The House of Happy Hours 



AND THE POWER OF ITS EXAMPLE 

 Br SUSIE BOUCHELLE WIGHT 



Chapter IV. — Continued. 



AS the winter season drew on apace^ 

 Billyhs "or Man Tucker'' began, 

 as usual at that season, to find life 

 very strenuous. His wealth consisted 

 largely in houses, and the occupants 

 thereof harassed him daily for repairs. 

 Fireplaces had a distressing way of tumb- 

 ling in, palings dropped off the fences, 

 windows were to be replaced, and floors 

 tightened. Most of the tenants were of like 

 mind to Billy's people, who never drove a 

 nail they could do without, and looked 

 upon their landlord as "mean as dirt." 



Mr. Tucker had not failed to observe the 

 inviting appearance of the house under the 

 oaks, since the Warings had occupied it. 

 It had been rather an unsatisfactory piece 

 of property, since its distance from other 

 houses had kept it from renting readily. 

 So he had let the new tenants have it at 

 a most reasonable rate. He waited cyn- 

 ically to be asked to deduct from the rent 

 the cost of certain small improvements, 

 but when no such demand was made, and 

 no complaint reached him, when the air 

 was rife with them, he began to be inter- 

 ested in such extraordinary people, and, 

 after a time, called upon Mr. Waring in 

 his office. Troublesome as were his houses 

 to him, they were such a good source of 

 income that he contemplated building sev- 

 eral other blocks extending out along the 

 street which beyond the Waring house was 

 nothing more than a country road, in view 

 of the fact that new enterprises were being 

 set on foot in Wimbledon, and rents were 

 apt to advance. It occurred to Mr. Tu.cker 

 that as the new architect did not seem 

 overburdened with business, he might be 

 able to drive a sharp trade with him, so he 

 talked over his plans with him quite fully 



— plans he intended setting in motion as 

 soon as the preliminaries were fully ar- 

 ranged. Mr. Waring's plain yet pleasant 

 manner attracted Mr. Tucker, and their 

 conversations on their occasional meetings 

 gradually drifted to other matters akin 

 to the subject in hand. Mr. Waring's 

 plans for the cottages were models of neat- 

 ness and convenience. In view of the fact 

 that there were to be a number of houses 

 so close together he had avoided anything 

 like uniformity in their construction, only 

 being careful to plan so that they would 

 look well in juxtaposition, so that the ex- 

 tension would not advertise itself as a 

 group of rented homes. He devised a 

 splendid system of drainage for the entire 

 plat, which lay rather low, and, at his 

 wife's suggestion, he planned also for 

 small gardens in front of each house. In 

 one of his talks with Mr. Tucker he called 

 his attention to the magnificent work be- 

 ing done by improvement associations all 

 over the country, and advocated that some 

 of the principles might well be applied to 

 the Extension. 



The old gentleman looked at the draw- 



A WASTE CORNER 



A bit of the old mill at Northfield (Mass.), once a rubbish 

 heap, now being redeemed through private benevolence. 



