House and Garden 
OLD HOUSES AT CUMNER, BERKS 
A FARMHOUSE KITCHEN 
older people. They would prefer to keep the 
parlor wholly immaculate as a sort of museum 
and specimen of housewifely handicraft. 
There is no chance for such an apartment 
in the cottages. Dwellings of this class usually 
have only two rooms on the ground floor, 
and very likely one of these is scarcely large 
enough to merit the name. In height dwell¬ 
ings are not uncommon that have two or two 
and one-half stories, but the majority stop at 
one and a half. Thus the rooms upstairs are 
apt to have their upper part badly clipped by 
the slant of the roof. Once in a while a cham¬ 
ber will have such a low ceiling that a grown 
person can, as they say,“only stand 
upright by stooping.” I n the hum¬ 
bler homes the chamber walls are 
either white - washed or covered 
with a cheap and flimsy wallpaper. 
Furniture and decorations are 
meager. The usual bedstead is a 
slender framework of iron, but 
many families possess old-fash¬ 
ioned ones of wood with tall posts 
at the head canopied with curtains. 
The homes of the gentry are 
frequently interesting through¬ 
out, but in the average country 
dwelling the attraction is pretty 
well concentrated in the kitchen 
so far as indoors is concerned. 
From without almost any view is 
charming and satisfying. 
On the fireplace mantel are can¬ 
dlesticks, pots and cups and vari¬ 
ous ornaments. The walls, too, 
are gay with a queer gathering of 
knicknacks, some useful, and some 
simply beautiful, though what the 
beauty consists in it is usually not 
easy for an outsider to perceive. 
Most of the pictures in this room 
as well as the other rooms of the 
house are oddities that seldom at¬ 
tain to anything but the crudest 
kind of art. There are photo¬ 
graphs of certain members of the 
family, portraits of one or two peo¬ 
ple who have been more or less em¬ 
inent at some time, and there are 
“oil paintings” and colored prints 
and religious mottoes. A portion 
of these pictures are simply pinned 
to the wall. The rest are framed, but the 
frames are usually as dubious as the pictures. 
Well-to-do tradespeople and farmers have 
a “parlor” in which they take particular 
delight. Indeed, they go to such pains with 
its furnishing that it is too fine for them to 
have any pleasure living in it; but they like 
to look at it once in a while and admire it, 
and they take pride in showing it to visitors. 
If the room contains a piano, as often hap¬ 
pens, and the young people play the instru¬ 
ment, the room is probably used enough to 
rub the edges off its stiffness. I imagine 
even this use is somewhat of a trial to the 
■205 
