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Page 43
"Clumsy! no, indeed, it's _massive_, it's _grand_! There will be plenty
of room in the new house. They will have one entire room for
bric-a-brac."
"But what can they _do_ with it? They won't make cheese."
"Can't you see what a _delicious_ cabinet it will make? These posts and
things can all be carved and decorated, and it will be perfectly
_unique_. There isn't such a cabinet in the whole city of New York. Oh,
I think our trip has been an _immense_ success already. I shall always
believe in horseshoes after this; but _isn't_ it a pity we can't carry
home the well-sweep?"
The huge machine had to be taken from the shed chamber in sections, but
was properly put together again in the wagon by the hired men, and made
the turnout look like a small traveling juggernaut. Just before
starting: Bessie espied, leaning against the fence, a hen-coop from
which the feathered family had departed, and explaining to Jim that if
the sides were painted red and the bars gilded it would be a charming
ornament for the front porch, persuaded him to add that to their
already imposing load. Then they departed, leaving the farmer and his
men in doubt whether to advertise a pair of escaped lunatics or accept
their visitors as "highly cultured" members of modern society.
When they reached home Jack had just come in from the office. He looked
out of the window as they drove up, felt his strength suddenly give
way, and rolled on the floor in convulsions.
"Less than five dollars for the whole lot, did you say, Jim? I wouldn't
have missed _seeing_ that load for fifty."
The next day was Sunday. Monday afternoon Bessie went home.
CHAPTER XIII.
ECONOMY, CLEANLINESS AND HEALTH.
"Dirt is matter out of place," quoted Uncle Harry, in one of his
erratic epistles which Jack and Jill always read with interest if not
profit. "When you find anything that seems unclean or offensive in any
part of your house, remember this: the fault is not in the thing
itself, but in your ignorant or thoughtless management. There isn't a
material thing in the universe, whatever its name or characteristic
qualities maybe; not a flaunting weed nor an unseen miasmatic vapor,
which is not created for some good and wise purpose. It is for us to
learn those purposes. The grand secret of safe and comfortable living
lies in keeping yourself and everything about you in the right place. I
hear much of the dangers and annoyances that arise from modern
plumbing. I am not surprised by them; on the contrary, I wonder they
are not more numerous and fatal, since nothing is more inconsistent
with the first principles of comfort and health than our relations to
these 'modern conveniences.' Instead of disposing of what are
incorrectly called waste materials according to nature's modes, we
persist in defying her examples and her laws, even after we fully
understand them, and, in the vain hope of adding to our own case,
bring upon ourselves untold calamities. 'Earth to earth' is a mandate
that cannot be disregarded with impunity. The infinite laboratories of
nature welcome to their crucibles all the strange and awful elements
which we fail to comprehend and against which we wage a futile warfare.
If all these miscalled 'wastes' that we find so hurtful and offensive
when out of place in and around our homes could be consigned to the
bosom of mother earth the moment they seem to us worthless, they would
be at once changed to life-giving forces, out of which forms of
freshness and beauty would arise to fill us with delight. They are
willing to serve us whenever we give them an opportunity. The one
direct and infallible mode of doing that is to put them in the ground
before they have a chance to work us injury. If we bury them, or,
rather, plant them, they will bring forth, some thirty, some sixty,
some an hundredfold.
[Illustration: NO PLACE FOR SECRET FOES.]
"It is my impression that sewers were originally invented by the Evil
one. He couldn't drag men down to his dominions fast enough, so he
moved a portion of his estate to this planet, and lest its true
character should be discovered, buried it under paved streets and
flowery parks. We might easily and quietly put these crude materials
into convenient receptacles, to be carried where they will bless the
world by making two ears of corn grow where one grew before. This we
could do, each one for ourselves, or more advantageously by cooperating
with one another. We are too wasteful, too indolent, too ignorant.
Tempted by the invisible sewers we imprison these misplaced and
inharmonious elements for a time in lead or iron pipes, while they grow
more hostile, occasionally escaping by violence or stealth into our
chambers, and then with many nice contrivances and much perishable
machinery we try to wash them away with a bucket of water. Not to carry
them where they will do any good, not to put them out of existence, but
simply to hide them: to send them out of our immediate sight, and very
likely into some greater mischief. The system is radically wrong, and
while many of its existing evils may be averted, they cannot all be
removed till we make our attacks from a different base. Improving
sewers, like strengthening prison walls, is a good thing if the
institutions remain; to prevent the need of maintaining them would be
better still. Three-fourths of the solid wastes that proceed from
human dwellings--scraps of food, waste paper, worthless vegetables,
worn-out utensils, bones, weeds, old boots and shoes, whatever
unmanageable and unnamable rubbish appears--ought to be at once
consumed by fire, for which purpose a small cremating furnace should be
found in every house. A similar trial by fire would reduce a large part
of the liquids and semi-liquids to solid form to be also consumed, and
the rest, absorbed by dry earth or ashes, could easily be transported
to the barren fields that await the intelligence and power of man to
transform them into blooming gardens.
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