Page 154

OUR HOME DEPARTMENT
friends have used them    on their log
houses and say they wear much better than
the shingles of commerce.
   My greatest triumph next to getting
the roof on right is the large chimney.
It is twenty-six feet high; it has a fireplace
in the living room that will hold "four
foot logs." This chimney also serves for
the kitchen stove and has two flues that
may be used for the upstairs rooms when
desired.
  My man Pack (that is his nick name)
who built the chimneys with suggestions
from me, had never made but one before,
that was his own, which is a rude enough
affair and smokes badly, so there was a
tremor of expectation when we first
tried a fire. It roared and crackled and
the blaze warmed our hearts as we saw
that the draft was perfect. We managed
in the placing of the larger stones not only
to get several mantels for the living room,
but two pretty and useful shelves in the
bedroom. For the hearths we saved all
the thin flat stones that were quite smooth.
After making a bed of broken rock we
fitted the odd shaped flat stones, some
light, some dark in color, then poured in
a stream of soft cement which when mixed
with the sand here gets a greenish tint.
The whole effect reminds one of the
Tiffany glass. As a finish we used a nar-
row strip of pine beveled to the floor.
This reminds me to tell how we finished
the floor. The stone being very rough,
the narrow panel which goes around the
room to act as a base board does not fit
close, therefore to preclude the danger of
spiders and other small vermin coming up
the walls, we poured in a border of
cement which makes the wall and the
floor meet in every place.
  The portico at the entrance door is made
of locust trees with the bark on. The
ground floor is of stone. The upper part,
which I call my Juliet balcony, is acces-
sible from my room; its flooring is of
154
rough   oak   tongue-and-grooved.  The
space is six by six feet.
  The east bedroom also opens onto a
balcony which is large enough to admit of
a cot and several rocking chairs. It is a
place for an afternoon nap, when the ham-
mocks are wet. The roof of the house
shades this balcony from the west. Under
this is our working porch opening off the
kitchen. Here we have no flooring but
sand, which can easily be renewed. A
wood floor would soon rot for the roof is
only a rough oak floor, but it offers shade
and we can spill just as much as we please
and no scrubbing is necesasry. Here is a
long work table with a shelf underneath.
Against the wall of the house is a hanging
shelf in easy reach. At the corner of the
house still under the porch is a huge gal-
vanized iron barrel for rain water which
more than fills when it rains hard. A
small gutter of stone carries off the over-
flow which goes into an earthen pipe. A
galvanized iron bowl with strainer in the
bottom fits over this pipe and is the sink.
The piping extends underground about
fifty feet which carries it over the cliff.
  Let me thank THE CRAFTSMAN for
many hints and especially for its very
valuable lessons in furniture making. We
have saved all our walnut boards and now
I am going to try to make furniture for
the living room.
  All along the way I have been gaining
lessons in the difference between a picture
and the object. The time and patience
required to make the idea develop into the
concrete is an   interesting experience.
Over and over again I have recalled the
early lives of the Republic and said Soc-
rates was right about the value of any-
thing we ourselves produce. My little
house is becoming a child to me. It
grows more precious as I work over it.
        Lucy McDoNALD MILBURN.
  Wandy, Aug., 1905.