40 
House & Garden 
LIFE AS IT IS LIVED IN “THE BIRDCAGE” 
“ T F you were a woman living 
X alone, how would you live?” 
demanded my friend. 
I answered without hesitation, 
“In ‘The Birdcage,’ ”—but after 
I said it, I began to think. Sup¬ 
pose I was a woman, living alone? 
Suppose I nursed or typed, or 
taught, or had a profession or ha’d 
none and played fairy godmother 
to some young shoot without a 
parent stem, how would I live? 
That afternoon and evening and 
even during the two or three times 
I woke up in the night, I was that 
woman in lodgings, or hotels, or 
boarding houses—living alone. I 
ate those meals which gave me 
mental indigestion: I dined at those tables 
where there was nothing esthetic—no pretty 
doilies, no hyacinths in a bowl—only food! I 
lived in those commonplace rooms where the 
carpet had an ugly, dusty individuality, where 
the furniture was golden oak, where the color 
scheme was unborn. Wear) 7 from the mental 
fag of a hard day it was to this I came home 
at night—and I woke up to it in the morning. 
Alas! not only to this, but to an endless vista 
of similar impending mornings! So it was 
not lightly, not carelessly, not as one who speaks 
without taking thought that 1 hunted up my 
friend and spake unto her: 
“Four-Leaf,” I said solemnly (we call her 
Four-Leaf because her name is Clover), “Four- 
Leaf, I would live in a Birdcage of my own 
if I had to build it in a tree—or by the side of 
the road—or so far away that I travelled miles 
to reach it. I would cook for it, scrub for it, 
wash dishes and water the plants for it-” 
A California Suggestion for the Professional Woman Who 
Lives Alone and Is Weary of Golden Oak and Lodgings 
One big living room takes most 
of the space in the house. It has 
a big fireplace and is furnished 
with wicker 
Breakfast is set in a dainty 
white corner. There is 
just room enough for two. 
The settles are comfort¬ 
ably cushioned. And the 
curtains and cushions and 
table cloth are all of the 
same fabric—a simple de¬ 
sign in blue 
“Oh, I knew all that—I tried all those other 
things first. It was a disgusting way of Life,” 
added Four-Leaf calmly. 
I nodded. That, I easily understood. And 
as I looked at her “Birdcage,”—at the four- 
room house with its big living-dining room 
finished in stained California redwood, at its 
gray walls, its brown wicker, its flowers and 
chintzes; then as I glanced at Four-Leaf her¬ 
self, patting her collie and staring at the fire, 
I remembered those other women whose win¬ 
dows looked out on chimney pots or brick walls 
or down into what the English call “mews,” 
and we call alleys. Dull, drab, comfortless 
backyards which leave the beholder aghast that 
houses maintaining a certain decency for the 
street should reveal so shameless a posterior to 
the alley. And I thought of the multiplicity of 
those alleys—of how many city windows looked 
down on them—of how often in¬ 
deed, I had looked down on them 
myself! While a single glance 
through the glass door of “The 
Birdcage” revealed a porch which, 
for green and gray simplicity, 
might have been a lovely bit of 
Spain or Italy set down in South¬ 
ern California. Being good is 
twice as difficult if one’s only out¬ 
look is an alley! 
It is true “The Birdcage” has a 
(Continued on page 70) 
There’s a tiny corner porch 
to “The Birdcage”-—room 
enough for the birdcage itself 
and the collie, and a chair or 
two besides 
