404 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS November, 1907 



Monthly Comment 



PP^^^^^^§EWCOMERS to the country side are about 

 ml '^V^^^VlK P"^ *° heavy test. The calendar is no 



ral ^^^^^^1^ longer necessary as an indicator of the sea- 

 ■^^^^^^!^3M son of the year, for the signs of fall and the 

 rapidly approaching winter are visible 

 everywhere. Very few persons make ar- 

 rangements to live in the country in the 

 winter months, and the first cold season brings such a host 

 of changes and so many unexpected discomforts and in- 

 conveniences that even the most valorous are apt to be per- 

 turbed. But the country home that was purchased with so 

 much glee earlier in the year can neither be neglected nor 

 vacated at a mere whim. It is a well established fact that 

 just as winters come, just as certainly they will go, and it is 

 equally well known that very many people survive their cold 

 with equanimity and emerge from their winter's trials with 

 great gusto in the spring thaws. The newcomer, therefore, 

 instead of being discouraged should try to get as much enjoy- 

 ment out of a country winter as he had out of the summer. 

 It will not be the same kind of joy, but there is lots of pleas- 

 ure in it if one but attacks it in the right way. 



The winter is an excellent season in which to become ac- 

 quainted with one's house. One never knows a house until 

 one has lived in it for several years. Like persons, houses 

 improve or become worse on acquaintance. The more one 

 knows them, the better one is acquainted with them; the more 

 completely one is familiar with them, the better one likes 

 them — or hates them. The former state is greatly to be pre- 

 ferred, for a house that one dislikes is often exceedingly 

 difficult to get rid of; and no one, of course, wishes to get 

 rid of a house at a loss if it can be helped. The truly for- 

 tunate folk are those who love their houses, love their en- 

 vironment, are satisfied with their geographical and climatic 

 situation, and have no quarrels with their neighbors. In the 

 happy summer time one lives out of doors as much as pos- 

 sible. In the winter the process is apt to be reversed, and not 

 always with advantage to one's health. But at least winter 

 is the season for the inside of the house, exactly as the sum- 

 mer Is the season for without it. 



Winter, then, brings out the full test of the value of the 

 house to its occupants. Is it easy to heat, and without too 

 great an expense? are the questions first asked, only to be 

 immediately followed with reflections on the water supply 

 and the non-bursting qualities of the plumbing. Of course 

 there are a few other things: Will the roof leak? How is the 

 cellar? Is the living-room cold, and can the bedrooms be 

 readily ventilated? Any house owner will tell you there is 

 a lot to learn about a house, especially in winter, and the 

 time to make its acquaintance is close at hand, just out of 

 doors, and ready without any inconvenience. As a matter of 

 fact, not until next spring, with all hands passing through 

 the winter without harm, can one draw a full breath of re- 

 lief and contentment. The winter is the real test of the 

 house. 



The great attention given to the building, arrangement 

 and furnishing of the servants' quarters in many modern 

 houses is, in many respects, an admission of the great dif- 

 ficulties attending the modern servant problem. It is not all 

 pure humanitarianism, much as this is preached in the house 

 books and magazines. The fact is, the servant question has 

 long since become acute in America, as might naturally have 



been expected to happen in the land of the free and the equal. 

 Hence it has come about that the servants' rooms in large 

 houses are almost as good as those of the owner, and very 

 many times better than their natural occupants were ac- 

 customed to in their native habitat. A good deal of this 

 improvement has been for the better. The little crowded, 

 hot, unpleasant rooms once set aside for the help were, in 

 many cases, unfit for human occupancy. It is an advance, 

 and a decided one, that such rooms are no longer put to 

 habitable use, and it is an excellent thing that good rooms 

 for servants are now provided everywhere. But it is quite 

 a significant fact that with all this betterment there has been 

 no lessening of the difficulties of the servant problem. These 

 people are just as hard to get as they ever were, and are much 

 more difficult to retain. On this aspect of the question abso- 

 lutely no progress appears to have been made. 



EcoNOAHC philosophers, seeking for interesting topics for 

 learned dissertations, sometimes fall afoul of the subject of 

 household expenses. And in truth it is a fascinating subject 

 of the very widest interest. To know how much other people 

 spend and what they get for their money easily surpasses 

 every other kind of gossip. That much of this talk is neces- 

 sarily impersonal and is concerned with people one does not 

 know, deprives it of the real interest it might otherwise have. 

 And incidentally it deprives most of these investigations of 

 their real point and value. For the real test of housekeeping, 

 or of home life — to use a better phrase — is what one gets 

 for one's money. A person who spends five hundred dollars 

 a year for certain expenses may actually not obtain as much 

 as one who spends half that amount. For figures are devoid 

 of the personal touch. They tell us nothing of the people 

 concerned. They give no information as to the personality, 

 the tastes, the individuality of those under review. In short, 

 they leave out the person who supplies the money, the per- 

 son who spends it, the persons who are benefited by it. And 

 the personal element is the vital part. 



Hence such discussions are generally without point. They 

 tell nothing of the conditions. Because a certain family in 

 an unnamed city can support itself in what, to its members, 

 is abounding comfort on eighteen hundred dollars per year, 

 is no reason why other folk, having the same money to spend, 

 and having no more expensive Ideas, can do likewise. It Is 

 Interesting to know that certain comforts and luxuries can be 

 obtained for a given sum, but It is quite absurd to suppose 

 that others can duplicate that success and do it happily. For 

 happiness, after all. Is the true measure of human success 

 and of human joy In living. The real problem Is not to spend 

 as little as one can or to get along on as small amounts as 

 possible ; but, for a given sum, to obtain the greatest amount 

 of satisfaction. One may buy more for one hundred dollars 

 than for ten dollars; but it does not follow that for the 

 larger sum the buyer will obtain ten times as much satisfac- 

 tion as for the lesser. On the contrary, there is a great army 

 of householders and heads of families In America, and even 

 in other parts of the world, who will solemnly assure the 

 inquirer. If he be so bold as to put the question, that the 

 more he has the less he gets. And the statement is not in the 

 least paradoxical; for it is but the simple truth that the more 

 one buys the more one wants to buy. Increased income sel- 

 dom means greater savings, but rather greater expenditure, 

 which increases day by day and in a much greater ratio than 

 the income. 



