MIASMATIC CELLARS 7 



supported by heavy wooden brackets, a box-greenery-window pro- 

 jected about eighteen inches from the house line, imprisoning a bit 

 of the June of garden, wood, and field the entire year. 



In putting on a new roof, the garret was heightened two feet ; 

 extra expense light, but comfort greater in that "brain room of the 

 world." 



Pent eaves shaded one row of second story windows and broke 

 the stiff high wall line, and carved barge or verge boards edged the 

 gables. 



The Outshot. 



One old time and attractive external feature, the long tobog- 

 gan roof of the "outshot," reached from the ridge to within six feet 

 of the ground. 



The wide verandas we built on the south, east and west added 

 vastly to comfort, while the staircase hall tacked to the southeast 

 corner and ceiled to the peak made a more suitable entrance, at the 

 same time affording a fine background for pictures, Fiji Island spears, 

 boarding pikes from a privateer of 1812, a sword fish, a pair of snow 

 shoes, and other remnants of a collecting fever which at one time 

 included stamps, coins, autographs and curios. Never again, how- 

 ever, will we misuse a glorious southern exposure for entrance and 

 hall, or wood-ceil an interior instead of plastering it. We plead 

 guilty to having installed lightning rods, finials, iron cresting, and a 

 weather vane. 



A couple of windows were unfortunately set diamond-wise 

 in the staircase hall. Other transformations included three bal- 

 conies, that meant sun and air-bathed bedding and raiment, as 

 well as occasional naps in the open above the second story country 

 dust line just one-tenth of the twenty stories it generally takes in 

 the city to banish the duster. One of these balconies served as 

 an outdoor bedroom, another for a lookout close to the chimney top, 

 (which, by the way, was flat stone-capped to make it draw better, 

 instead of flaunting aloft that libel against good taste, a cowl-capped 

 zinc-swiveled chimney pot) and the third as a sun parlor. 



The old rule of the house painter of painting every third year the 

 exterior and every seventh the interior we smithereened by giving 

 the exterior trim a coat of oil between times. In this way the out- 

 side paint lasted five years, and as the interior, aside from rooms fin- 

 ished in white enamel, was treated with non-odorous stain, polished, 

 and rubbed down, we needed no cast iron rule. 



Miasmatic Cellars. 



Many changes were made in the cellar. The milk storage 

 excavation, directly at the foot of the stairs, we at once filled in, pre- 

 venting a second tumble. A brick cistern holding at times stagnant 

 unaerated rain water was demolished, w T hen, whisper it lightly, no 

 less than a half dozen rat skeletons, a defunct cat and some kittens 



