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to the rescue at almost no expense. For the 

 sake of warmth in cold weather, as we stay 

 here until Christmas, and might want to stay 

 here all the year round, the walls have been 

 well plastered with rough plaster tinted red, 

 and forming an admirable background for 

 such pictures, skins, and bits of bric-a-brac 

 and color as we hang around. To plaster the 

 ceiling would have given an immense stretch 

 of plain surface almost unbroken by light and 

 shade, and to avoid this the beams have been 

 left open, with the immense girder running 

 across the middle of the room at right angles 

 with its length. Girder and beams have not 

 even been planed ; the girder still shows the 

 marks of the axe, and here again rough color 

 comes to the rescue, for at a cost of less than 

 five dollars the whole ceiling has been painted 

 a rough brown red, giving an infinite variety of 

 nooks and corners in which the shadows play. 

 The frieze which runs round the room three 

 feet from the ceiling, and of the decoration of 

 which in silhouettes I have already spoken, is 

 painted very nearly black. All the painting 

 done in this room will last a generation, and 



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