290 AMERICAN HOMES AND 
GARDENS July, 1909 
The Profitable House 
By Joy Wheeler Dow 
A House for a Guaranteed Cost 
(ENO 
WEES, 
ry eT 
y) HE man who has five thousand dollars capi- 
tal can not be called exactly an object for 
charity. Yet five thousand dollars invested 
at five per cent. is not a competency. And 
if one’s earning capacity has departed, one 
must live up to every dollar of this principal 
before the American idea of charity ap- 
plies to his case. 
The great middle class of Americans—the eminently 
decent class—to whom crime and scandal rarely attach, and 
who are sustaining the Nation’s honor and its strength, are 
dificult to reach, it is said, when in need. ‘That is, how- 
ever, untrue. While you are reading these lines, hundreds 
are sending forth C. Q. D. signals from their main top- 
masts, and ever being answered in this wise: ‘Well, really, 
my dear fellow,” or ‘dear girl,’ as the case may be, ‘‘we do 
not see how we can 
help you very much. 
You see, our organi- 
zation has mostly to 
do with the very 
wretched poor and— 
a GCE = 
the birds live,” writes Louisa Alcott of her early days. And 
to advocate this, or, better still, to advocate acquiring a home 
of our own before the earning capacity has entirely for- 
saken us, and we have lost our “‘grip,” is the burden of this 
article. 
Were the means of the designer of this twenty-five-hun- 
dred-dollar cottage equal to his enthusiasm, he would not 
only guarantee to find the estimates and let the contracts at 
the figure named anywhere within a sixty-mile radius of the 
city of New York, where conditions are normal, as he does, 
but he would further be willing to investigate cases, and 
supply every deserving, middle-class American who applies 
with a home of this caliber and artistic excellence, which 
means historical excellence, as his chosen charitable avoca- 
tion, just as Mr. Carnegie builds libraries, and he would not 
wait either until the recipient had become wholly a public 
charge without a dol- 
lar. 
Education which 
teaches us to be un- 
happy without some 
of the refinements 
dirty.” Because dirt 
and luxuries of life, 
breeds disease, and 
comes in our time al- 
that menaces the life 
most as free as air, 
of everybody. 
But a home of 
while bread and but- 
ter, a home, even a 
one’s own, which can 
not be spent and lost 
woe 
sears Loe real eee Fa 
—————4, 
She Se Sse 
bed to die in, at last, 
are still dear necessi- 
as easily as money in 
the bank, is some- 
thing, if not a com- 
petency, for one may 
eke out an existence 
on surprisingly little 
in the country. “We 
lived in summer as 
I emer a oon aa 
ee 
ieee { fOO]) — 
The general prospect of the house 
ties. 
; But we will not 
ae SE =|) Ean f look long upon too 
(eeeeueene nce re 4 lalallala il La gloomy truisms. For 
here is an attractive 
proposition for the 
young _ struggling 
couple not thinking 
wy 
