TAKING REINS IN HAND. 89 



The final question, however, in regard to it, as a 

 matter of practical interest, is one of economy. Can 

 a house of the homely material and character de- 

 scribed be built cheaply ? Unquestionably. In my 

 own case the cost of a cottage fifty feet by twenty-six, 

 and with ten-feet walls containing five serviceable 

 rooms, besides closets on its main floor, and two largo 

 chambers of good height under the roof, as well as 

 dairy room in the east end of the cellar was be- 

 tween eleven and twelve hundred dollars. The esti- 

 mates given me for a wooden house, of the stereo- 

 typed aspect and similar dimensions, were within a 

 few dollars of the same sum. 



It must be remembered, however, that any novelty 

 of construction in a particular district, costs by reason 

 of its novelty ; the mason, too, charges for the possi- 

 ble difficulties of overcoming his inexperience in the 

 material. The carpenter rates the rough joining at 

 the same figure with the old mouldings and finishing 

 boards, to which he is accustomed, and of which he 

 may have a stock on hand. Yet, notwithstanding 

 these drawbacks, the work was accomplished within 

 the limits of cost which the most economic .would 

 have reckoned essential to a building of equal capa- 

 city. 



It is further to be considered that while I paid 

 skilful masons for this rough work the same price 



