The House that Jill Built Part 2

"The foundation walls must indeed touch solid bottom and extend below the action of frost; but if the wall above the gridiron and below the paving of the cellar is of hard stones, or very hard bricks laid in cement, there will be little risk from rising moisture.

"After all, the chief danger is not from underground springs, from clean surface water or an occasional rising of the floods, but from the unclean wastes that in our present half-civilized state are constantly going out of our homes to poison and pollute the earth and air around them."

"Half-civilized indeed!" said Jack, interrupting the reading of the letter. "Besides, he is premature as well as impertinent. He doesn't know but the house will stand on a granite boulder."

"I suppose he intends to warn us, and I am not certain that our lot is as dry as it ought to be. At all events we will have some holes dug in different places and see if any water comes into them."

"Of course it will. Haven't we just had the 'equinoctial'? The ground is full of water everywhere."

"If it is full this spring it will be full every spring. We may as well order the drain tiles."

"It shall be done," said Jack. "Now let us have the second proviso. I hope it will be shorter than the first."

"And, secondly," Jill continued reading, "provided you know what your house is for. It is my conviction that of all the people who carefully plan and laboriously build themselves houses, scarcely one in ten could give a radical, intelligent reason for building them. To live in, of course; but how to live is the question, and why. As they have been in the habit of living? As their neighbors live? As they would like to live? As they ought to live? Is domestic comfort and well-being the chief motive? It is not, usually; hence, there are in the world a great many more houses than homes."

"Oh, bother the preaching! It's all true, but we don't happen to need it. When is he coming?"

"Next week, and he hopes we shall have 'some general idea of what we want.' How very condescending! We know precisely what we want, as I can easily show him."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A "CROSS-SECTION" PROPHECY.]

Jill accordingly produced a fresh sheet of "cross-section" paper, on whose double plaid lines the most helpless tyro in drawing can make a plan with mathematical accuracy provided he can count ten, and on this began to draw the plan of the first floor, expounding as she drew.

"If we call the side of the house which is next the street the front, the main entrance must be at the east side, because we need the whole of the south side for our living rooms. You know the view toward the southwest is the finest we shall have, especially from the chambers."

"How do I know? I didn't climb the step-ladder."

"And we must have a large bay window directly on that corner. The hall must run through the house crosswise, with the stairs on the west side of the house. As there is nothing to be seen in this direction except the white walls and green blinds of the parsonage, the windows on the stair-landing shall have stained gla.s.s. The dining-room will be at the north side of the hall, with plenty of eastern windows, and behind that the kitchen with windows at opposite sides. But you wouldn't understand the beauty of my kitchen arrangements now. By-and-by, when you are wiser, I will explain them. Do you like a fireplace in the hall, Jack?"

"I don't know as I do. Do you?"

"Of course! certainly."

"I shall be of all men most miserable without one. Can't we have two?"

"Perhaps so; but first let me read you Cousin Bessie's letter:

MY DEAREST JILL: I'm perfectly delighted to hear about the new house. It will be an immense success. I _know_ it will--you are so wise and so _practical_. How I _shall_ enjoy visiting you!

It is delightful to build houses now. Everybody thinks so much more of the beautiful than they used to. Some of my friends have the _loveliest_ rooms. The tones are _so_ harmonious, the decorations so _exquisite_! Such sympathetic feeling and spiritual unity! I _wish_ you could see Kitty Kane's hall. It isn't bigger than a bandbox, but there's the _cunningest_ little fireplace in one corner, with real antique andirons and the quaintest old Dutch tiles. They never make a fire in it; couldn't if they wanted to--it smokes so. But it is _so_ lovely and gives the hall such a sweet expression. You _will_ forgive me, won't you, Jill, dear? but you know you are _so_ practical, and I _do_ hope you won't forget the esthetic needs of home life. Your loving cousin, BET."

"Let's give up the hall fireplace," said Jack.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEAT FROM ALL SIDES.]

"By no means; our hall is large and needs a fireplace--one that will not smoke and will warm not only the hall in very cold weather, but the whole house when it isn't quite cold enough for steam. The sides and back will be of iron with an air-chamber behind them, into which fresh air will be brought from out of doors and come out well warmed at the sides." (Jill's idea was something like the above figure for the plan.)

"It will be a capital ventilator, too, for the centre of the house.

There will be a damper in the hearth to let the ashes down into the ash-pit. I suppose a stove would answer, but this will be better because it won't have to be blacked, and it will last as long as the house."

"How will it look standing out there all alone by itself?"

"Haven't I told you, my dear, that whatever _is_ well looks well?"

"Yes, but it takes a mighty faith to believe it, and I'm not even a mustard-seed. What is the little room in the southwest corner for?"

"That is the library, and for an ordinary family it is large enough. It is twelve feet by fourteen. It will hold three or four thousand books, a table, a writing-desk, a lounge and three or four easy chairs. More room would spoil the privacy which belongs to a library and make it a sort of common sitting-room. Moreover, by drawing aside the portieres and opening the doors we can make it a part of the large room when we wish to; and, on the other hand, when they are closed and the bay window curtains drawn, instead of one large room we shall have three separate apartments for three solitary misanthropes, for three _tete-a-tetes_, or for three incompatible groups, not counting the hall--no, nor the stair-landing, which will be a capital place for a quiet--"

"Flirtation."

At this point they were interrupted by a telegram from Aunt Melville, begging them not to begin on George's plan, as she had found something much more satisfactory.

CHAPTER III.

A FIRST VISIT AND SAGE ADVICE.

They didn't begin to build, from Cousin George's nor from any other plan, for many weeks. Until the new house should be completed, Jill had agreed to commence housekeeping in the house that Jack built, without making any alterations in it, only reserving the privilege of finding all the fault she pleased to Jack privately, in order, as she said, to convince him that it would be impossible for them to be permanently happy in such a house.

"I supposed," said Jack, with a groan, "that my company would make you blissfully happy in a cave or a dug-out."

"So it would, if we were bears--both of us. As we are sufficiently civilized, taken together, to prefer artificial dwellings, it will be much better for us to find out what we really need in a home by actual experiment for a year or two. You know everybody who builds one house for himself always wishes he could build another to correct the mistakes of the first."

"Yes, and when he has done it probably finds worse blunders in the second. Still, I'm open to conviction, and after our late architectural tour perhaps my house won't seem in comparison so totally depraved."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AUNT MELVILLE'S AMBITION.]

When they visited it, preparatory to setting up their household G.o.ds--Jack's bachelor arrangements being quite inadequate to the new order of things--Jack, with a flourish, threw the highly ornamental front door wide open. Jill walked solemnly in, and, looking neither to the right nor the left, went straight up stairs.

"h.e.l.lo!" Jack called after her, "what are you going up stairs for?"

"I supposed you expected everybody to go to the second floor," said Jill, looking over the bannister, "or you wouldn't have set the stairs directly across the front entrance."

"I do, of course," Jack responded, following three steps at a time.

"And now will you please signify your royal pleasure as to apartments?"

"Oh, yes! The first requisite is a room with at least one south window."

"Here it is. A southerly window and a cloudy sky--two windows, in fact.

And look here: see what a glorious closet. It goes clear up to the ceiling."

"It isn't a closet at all; only a little cupboard. It wouldn't hold one-half of your clothes nor a tenth part of mine. And there's no fireplace in the room--not even a hole for a stovepipe."

"Furnace, my dear. We shall be warmed from the regions below. There's the register."

"I see. But where shall the bed stand? On these two sides it would come directly in front of a window; on this side there isn't room between the two doors; on that, there's the 'set bowl'--I hate 'set bowls'--and the furnace register in the floor."