afters on the outside or
inside according to the fancy of the builder; sunshine and storm had
stained it grayish brown, and no tint could better harmonize with the
background and surroundings. In one corner of the stoop a tin wash-basin
stood under a waterspout in the sink; there swung the family towels; the
public comb, hanging by its teeth to a nail, had seen much service; a
piece of brown soap lay in an _abalone_ shell tacked to the wall; a
small mirror reflected kaleidoscopical sections of the face, and made up
for its want of compass by multiplying one or another feature. We never
before ate at the hour of seven as we ate then; then a pipe on the front
steps and a frolic with the boys or the dogs would follow, and digestion
was well under way before the day's work began. Then the Artist
shouldered his knapsack and departed; the lads trudged through the road
to school; the women went about the house with untiring energy; the
male hands were already making the anvil musical in the rustic smithy,
or dragging stock to the slaughter, or busy with the thousand and one
affairs that comprise the sum and substance of life in a self-sustaining
community. We were assured that were war to be declared between the
outer world and Ingram House, lying in ambush in the heart of our black
forest, we might withstand the siege indefinitely. All that was needful
lay at our hands, and yet, a stone's-throw away from our shake-built
citadel, one loses himself in a trackless wood, whose glades are still
untrodden by men, though one sometimes hears the light step of the
_bronco_ when Charlie rides forth in search of a strong bull. All work
was like play there, because of a picturesque element which predominated
over the practical. Wood-cutting under the window of the best room,
trying out fat in a caldron or an earth-oven against our cottage,
dragging sunburnt straw in a rude sledge down the hill-side road,
shoeing a neighbor's horse in a circle of homely gossips, hunting to
supply the domestic board at the distant market--is this all that Adam
and the children of Adam suffer in his fall?

At noon a clarion voice resounded from the kitchen door and sent the
echoes up and down the creek. It was the hostess, who, having prepared
the dinner, was bidding the guests to the feast. The Artist came in
with his sketch, the Chum with his novel, the Scribe with his note-book,
followed by the horny-handed sons of toil, whose shoulders were a little
rou