322 
Old Time Gardens 
old sink drain at the kitchen door rendered up to 
the spring sunshine all the combined vapors of all 
the dish-water of all the winter. The barn and hen- 
house and cow-house reeked in the sunlight, but the 
pigpen easily conquered them all. There was an 
ancient cesspool far too near the kitchen door, under- 
ground and not to be seen, but present, nevertheless. 
A hogshead of rain-water stood at the cellar door, 
and one at the end of the barn — to water the flowers 
with — they fancied rotten rain-water made flowers 
grow! A foul dye-tub was ever reeking in every 
in the outer shed, the grease collected through the 
winter and waiting for the spring soap-making. The 
vapor of sour milk, ever present, was of little moment 
— when there was so much else so much worse. 
There wasn’t a bath-tub in the grandfather’s house, 
nor in any other house in town, nor any too much 
bathing in winter, either, I am sure, in icy well-water 
in icier sleeping rooms. The windows were care- 
fully closed all winter long, but the open fireplaces 
managed to save the life of the inmates, though the 
walls and rafters were hung with millions of germs 
which every one knows are all the wickeder when 
they do.i’i smell, because you take no care, fancying 
they are not there. But the grandfather knew 
naught of germs — and was happy. The trees 
shaded the house so that the roof was always damp. 
Oh, how those germs grew and multiplied in the 
grateful shade of those lovely trees, and how mould 
and rust rejoiced. Well might people turn from all 
