OUR CO i: X T R Y H () M E 



which my grandmother used to call ribbon grass. Here are the 

 scarlet balm and wild sunflowers and ferns and brakes of every 

 variety, and wild lilies where they like, the old wood lily and the 

 vellow Canada, the Turk's cap, and the Carolina, the Grayi and 

 the Klegans. Nearer the house are the bane- berries, both red and 

 white, the ginseng and columbine and Jack-in-the-pulpit, mixed 

 with violets and hepaticas and asters and golden rod, all blending 

 imperceptibly into the underbrush of the thick woods. 



On this side extends the laundry-yard wall. What a time I had 

 trying to find a spot wherein to dry the clothes! It must be in 

 the bright sun and yet hidden in a corner; it must be close to the 

 house yet not visible from it. In our dilemma one daring soul 

 ventured to suggest a steam drying machine! In the country! On 

 a seventy-two acre lot! No, I scorned such a solution; with the 

 Constant Improver's fertile brain, I knew in time the right place 

 would be found, and found it was. All housekeepers will appre- 

 ciate my satisfaction when I was given a grassy space flooded with 

 the southwest sun and enclosed on the east and north by a wall six 

 feet high. The English have learned the beauty that lies in long 

 surfaces of wall, and do not hesitate, even in small estates, thus to 

 enclose the space necessary for working purposes. This rough 

 plaster wall, extending from the kitchen-house some fifty feet to 

 the north and topped by heavy brown timber, had at its southern 

 end a dear old-fashioned latched door of rough brown planks, 



bound together with long iron hasps. On either side of the door 



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