BUILDING THE HOUSE 73 



Morning bathing before such a fire is made a lux- 

 ury, and a chilly evening cannot get in as far as your 

 bones. As soon as the sun is up the fire may go out, 

 and while hunting about the gardens and wondering 

 at the evolutions of a single night one soon forgets 

 that there is such a thing as a house. In our Nor- 

 thern homes the fireplace should be restored, for it 

 was the most homeful and delightful center of the 

 old-fashioned house. Its heartiness and bigness 

 should not be contracted into a little pinched-up affair 

 like a grate for coals. 



An elaborate country house is too frequently noth- 

 ing more than an elaborate death trap. Underneath 

 we begin with a cellar which is disagreeable, if not 

 damp, and is generally the receptacle of waste vege- 

 tables and molds, from which poisonous air rises 

 through all the floors and becomes dangerous when 

 the windows are closed in winter. Then we have our 

 hot-air furnaces, that not only burn and taint the 

 air, but send up through the registers a cloud of poi- 

 sonous dust. These furnaces are breeding disease 

 more dangerous than sharp exposure to the cold air. 

 I prefer the old-fashioned stove. 



The hot-water furnace is not only the most agree- 

 able but the safest. The most dangerous thing that 

 we come in contact with is dust furnace dust, cur- 

 tain dust, carpet dust, that is regularly swept up into 

 the air two or three times a day in the name of clean- 

 liness. Examine a bit of this dirt in a spectroscope, 

 and you will find that it is made up of particles of 



