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Page 64
"If that's the case they ought to last forever on the second story
walls of our house, where they are straight up and down. When you come
to think of it, high roofs must be built now-a-days mainly for show,
incidentally they cover the house. First beautiful, then useful. How
large will it be?"
"What, the roof?"
"No, the whole thing; how many rooms will it have?"
"That will depend on the size of the family. Not less than ten nor more
than forty. Ten rooms will answer for two people, and more than forty
complicates the housekeeping."
"Do you count closets?"
"Oh, no. Closets and dressing rooms, storerooms, bath rooms, cupboards
and things of that sort, are mere adjuncts. They are to the real rooms
what the pockets are to a suit of clothes."
"Excellent. I'm glad we haven't got to count the closet or the expense.
Probably ten rooms are not too many for two young people, but a pair of
childless octogenarians ought to get along with eight or nine; the
other way you are all right, only I would say four hundred. While we
are about it, let's have a comfortable, good sized, 'roomy' house. But
how do you propose to put even forty rooms with their various pockets
under one roof and give them all plenty of sunlight and fresh air? Will
you pile them up one above another or set them in a row on the ground?
In either case it would need a trolly car and a telephone to connect
the two ends of the line."
"It mustn't be more than two stories high, and I'm not sure but one
would be better."
"That means twenty rooms on each floor. The rooms will average twenty
feet long, and that will make the entire length of our castle four or
five hundred feet. Won't it look like an institution or a row of
tenements if it is strung out in a line?"
"It will not be."
"Cut up into wings and things?"
"No, it will be in the form of a hollow square. There may be a wing or
two on one side or another, and wherever a projecting bay or oriel will
add to the comfort or charm of the interior we shall have one, but its
general form will be a great square with an open court in the center."
"Oh, I see. An imitation Pompeian, or Florentine palace."
"No, nothing of the kind. Not an imitation of anything. It will be a
simple, straightforward, common-sense, American home, with room for a
good-sized family, several rooms for extra occasions, and some that
will not be finished at all but held in reserve for future
contingencies. It sometimes costs no more to enclose a certain space in
building than to leave it outside, and there is the same satisfaction
in knowing we have space to spare inside the house that there is in
owning the land that joins us even when we don't expect to sell or use
it."
"What shall we do with the big hole in the center? It will be too small
for golf or tennis, and too big for a conservatory. We might keep
hens."
"It will not be too large for a garden, with fountains for hot weather
and flowers for cold. It will be its own excuse for being, for it will
give light and air to all the rooms, and if it has a glass roof the
problem of comfortable living in cold weather will be solved. There
will always be the temperate zone at one side of the house,--that is
inside the court,--however high the drifts may be piled outside. Of
course the entire building will be warmed in winter and cooled in
summer by spicy breezes driven by electric fans, and we shall only have
to decide what temperature we prefer on different days of the week, set
the gauge, and there will be no more watching of the thermometer, the
registers, the weather reports or the wood pile."
"But I thought it was wrong to live in a river of warm air. Uncle John
compares that to taking a perpetual warm bath."
"It is wrong; but, my dear Jack, life is a succession of compromises,
especially domestic life, and considering the practical difficulties in
the way of open hickory fires in all the forty or more rooms, we must
be content with the artificially warmed air for every day use and
consider radiated heat from wood fires, coal grates, or sunshine, as
luxuries."
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