The House that Jill Built by E. C. Gardner

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"Indeed it would. I think I will have the new pantry made something
like this: low cupboards next to the floor, for things that; need to be
shut up and yet must be handy; on the top of these, which will be not
quite three feet high, a very wide shelf; over this several open
shelves, as high as I can easily reach; and above the shelves, filling
the space to the ceiling, short cupboards entirely around the room for
cracked dishes that are too good to throw away, but are never used: for
ice-cream freezers in the winter, and a great many more things that
belong to the same category--a sort of hospital for disabled or retired
culinary utensils. Now we will look at the china closet, but we shall
need the gas in order to see it in all its glory, and you can tell Jack
it is lovely with a clear conscience."

"I never speak without a clear conscience," said Aunt Jerusha mildly.

CHAPTER XV.

A DANGEROUS RIVAL.

"Dear me," said Aunt Jerusha, as Jill, after displaying the kitchen
pantry, showed her the windowless china closet, elegant with varnished
walnut, plate-glass and silver-plated plumbing, "dear me, this is as
fine as a parlor. It seems a real pity to keep it all out of sight."

"The pity is that it was made so fine. I should not object to polished
walnut in a light room, although cherry, birch or some other
fine-grained, hard, light-colored wood is preferable; but all this
ornamental work, these mouldings, cornices and carved handles are worse
than useless--they are ugly and troublesome. If I can have my own
way--I'm glad Jack isn't here to make comments--I shall have every part
of the new pantries as plain and smooth as a marble slab, with not a
groove or a moulding to hold dust, and never a crack nor a crevice in
which the tiniest spider can hide. The shelves will be thin, light and
strong; some wide and some narrow; a wineglass doesn't need as much
room as a soup tureen; the cupboard doors shall be as plain as doors
can be made, and shall _not_ be hung like these, to swing out against
each other at the constant risk of breaking the glass and of pushing
something from the narrow shelf in front of them. They ought to slide,
one before another, and the front shelf should be wide enough to hold
_lots_ of things when they are handed down from the upper part of the
cupboards."

"I'm sure the little sink must be handy," said Aunt Jerusha, amiably
looking for merits where Jill saw only defects.

"It might be if there was room enough at each side for drainers and for
dishes to stand before and after washing. I don't wonder that Jack's
china is 'nicked' till the edges look like saw teeth; glass and fine
crockery can't be piled up into pyramids even by the most experienced
builders without serious damage to the edges. There ought to be four
times as much space at each side."

"I suppose there wasn't quite room enough."

"There was _always_ room enough. There's enough now outside, and would
have been inside, if the house had been well planned," said Jill rather
sharply.

"These are proper, nice, large drawers."

"They are too nice and too large. Even when they are but half full I
have to tumble their contents all over to find any particular thing,
unless it lies on top. Some drawers ought to be large and some small,
but I don't believe there ever was a man," said Jill vehemently, "who
knew enough to arrange the small comforts and conveniences for
housekeeping. Every day I am exasperated by something which Jack never
so much as noticed. When I explain it he laughs and says it is
fortunate we have so good an opportunity for learning what to avoid,
and all the time I am certain he thinks there will be a great many more
faults in the new house. If there are I shall be sorry it is
fire-proof."

[Illustration: "THE OAKS."]

"Why, Jill, my dear, don't be rash! That doesn't sound like you. You
mustn't set your heart on having things exactly to suit you in this
world. I've lived a great many years, and a good many times I find it
easier to bring my mind to things as they are than it is to make
everything come just to my mind. I've seen plenty of women wear
themselves out for want of things to do with, and I've seen other women
break down from having too many; trying to keep up with all the modern
fashions and conveniences, and to manage their houses with the same
kind of regularity--'system' they call it--that men use in carrying on
a manufacturing business."

"Well, why shouldn't they, Aunt 'Rusha?"

