my stone walls.

The eave-spouts bother me. I don't need to save the water from the
roof, and have concluded to let it pour where it pleases. The porches
protect the doorsteps, and I think it will be easier to take care of
it after it falls than to hang gutters all around emptying at the
corners and angles. They are troublesome things anyway. The leaves
clog them, the ice dams them, the snow comes down in an avalanche and
smashes them, they fall to leaking and spoil the cornice, and after
they are all done there's no certainty that the water won't run the
wrong way. I can put them up afterwards if necessary, but don't
believe it will be.

The last counsel you gave me was to open the eyes of my house for the
daylight to shine through without let or hindrance. I'm beyond advice
on that subject. Carpets and curtains shall fade rather than wife and
babies. My windows yawn like barn-doors. There isn't a room in the
house that won't have the sun a part of the day, and he looks into the
sitting-room from the moment his cloudy bedclothes are thrown off in
the morning, till he hides his face behind Mount Tom at night. My
glass bill will count up, but I'd rather pay for glass in windows than
for iron in the shape of tonics.

Now, if you will settle the question of warming and ventilating you
shall be honorably discharged. Don't try to show off your science by
telling me how carbon, the wicked, poison stuff, is heavy, and we must
leave a hole near the floor where it can run out and be coaxed up to
the ridgepole after it gets cold, and then make pictures covered with
arrow-heads to show how well-educated air ought to go! Talk as many
gases as you please to other folks. I know two or three things for
certain. Coal costs ten dollars a ton; that's one. I want just as
large a house in winter as in summer; that's another. I mean the whole
house must be comfortable, in shape to use when needed. I know a man
will be cut off suddenly by his own breath if he has nothing else for
his lungs. Mixing fresh air with it will prolong his career more or
less, but it's only a question of time when he shall give up the ghost
if he attempts to subsist on anything less simple and pure in the way
of respiration than the out-door atmosphere. That's bad enough in some
places. What I don't know and want you to tell me, is how to keep
cool in summer, warm in winter, and at the same time have all the
fresh air we can possibly consume. I know how to keep w