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problem of making in the city a home. A habitation 

 where you can have no garden, no barn, no attic, no 

 cellar, no chickens, no bees, no boys (we were al- 

 lowed one boy by the janitor of our city fiat), no 

 fields, no sunset skies, no snow-bound days, can 

 hardly be a home. To live in the fifth flat, at No. 6 

 West Seventh Street, is not to have a home. Pic- 

 tures on the walls, a fire in the grate, and a prayer 

 in blending zephyrs over the door for God to bless 

 the place can scarcely make of No. 6 more than a 

 sum in arithmetic. There is no home environment 

 about this fifth flat at No. 6, just as there is none 

 about cell No. 6, in the fifth tier of the west corridor 

 of the Tombs. 



The idea, the concept, home, is a house set back 

 from the road behind a hedge of trees, a house with a 

 yard, with flowers, chickens, and a garden, — a country 

 home. The songs of home are all of country homes : — 



How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood 

 When fond recollection presents them to view : 



The gutter, the lamp-post, the curb that ran by it, 

 And e'en the brass spigot that did for a well. — 



Impossible ! You cannot sing of No. 6, West Seventh, 



49 



