yself blame people that shut up their rooms and darken their
houses in fly-time,--do you, mamma?"

"Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but a short season when
this is necessary; yet the habit of shutting up lasts the year round,
and gives to New-England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited
look which is so peculiar."

"The one fact that a traveller would gather in passing through our
villages would be this," said I, "that the people live in their houses
and in the dark. Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people
sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the inhabitants are
living out-of-doors."

"Well," said Jennie, "I have told you why, for I have been at Uncle
Peter's in summer, and aunt does her spring-cleaning in May, and then
she shuts all the blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays
clean till October. That's the whole of it. If she had all her windows
open, there would be paint and windows to be cleaned every week,--and
who is to do it? For my part, I can't much blame her."

"Well," said I, "I have my doubts about the sovereign efficacy of living
in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to be rid of
flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a day or two
at a country boarding-house which was dark as Egypt from cellar to
garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first closed by outside
blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding which
it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You found where the cake-plate was
by the buzz which your hand made, if you chanced to reach in that
direction. It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies could not
always be distinguished from huckleberries; and I couldn't help wishing,
that, since we must have the flies, we might at least have the light and
air to console us under them. People darken their rooms and shut up
every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but
flies; in fact, flies are all they have left. No wonder they become
morbid on the subject."

"Well, now, papa talks just like a man,--doesn't he?" said Jennie. "He
hasn't the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what he
would do, if he were a housekeeper."

"Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut my eyes
on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let the
cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer days when
coolness is th