444 
For ten years I have used a scrap pail (it may not be 
called basket) made from a small butter firkin. Another 
little girl, with loving patience painted a band of poincettas 
and then burned a background for them. Pyrography may 
turn common things into something beautiful, besides enduring. 
Real love in our hearts and a sympathetic understanding 
of those whom we wish to remember, will turn the season 
into one of real joy, and the Christmas of childhood will 
come back to us. 
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WITHIN “THE HEDGES” AT ROSEMONT 
(Continued from page 415) 
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that terrible Winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge. A 
green postern door in a vine-covered wall at one side, gives 
access to the kitchen wing and the drying-garth for the 
clothes. The hedge around the garth is eight feet or more 
high so that clothes-lines and drying linen are never visible. 
Augustus J. C. Hare is responsible for the green postern 
door as something in his ‘‘Rambles in Rome’”’ suggested it 
to the mistress of ‘“The Hedges” and she forwith put it on 
her list of desiderata. A flight of steps made of rough- 
hewn railroad ties embedded in the grass ascends the 
terrace to the porch. Beyond the western hedge and a little 
down the slope of the lawn is a grove so planted as to make 
a tea-house beneath the shade of the branches. For all 
it is an attractive place it is seldom used for the purpose it 
was designed for. The master of the house with undeni- 
able logic says ‘‘When the house is properly screened and 
when the porch is so pleasant why go out and have tea with 
the insects?” 
Indoors, the excellences of ‘“The Hedges” are just as 
striking as they are outside. On the very threshold we see 
that the hall is paved with square red quarry tiles and the 
same flooring is carried into the dining-room. Both in point 
of cleanliness and color this treatment is highly satisfactory. 
Opposite the entrance door is another door at the far end 
of the hall, giving on the great porch already referred to, 
and the vista through the house and into the garden beyond 
forms a picture of rare beauty. The woodwork of the hall 
and, in fact, in all the rooms downstairs, is unpainted and 
treated instead with a stain to deepen its natural hue. As 
the beams and rafters are all visible and the walls are 
neutral or putty-colored an excellent effect is produced. 
To your left, as you enter, a wide doorway opens with 
one step down into the most cheerful of living-rooms, with 
windows on three sides, for it takes up the whole north- 
western end of the house. A fireplace with ingle seats built 
in beneath a great projecting chimney-jamb fills all the 
north side of the room, except at the sides, where two flank- 
ing French windows open on the porch. The fireplace is 
arched with brick and the hearth is paved with octagonal 
Moravian tiles which, thanks to frequent moppings with 
milk, have taken on the rich shades of old _ leather. 
Nothing could bestow an air of more solid comfort, nothing 
could better emphasize the dignity of the hearth as the 
central point of family life, than the arrangement of this 
fireplace. 
On the west side a range of three French windows open- 
ing on the porch is balanced on the east by the win- 
dows above a built-in settle that could seat the ‘‘old woman 
that lived in a shoe” and all her children. The windows 
over the settle have inside batten shutters of dark wood 
that give an unusual but pleasant effect against the putty- 
gray wall. This same neutral wall is an excellent foil for 
any bright bit of drapery or brass or for the spikes of 
Hollyhocks, Larkspur or Lupin that usually grace the 
room, ‘The furnishings are simple but elegant and the 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
lighting fixtures are so arranged that you are never pain- — 
fully conscious of them. 
In the dining-room the shelves over the fireplace hold 
a collection of delightful odds and ends of pottery that 
add an indescribable kaleidoscopic mass of color that 
nothing else can give. They are nearly all heirlooms or 
curios that one would never think of using, but without 
these household godkins one really wouldn’t be quite 
happy. Back of the dining-room is a spacious pantry, back 
of that a bright sunny dining-room for the servants and 
back of that again the kitchen. This kitchen is one of the 
notable features of the house. There is nothing above it 
and from the floor to the ridge of its pitch roof the space 
is entirely open but for the occasional timber braces. This 
open space, well ventilated, and the hood over the range 
effectually prevent any smell of cooking from penetrating to 
the rest of the house. That unutterable concoction, sauer- 
kraut, could be cooked with impunity; no one would ever be 
the wiser. Beneath the kitchen and maids’ dining-room 
are ample laundry accommodations. 
At the landing of the stairs, just before reaching the 
level of the second floor, is a ‘‘snuggery’’—it would not be 
right to call it a room for it is not—where the family can 
and do sit and bask in the light of a range of casement win- 
dows overlooking the garden. On the second floor are 
five bedrooms and two baths so arranged with inter-com- 
municating doors that one can pass from one end of the 
house to the other without once stepping into the hall. Sev- 
eral of the bedchambers have fireplaces and one where a 
settle has been built against the wall and a ship’s porthole 
let in above it is particularly engaging and cosy. 
All the woodwork of the bedrooms is painted white and 
the doors throughout the house have flush panels. Their 
severe simplicity is remarkably pleasing and they offer no 
place for dust to collect. That consideration was what 
really first suggested them. Long black iron strap hinges 
and black locks with brass doorknobs, saved from the 
wreck of a dismantled Colonial house, mark the doors 
with picturesque distinction. Abundant storage room in 
capacious closets and in the space under the eaves will ap- 
peal to the heart of thrifty housekeepers. 
On the third floor the rooms are well lighted and, more 
than that, well ventilated, so that they are far cooler in hot 
weather than one might fancy from their position under the 
roof. The furnishing of all the bedrooms is wisely, simple 
and light without anything to cluster and make them stuffy. 
Commonsense combined with good taste is the keynote of 
“The Hedges” and this happy combination has achieved 
most satisfying results both indoors and out. With such 
an example of old Pennsylvania barn architecture to follow 
it would be small wonder if the ranks of barn-dwellers were 
to make rapid increase, and prove in coming granary trans- 
mutations, that in material as in ideals we live in the past. 
ACTION OF SHRIMP ON TIN 
og) T1E popular idea that only acid substances 
attack tin is a fallacious one. Fish, aspara- 
gus, beans, pumpkin and spinach are not 
acid and yet their corrosion of tin is quite 
marked. This is probably due to the pres- 
ence of amino compounds, substances re- 
lated to ammonia. In the case of shrimp, the cans are often 
eaten through in a comparatively short time. So alkaline 
is the methylamine contained in the shrimp that workmen 
in the canneries find the skin peeling off their hands and 
their shoes eaten through. Shrewd observation by some 
canners led to the discovery that if the shrimp were iced 
for a day before canning the corrosive action of the juices 
was greatly diminished. This is now the universal practice. 
December, 1912 
Ste kich tat 
