BUILDING THE HOUSE 67 



cause my beautiful Morgan saw as much and en- 

 joyed as much as I did. I wished when traveling to 

 keep her in full sympathy with myself. The result 

 was that she helped me through many a pinch with 

 broken shafts and straps on dangerous hillsides. 



You should know that there are intelligible lan- 

 guages all about you and you can much better spare 

 Latin and Greek than catbird speech and robin po- 

 etry. Do not be fooled by the school houses; you 

 were born in an academy; you live in a university. 

 For this reason I hold it to be immensely important 

 that you get your whole place into harmony, one part 

 with the other. Let the whole be a study, and as for 

 the birds, let them comprehend that the nearer they 

 are to you the less they are in danger of losing lib- 

 erty or life. 



Finish the whole house in wood, ceiling it with any 

 native lumber that you can secure, for there is hardly 

 one of them that cannot be finished admirably. But- 

 ternut and chestnut and cherry are often attainable, 

 and they are exquisite for house finishing. In the 

 South I use Florida pine (the yellow pine of com- 

 merce) and it is beautiful indeed. It is not impos- 

 sible to secure enough curled pine to finish our houses 

 elegantly. Nothing can excel curled black walnut, 

 and even yet in some of the best wooded Western 

 States this is obtainable. Maple puts itself forward 

 in many charming variegations. 



When we learn to put a little thought to this busi- 

 ness and get rid of plaster, we shall not only greatly 