"I'll tell you why, my dear. A business man has a certain, single,
definite thing to do or to make. Every day's work is very much like
that of the day before. He may try to improve gradually, but, in the
main, it is the same thing over and over again. Our home life ought not
to be like that. A man ought not to be merely an engine or a cash-book;
a woman ought to be something more than a dummy or a fashion-plate; our
children should not be like so many spools of thread or suits of
clothes, turned in the same lathe, spun to the same yarn, and cut
according to the same pattern and rule. I'm sure I could never have
done my work and brought up six children without some sort of a
system, or if your uncle had been a bad provider. But I never could
have got on as well as I have if I had given all my mind to keeping
things in order and learning how to use new-fashioned labor-saving
contrivances. There's nothing more honorable for womankind," said Aunt
Jerusha, as she rolled up her knitting and prepared to set out on her
homeward ride, "than housework, but it ain't the chief end of woman,
and unless your house is something more than a workshop or a showcase,
it will always be a good deal less than a home."

Jill hardly needed this parting admonition, but listened to it and to
much more good advice with the respect due to one who, for nearly half
a century, had looked well to the ways of her household, whose helping
hands were always outstretched to the poor and needy, whose children
rose up and called her blessed, and whose husband had never ceased to
praise her. After her departure her niece indulged in a short season of
solemn reflection, striving faithfully to attain to that wisdom which
always knows when to protest against existing circumstances and when to
accept them with equanimity. Ultimately she reached the conclusion
that, while the house that Jack built might indeed be a thoroughly
comfortable home to one who had a contented mind, it was really her
duty in her probationary housekeeping to be as critical as possible.

Among other things the doors came in for a share of her usually amiable
denunciation. She declared they were huge and heavy enough in
appearance for prison cells, yet so loosely put together that their
prolonged existence seemed to be a question of glue. They were swollen
in the damp, warm weather till they refused to _be_ shut, and would
doubtless shrink so much under the influence of furnace heat in the
winter that they would refuse to _stay_ shut. The closet doors swung
against the windows, excluding instead of admitting the light. The
doors of the chambers opened squarely upon the beds, and there seemed
to have been no thought of convenient wall spaces for pictures and
furniture.

[Illustration: OUTSIDE BARRIERS.]

The architect's theory of doors, as expounded in one of his letters,
was simple enough: "Outside doors are barricades; they should be solid
and strong in fact and in appearance. Inner doors, from room to room,
require no special strength; they should turn whichever way gives the
freest passage and throws them most out of the way when they are open.
Seclusion for the inmates is the chief service of chamber doors, and
they should be placed and hung so as _not_ to give a direct glimpse
across the bed or into the room the moment they are set even slightly
ajar. Closet doors are screens simply, and ought to hide the interior
of the closet when they are partially open, as well as when they are
closed. They may be as light as it is possible to make them. In many
houses one-half the doors might wisely be sent to the auction-room and
the proceeds invested in portieres, which are often far more suitable
and convenient than solid doors, especially for chamber closets, for
dressing-rooms, or other apartments communicating in suites, and not
infrequently a heavy curtain is an ample barrier between the principal
rooms. It may be well to supplement them, with light sliding doors, to
be used in an emergency, but which being rarely seen, may be
exceedingly simple and inexpensive, having no resemblance to the rest
of the finish in the room. For that matter such conformity is not
required of any of the doors, though it is reckoned by builders as one
of the cardinal points in hard-wood finish that veneered doors must
'match' the finish of the rooms in which they show. This is absurd.
Doors are under no such obligations. They may be of any sort of wood,
metal or fabric. They may be veneered, carved, gilded, ebonized,
painted, stained or 'decorated.' To finish and furnish a room entirely
with one kind of wood, making the wainscot, architraves, cornices,
doors and mantels, the chairs, tables, piano, bookcase, or sideboard,
all of mahogany, oak, or whatever may be chosen--the floors, too,
perhaps, and the picture frames--is strictly orthodox and eminently
respectable; but like the invariable use of 'low tones' in decorating
walls and ceilings, it betrays a sort of helplessness and lack of
courage. Discords in sound, color and form are, indeed, always hateful,
and they are sure to be produced when ignorance or accident strikes the
keys. Yet, on the other hand, neutrality and monotone are desperately
tedious, and it is better to strive and fail than to be hopelessly
commonplace."

[Illustration: INSIDE BARRIERS.]

[Illustration: COMMON UGLINESS.]

[Illustration: SIMPLE GRACE.]

This advice concerned not the doors alone, but referred to other
queries that had been raised as to the interior finish generally.

