stry, in
finishing up and perfecting the labors of the farm; labors indispensable
too, and in amount beyond the ordinary housekeeping requirements of a
family who have little to do but merely to live, and make themselves
comfortable. The material should be _durable_, because the distance at
which the farm house is usually located from the residences of building
mechanics, renders it particularly troublesome and expensive to make
repairs, and alterations. The work should be _simple_, because cheaper
in the first place, in construction, and finish; quite as appropriate
and satisfactory in appearance; and demanding infinitely less labor and
pains to care for, and protect it afterward. Therefore all mouldings,
architraves, _chisel_-work, and gewgawgery in interior finish should be
let alone in the living and daily occupied rooms of the house. If, to a
single parlor, or _spare_ bedchamber a little _ornamental_ work be
permitted, let even that be in moderation, and just enough to teach the
active mistress and her daughters what a world of scrubbing and elbow
work they have saved themselves in the enjoyment of a plainly-finished
house, instead of one full of gingerbread work and finery. None but the
initiated can tell the affliction that _chiseled_ finishing entails on
housekeepers in the spider, fly, and other insect lodgment which it
invites--frequently the cause of more annoyance and _daily_ disquietude
in housekeeping, because unnecessary, than real griefs from which we may
not expect to escape. Bases, casings, sashes, doors--all should be
plain, and painted or stained a quiet _russet_ color--a color natural to
the woods used for the finish, if it can be, showing, in their wear, as
little of dust, soiling, and fly dirt as possible. There is no poetry
about common housekeeping. Cooking, house-cleaning, washing, scrubbing,
sweeping, are altogether matter-of-fact duties, and usually considered
_work_, not recreation; and these should all be made easy of
performance, and as seldom to be done as possible; although the first
item always was, and always _will_ be, and the last item _should_ be, an
every-day vocation for _somebody_; and the manner of inside finish to a
house has a great deal to do with all these labors.

In a stone, or brick house, the inside walls should be firred off for
plastering. This may be done either by "plugging," that is, driving a
plug of wood strongly into the mortar courses, into which the firring
sho