the Precious Ones, they grew fat and brown, refused to wear hats
and shoes when summer came, and it required some argument to convince
them that even a fragmentary amount of clothes was necessary. All day
now they run, and shout, and fall down and cry, and get up again and
laugh, sit in the hammock and swing their disreputable dolls, and eat
and quarrel and make up and have a beautiful time. At night they sleep
in a big airy room where screens let the breeze in and keep out the few
friendly mosquitoes that are a part of all suburban life. We are
commuters, and we are glad of it, let the comic papers say what they
will. The fellows who write those things are bitten with something worse
than mosquitoes, _i. e._, envy--I know, because I have written some of
them myself, in the old days. Perhaps it _is_ hard to get to and from
the train sometimes--perhaps the snow _may_ blow into the garret and the
lawn be hard to mow on a hot day. But the joy of the healthy Precious
Ones and of coming out of the smelly, clattering city at the end of a
hot summer day to a cool, sweet quiet, more than makes up for all the
rest; while as one falls asleep, in a restful room that lets the breeze
in from three different directions, the memories of flat-life,
flat-hunting, and janitors--of sweltering, disordered nights, of
crashing cobble and clanging trolleys, of evil-smelling halls and
stairways, of these and of every other phase of the yardless,
constricted apartment existence, blend into a sigh of relief that is
lost in dreamless, refreshing suburban sleep.

XIV.

_Closing Remarks._

To those who of necessity are still living in city apartments, and
especially to those who are contemplating flat life I would in all
seriousness say a few closing words.

It requires education to get the best out of flat life. Not such
education as is acquired at Harvard, or Vassar, or even at the
Industrial or Cooking schools, but education in the greater school of
Humanity. In fact, flat living may be said to amount almost to a
profession. The choice of an apartment is an art in itself, and, as no
apartment is without drawbacks, the most vital should be considered as
all-important, and an agreeable willingness to put up with the minor
shortcomings of equal value. Sunlight, rental, locality, accessibility,
janitor-service, size, and convenience are all important, and about in
the order named. A dark apartment means doctor's bills, and by dark I
mea