One evening Jack came home and found Jill "in the dumps," or as near as
she ever came to that unhappy state of mind, the consequence, as it
appeared, of Aunt Melville's zeal in her behalf.

"Why should these plans worry you?" said Jack. "I thought common sense
was your armor and decision your shield against Aunt Melville's erratic
arrows of advice."

"My armor is intact, but, for a moment, I have lowered my shield and it
has cost me an effort to raise it again, I supposed my mind was fixed
beyond the possibility of change, but this is a wonderfully taking
plan. At first I felt that if our lot had not been bought and the
foundation actually begun we would certainly begin anew and have a
house something like these plans. Then it occurred to me that in
building a house that is to be our home as long as we live, perhaps,
it would be the height of absurdity to tie ourselves down to one little
spot on the broad face of this great, beautiful world and live in a
house that will never be satisfactory, just because we happen to have
this bit of land in our possession and have spent upon it a few hundred
dollars."

"Sensible, as usual. What next?"

"Well, this last and best discovery of Aunt Melville's was undoubtedly
made like our own plan to fit a particular site, and it seems beginning
at the wrong end to arrange the house first and then try to find a lot
to suit it."

"I don't see it in that light," said Jack. "I know the architect has
been preaching the importance of adapting the plan to the lot, but if
two thousand dollars are going into the land and eight thousand into
the house, I should say the house is entitled to the first choice."

"Certainly, if it was a city lot, with no character of its own, a mere
rectangular piece of land shut in upon three sides and open at one. But
ours has certain strong points not to be found in any other unoccupied
lot in town. Besides, there are other reasons why it would not answer
for us; but _if_ our lot was right for it, and _if_ we wanted so large
a house, _how_ I should enjoy building it!"

"I don't see anything so very remarkable about the plan," said Jack,
taking up the drawings.

"My dear, short-sighted husband," said Jill with the utmost
impressiveness of tone and manner, "it is a _one-story house_. 'There
shall be no more stairs' sounds almost as delightful as the scriptural
promise of no more sea. And look at the plan itself: The great square
vestibule, or reception-room, with the office at one side--wouldn't
you enjoy that, Jack?--then a few steps higher the big keeping-room,
with a huge fireplace confronting you, and room enough for--anything.
For games, for dancing, for a billiard table, for a grand piano, for a
hammock--or--"

"Say a sewing machine, a spinning-wheel or something useful."

"Anything you like, a studio or a picture gallery, for it is twice as
high as the other rooms, and lighted from the roof. At the right of
this, and with such a great wide door between them that they seem like
two parts of the same room, is the sitting-room, with another great
fireplace in the corner, bay window and a conservatory fronting the
wide entrance to the dining-room, at the farther end of which there is
still another grand fireplace, with a stained-glass window above it.
These three rooms--four, if we count the conservatory--are just as near
perfection as possible. Then see the long line of chambers, closets and
dressing-rooms running around the south and east sides, every one with
a southern window, and all communicating with the corridor that leads
from the keeping-room, yet sufficiently united to form a complete
family suite. The first floor--I mean the _one_ floor--is five or six
feet from the ground, so there can be no dampness in the rooms--and
just think what a cellar! Altogether too much for us."

"Indeed, there isn't. I'd have a bowling alley, a skating rink, a
machine shop, a tennis court, and--a rifle range. Yes, it _is_ a taking
plan, but there are two things that I don't understand. How can you
cover such a big box, and where is the cooking to be done?"

[Illustration: FIRST FLOOR PLAN OF "THE OAKS."]

"The old rule of two negatives applies. Even a one-story house must
have a roof, and the breadth of this makes a roof large enough to hold
not only the kitchen but the servants' room on the same upper level."

"A kitchen up stairs!" exclaimed Jack, for once startled into
solemnity.

"Aunt Melville considers this the crowning glory of the plan. Owing to
this elevation of the cooking range there is no back door, no back
yard, no chance for an uncouth or an unsightly precinct at either side
of the house."

"That would be something worth living for. I think, Jill, we had better
examine these plans a little farther."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI.

A NEW WAY OF GETTING UP STAIRS AND A NEW MISSIONARY FIELD.

