188 FARM: HOMES, IN-DOORS AKD OUT-DOORS. 



still be enjoyed ; and at night there should be a window 

 or two let down from the top in as spacious a sleeping 

 room as the house will admit of. Small bedrooms ought 

 never to enter into a house plan. In winter, fresh air is 

 not so easily obtained, or its absence so easily detected. 

 Shut up in the house the greater part of the time, you 

 fail to notice its vitiated atmosphere ; but go out for a 

 walk or a ride, and you will discover on returning to the 

 unventilated living-room (it ought to be called a dying- 

 room !) a "close," impure taint in the air. And this is 

 the kind of stuff you breathe all the time, unless you 

 make some arrangements for letting the foul air escape. 

 You must not tolerate its presence any more than you 

 would that of toads and snakes. A window let down a 

 little from the top will permit great quantities of bad air 

 to escape, and the fresh air will find a way to replace it 

 somehow. Your husband and school-going children 

 will find a good deal of their air out of doors, and you 

 are entitled to the besf you can make of the m-door at- 

 mosphere. 



A room with a warm floor, plenty of sunlight, and an 

 outlet for impure air, is the only one fit to be chosen for 

 a winter living or working room. 



If you have a bath-room in the house capable of being 

 comfortably warmed in winter, and affording its cool 

 showers and douches in summer, with pipes to bring and 

 carry away water, you have one of the greatest luxuries 

 of civilization. If you have not such a room, fit up some 

 closet for the purpose, and have a stove-pipe run through 

 it from the kitchen or living-room stove or perhaps the 

 bedroom stove may be placed near enough to warm it 

 through the open door. If you must depend upon your 

 own resources for its arrangements, you may be obliged 

 to content yourself with a common tub large enough to 

 stand and bathe in without slopping the floor, and a large 

 tin pail for bringing and carrying away the water. I 



