A Cottage on the Wissahickon Hills 
made only its home yard. 
It is not a beautiful house 
by any means, but it is rooted 
in its place as naturally as 
any of the great trees about 
and at certain seasons of the 
year its trelhsed vines and its 
bowery setting give it no un¬ 
certain charm. Its curious 
shape suggests to all comers 
far older houses abroad. It 
is low, its ridge-pole being 
only twenty-six feet above 
the ground, and the roofs ex¬ 
tending down steeply from that 
ridge-pole are very uneven in 
length, the front shingles pitch- 
The Cottage from the Garden 
A Corner of the Porch 
ing down only twelve feet to 
end two storeys above the 
ground, while the back shin¬ 
gles stretch for forty-two feet 
until they meet the pump- 
shed only head room over six 
feet from the ground. This 
lowness and this long sweep 
of shingles serve only to make 
it appear to cling more closely 
to the earth, an effect that is 
offset a little by its scarcely 
more than twenty-seven feet of 
breadth. It is bound to earth 
more closely yet by great ca¬ 
bles of trumpet vine and by 
innumerable strands of Virginia 
creeper amid which twist roses 
and clematis and coral honey¬ 
suckle in their effort to make 
the house one with the green¬ 
ery of its neighborhood. 
The German builders of 
the house were fond of fruit 
and planted their place well 
with apples and cherries and 
pears, as well as the lesser 
fruits. 1 hat was sixty years 
ago, and many of the trees 
are gone. The apples were cut 
down; the cherries have died, 
all save some pie cherries, 
from which a numerous pro¬ 
geny has sprung up around 
From the Lawn in the Ice Storm 
24O 
