MAKING READY 



will continually beset it, to gather of its opulence, 

 and lovelorn cats will sing o' nights in its shrub- 

 beries, secure from observation and projectiles. 

 And when I speak of yards I have in mind, not 

 the spacious lawns and gardens of the country, 

 but the strip behind the city house that is given 

 over, on wash-day, for the sunning of the family 

 linen, with the revelations of anatomy and thrift 

 that pertain to that necessity. The yard in town 

 is deplorably small, I admit, and grows smaller, 

 for the canny builder, who used to apportion a 

 house to every lot, has fallen into a habit of put- 

 ting three houses on two lots, and there are rooms 

 where a man does not carelessly stretch himself 

 without peeling his knuckles against the wains- 

 cot on either side of him. As a distinguished 

 observer has observed, you can always tell a Har- 

 lem dog from one brought up in Brooklyn, be- 

 cause the Brooklyn dog wags his tail from side 

 to side, while the Harlem dog, bred to the re- 

 straints of flats, wags his up and down. 



We will take the Brooklyn, rather than the 

 Harlem measure for the human habitation, and 

 consider, briefly, what may be done with its 

 pleasance. Let us, then, suppose a space of 



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