"The question of getting up stairs," said Jack, as they continued the
study of the one-story plan, "is at least an interesting one. It seems
to be accepted as a foregone conclusion that modern dwelling houses,
even in the country, where the cost of the land actually covered by the
house is of no consequence, must be two stories at least above the
basement; but I doubt whether this principle in the evolution of
domestic habitations is well established. Between the aboriginal
wigwam, whose first and only floor is the bare earth itself, and the
'high-basement-four-story-and-French-roof' style, there is somewhere
the happy medium which our blessed posterity--blessed in having had
such wise ancestors--will universally adopt as the fittest survivor of
our uncounted fashions. I fancy it will be much nearer to this
one-story house, with the high basement and big attic, than to the
seven-story mansard with sub-cellar for fuel and furnace. Still the
tendency during the last fifty years has been upward. Our grandfathers
preferred to sleep on the ground floor; _we_ should expect to be
carried off by burglars or malaria if we ventured to close our eyes
within ten feet of the ground. Our city cousins like to be two or
three times as high. Under these circumstances building a one-story
house would be likely to prove a flying-not in the face of Providence,
but, what is reckoned more dangerous and discreditable--flying in the
face of custom. Humility isn't popular in the matter of
house-building."

"I am not afraid of custom, and have no objection to a reasonable
humility," said Jill, "but I never once thought of burglars. If a house
has but one floor I think it should be so for from the ground as to be
practically a 'second' floor. The main point is to have all the family
rooms on one level."

"That is, a 'flat.'"

"Yes, one flat; not a pile of flats one above another, as they are
built in cities, but one large flat raised high enough to be entirely
removed from the moisture of the ground, to give a pleasant sense of
security from outside intrusion and to afford convenient outlooks from
the windows. One or two guest rooms, that are not often used, might be
on a second floor, under the roof, if there was space enough."

"But this plan has the servants' chambers, the kitchen and the store
closets all in the roof. Isn't that rather overdoing the matter?"

"Better in the attic than in the basement. It is light, dry and 'airy.'
There is no danger that the odors of cooking will come down, and as for
the extra trouble, a well-arranged elevator will take supplies from the
basement up twenty feet to the level of the kitchen, store-rooms and
pantries as easily as they could be taken the usual distances
horizontally. In brief, a kitchen above the dining-room is at worst no
more 'inconvenient' than below it. Of course, there must be stairs even
in a one-story house, but they would not be in constant use. Instead of
living edgewise, so to speak, we should be spread out flatwise. We
could climb when we chose, but should not of necessity be forever
climbing. Yes, I like this plan exceedingly, not alone for its one
principal floor, but I have always had a fancy for the 'rotunda'
arrangement--one large central apartment for any and all purposes, out
of which the rooms for more special and private uses should open.
Indeed, I don't see how a very large house can be built in any other
way without leaving a considerable part of the interior as useless for
domestic as Central Africa is for political purposes. With _this_
arrangement the central keeping-room, lighted from above, may be as
large as a circus tent, and all the surrounding cells will be amply
supplied with light and air from the outside walls.

[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARD SUNSET.]

[Illustration: NEAR THE TURNING-POINT.]

"According to Aunt Melville's enthusiastic account, the construction of
the house is but little less than marvelous. 'The high walls of the
basement are built of those native, weather-stained and lichen-covered
boulders, the walls above being of a material hitherto unknown to
builders. You will scarcely believe it when I tell you they are nothing
else than the waste rubbish from brickyards, the rejected accumulations
of years--not by any means the unburned, but the overburned, the hard,
flinty, molten, misshapen and highly-colored masses of burned clay
which indeed refused to be consumed, but have been twisted into
shapeless blocks by the fervent heat. Of course, with such
unconventional materials for the main walls it would be a silly
affectation to embellish the exterior of the house with elaborate
mouldings or ornamental wood-work, and the visible details are
therefore plain to the verge of poverty. But as men of great genius can
disregard the trifling formalities of society, so there are no
architectural rules which this house is obliged to respect.'"

[Illustration: A CHOICE OF BALUSTERS.]

