yard, modern prices and
lumber yards being what they are, we stripped from the old kiln sheds
beautiful dear North Carolina boards, seasoned and staunch. These
were for the rough flooring and the sheathing. The same treasure
mine provided us with iron bars for reënforcing; with heavy beams and
splendid thick wide rafters; with fire brick glazed over by clays and
minerals which in a molten state had flowed down their surfaces; with
girders and underpinnings of better grade and greater weight than any
housebuilder of moderate means can afford these times. Finally, for
roofing we procured old field slates of all colors and thicknesses
and all sizes; and these by intent were laid on in irregular
catch-as-catch-can fashion, suggestive when viewed at a little distance
of the effect of thatching. Another Italian, a wood carver this time,
craftily cut the scrolled beam ends which show beneath our friendly
eaves and in the shadows of our gables. It was necessary only to darken
with stains the newly gouged surfaces; the rest had been antiquated
already by fifty years of Hudson River climate. Before the second beam
was in place a wren was building her nest on the sloped top of the first
one. We used to envy that wren--she had moved in before we had.