OUR COUNTRY HOME 



Improver went out in a rowboat to get the proper point of vantage, 

 and we exerted our several imaginations to the utmost, seeking to 

 conceive the floor of the house at the top of that flopping line. 



After one or two minor changes it was decided that the house 

 must face a little west of south, to take advantage of the prevailing 

 wind in summer. Although it was to be placed fully three hundred 

 feet back from the lake, we were told that the line of the shore must 

 be parallel with the line of the house, a precaution which seemed 

 both conventional and unnecessary to my ignorant ears. 



"But we do not mean to have stiff formal gardening, little box 

 trees and hedging," I objected. " We want to look like a house 

 dropped down in the woods, rather by chance." 



"Yes, but although you might not know why, that line would 

 offend your eye and that of every one who looked upon the place, " 

 said the Man of Many Maps. And he was right, as our later exper- 

 ience proved. 



Even before the last papers were signed, in our eagerness to 

 begin we had brought over a traction engine and a pump, and with 

 many men and many barrows constructed a dam from the big Wis- 

 consin willow to the point of the Island, and emptied the shallow 

 bay of water. This was done for two reasons, to deepen the chan- 

 nel, and to obtain the rich mud for filling. Before frost we had 

 covered the whole space between the big house site and the lake, some 

 two acres in extent, with a coating of lake mud twelve inches deep. 



We did not mean to build that big house, oh, not for many, 



18 