"That suits me perfectly," said Jack; "but I am amazed at Aunt
Melville. Never before did she make such a concession even to great
genius. Never before have I felt inclined to agree with her; but the
conviction has grown upon me of late that the new house is in danger of
being too much like other houses. If a fellow is really going in for
reform, I like to have him go the whole figure. What do you say to
beginning anew and building such a house as no mortal ever built
before--something to make everybody wonder what manner of people they
are who live in such a habitation--something to convince our neighbors
that we are no weak-minded time-servers, but are able to be an
architectural as well as domestic law unto ourselves--something to make
them stop and stare--a sort of local Greenwich from which the community
will reckon their longitude--'so many miles from the house that Jill
built'?"

"My dear, did it ever occur to you that you cannot be too thankful for
a wife who is not blown about by every wind of new doctrine? I _do_
like the plan of 'The Oaks' exceedingly, not only for itself, but for
the spirit of it, for its breadth and freedom. It seems to me a
charming illustration of the true gospel of home architecture. There is
no thoughtless imitation of something else that suits another place and
another family. Neither does it appear that the owner tried to make a
vain display for the sake of 'astonishing the natives.' He knew what he
wanted, and built the house to suit his wants, using the simplest, the
cheapest and the most durable materials at hand in the most direct and
unaffected manner. Did you notice in the sketch of the keeping-room
fireplace the little gallery passing across the end of the room above
the entrance to the sitting-room? Probably you thought that was built
for purely ornamental purposes, but it isn't. It is simply the walk
from the kitchen to another part of the attic, which can be most
conveniently reached by this interior bridge. Of course it adds to the
interest and beauty of the room, but it was not made for that purpose,
and, as I understand the matter, it is all the more beautiful because
it was first made to be useful. There is another thing in this
house--the elevator--which, queerly enough, we do not often find in
houses of more aspiring habit, where it would he of even greater value.
It is amazing to me that housekeepers will go on tugging trunks,
coal-hods and heavy merchandise of all kinds up stairways, day after
day and year after year, when a simple mechanical contrivance, moved by
water, or weights and pulleys, would save us from all these heavy
burdens. Think of the bruised knuckles, the trembling limbs that
stagger along with the upper end of a Saratoga 'cottage,' the broken
plastering at the sides, the paper patched with bright new pieces that
look 'almost worse' than the uncovered rents, and the ugly marks of
perspiring fingers."

[Illustration: THE BIG FIREPLACE IN THE KEEPING ROOM.]

[Illustration: ONE WAY TO BEGIN.]

"All of which I have seen and a part of which I have been," said Jack.
"I intended to have a lift in this house, but somehow it was left out."

"Our architect." Jill continued, "must be instructed to arrange not
only an easy staircase, but there must be a paneled wainscot at the
side. We will dispense with elegance in any other quarter, if need be,
in order to have the stairs ample, strong and well protected. I am not
over-anxious to have them ornate, although handsome stairs are very
charming if well placed; like many other beautiful things, they become
incurably ugly when too obtrusive. The architect has sent several
designs of balustrades from which we are to choose, and gives this
advice about the dimensions: 'As you have plenty of room, the staircase
should be four or four and a-half feet wide, so that two people can
easily walk over it abreast, I have arranged to make the steps twelve
inches wide, besides the projection that forms the finish--the
"nosing"--and six inches high; that is, six inches "rise" and twelve
inches "run." Some climbers think this too flat, and perhaps it is in
certain situations; but for homes, for easy, leisurely ascent by
children and old folks. I think it better than a steeper pitch. All
large dwelling-houses, and some small ones, ought to be supplied with
"passenger elevators," at least from the first to the second story.
Those who take the rooms still higher are usually able to make the
ascent in the common way. Such an elevator can undoubtedly be made that
will be safe and economical, especially where there is an ample water
supply.'"

[Illustration: A BROADSIDE OF AN EASY ASCENT.]

"The safety is the most troublesome part of the problem," said Jack;
"and I can think of no way to overcome the danger of walking off the
precipice, when the platform happens to be at the bottom, but by having
the car run up an inclined plane. There would be no more danger of
falling down this than down a common stairway, and the car might be
fixed so it couldn't move up or down faster than a walk or a slow
trot."

"Would you like to experiment in the new house? You may do so--at your
own expense--if you will promise not to spoil the plan. Among the
designs for the stairs there is one that will be of no service to
us--the screen at the foot of the stairs; our 'reception' hall will be
separated from the staircase hall by the chimney and the curtains at
the sides."

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