HOUSEHOLD CONVENIENCES. 135 



venience, we want a good fit. To secure this fitness, it is 

 quite essential that the homestead be planned and take shape 

 from the inside, and not, as in too many cases, from the out- 

 side. 



Now, in nine cases in ten, in determination of the arrange- 

 ments which go to make up the fitness I have spoken of, the 

 wife will be the better judge, and it is she who should hold 

 court. Housekeeping in a farm homestead involves, at best, 

 a great deal of serious care and toil, and she who bears the 

 brunt of it should be put in possession of all those aids that 

 lie in easy juxtaposition of kitchen, pantry, stairs, presses, 

 bath-room. Whatever lessens the grosser labors in the home- 

 stead, civilizes and refines. The farmer is eager to lay hold 

 upon whatever will lighten his work in field and stable. He 

 does not keep to the old snathe, when he can put his horses 

 to a Buckeye. Is he eager as he should be to multiply aids 

 indoors? Take the water-supply, for instance; there is no 

 good reason, in this day of hydropults and of force-pumps, why 

 every farm homestead should not have its abounding supply 

 of water flowing into it, above and below. I would not, 

 indeed, advise such congeries of pipes as belong to the town- 

 houses, ramifying all over, exposed to every sharp change of 

 temperature, and involving attendance of those most expen- 

 sive of visitors — the plumbers. But oue pipe, near a flue, 

 and away from outer walls, with its proper attachments above 

 and below, and fed from a tank under the roof, supplied by 

 force-pump in well or cistern, or from a spring, would, at small 

 cost, give respite to many a weary one. All that relates, too, 

 to fuel, lights, and that dreadful harassment of "washing- 

 day," should be improved, and made easily manageable by 

 all the devices that town civilization supplies. There is no 

 possible reason for our living in the country in 1876 as we 

 lived in 1826. We cannot, indeed, have gas in the farm 

 homestead, — except what the campaign newspaper brings in, 

 — but with abundant kerosene, and the improved lamps, we 

 may have that best of civilizers, a full flow of light. But 

 after all, the best light is sunlight, and of that there should 

 be good store ; most of all in the room which is the living- 

 room and the home-room. And whatever may become of 

 parlor or of keeping-room, the living-room should be the 



