CHAPTER VIII. 



RENOVATING THE DESERTED HOMESTEAD. 



This chapter is for that growing number of 

 people who have taken up an old farm or deserted 

 homestead, to renovate it. Such a place has some 

 invaluable properties now. Beware how you try to 

 modernize it by stripping it of its antiquity, its old 

 associations, and its historic verity. Go slowly and 

 carefully with every stroke. Do not cut an old tree 

 until you must, or are sure that you ought. You 

 may find that you can enjoy the solid-built, old- 

 fashioned house without tearing it down. I am 

 sure that I can find for you a tree that is run over 

 with grapevines, a pile of stones covered with clema- 

 tis, a group of old evergreens with bittersweet fes- 

 tooned through it, or at least a stone fence clothed 

 with Virginia creeper. These may need the touch 

 of man, but without modernizing it. 



First of all, in handling such a place as this, find 

 out what its spirit is, and do not break in upon or dis- 

 turb that. Association goes far to multiply charms. 

 History is not a mere story, it is a life ; and this old 

 place of yours has a history, and, therefore, it has a 

 life of its own that must not be mutilated. For this 

 reason I urge, by preference, the purchase of the old 

 family homestead or ancestral home even if other 

 spots have more natural beauty. A man's individual 

 life is longer and wider for being lived as part of the 



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