THE WOODSHED 



"Certainly a convenient one, much better than in the disorder 

 of the backyard," and his tone was unmistakably contemptuous. 



Part of the kitchen-house porch was therefore partitioned off, 

 making a really admirable place for the coal and kindling, for the 

 two garbage tins, the oil-can, and the ash-barrel, the pier lantern 

 and the stepladders, the ice-tongs and the brooms, with a nail for 

 each cloth and tool. It did not quite take in the wheelbarrow or 

 the sprinkler, the big coils of hose or the lawn-mower, the leaf-cart, 

 rakes, or other gardener's implements ; so a small lean-to, seven by 

 sixteen feet, was built into the corner of the service yard, and vines 

 were planted over it and bushes about it. It is curious how soon 

 such an enclosure gets filled to overflowing. We had a tool room 

 in the stable, too, which did not seem to have lost any of its mass of 

 heterogeneous contents. Our kitchen doorway was neatness per- 

 sonified, the brick walk was as clean as our front terrace; and in 

 the oval where the service road turned we planted roses, which took 

 advantage of the open yet sheltered situation, and prospered ex- 

 ceedingly. We approved of our service yard, but the problem of 

 the old-fashioned backyard was only half solved. Somewhere the 

 big logs must be piled up, somewhere the old boxes and cases must 

 repose before being split into kindling, somewhere the extra bricks 

 and drain tiles, the wire-cloth, the barrel of salt, the bags of bone- 

 meal, and general odds and ends must find a resting place. 



So the Constant Improver seized his scribbling pad and carelessly 

 sketched a long low woodshed with wide-spreading roof, much the 



kind of a house we used to draw when we were children. 



67 



