“Can’t on account of the expense, you see,” says Bob. “You see every additional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, so much more flooring, so much more roofing, etc.”
And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considers how two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any of the walls.
“I say,” says Bob, bending over her shoulder, “here, take your two feet in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the hall-stairs”; and he dashes heavily with his pencil.
“O, Bob!” exclaims Marianne, “there are the kitchen-pantries! you ruin them,—and no place for the cellar-stairs!”
“Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs!” says Bob. “Mother must find a place for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy and cheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves; they can be put somewhere well enough. No fear but you will find a place for them somewhere. What do you women always want such a great enormous kitchen for?”
“It is not any larger than is necessary,” said my wife, thoughtfully; “nothing is gained by taking off from it.”
“What if you should put it all down into a basement,” suggests Bob, “and so get it all out of sight together?”
“Never if it can be helped,” said my wife. “Basement-kitchens are necessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dear to afford any other.”
So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The next morning an inspiration visits my wife’s pillow. She is up and seizes plans and paper, and before six o’clock has enlarged the parlor very cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes the prospective house, innocently battered down and rebuilt with India-rubber and black-lead. Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up to-morrow; windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observer suggests possibilities of too much or too little draught. Now all seems finished, when, lo, a discovery! There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in my lady’s bedroom, and can be none without moving the bathing-room. Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for a while the whole house seems to threaten to fall to pieces with the confusion of the moving; the bath-room wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now threatening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is laid by some unheard-of calculations of my wife’s, and sinks to rest in a place so much better that every body wonders it never was thought of before.
“Papa,” said Jenny, “it appears to me people don’t exactly know what they want when they build; why don’t you write a paper on house-building?”