have small windows where large ones ought to be,
and vice versa, whether they balanced properly to
the eye or not. And chimneys--he would have as
many as he wanted, and no two alike, in either
height or size. And if he wanted the front of the
house turned from all possible view, as though
abashed at any chance of public scrutiny, why, that
was his affair and not the public's; and, with like
perversity, if he chose to thrust his kitchen under the public's
very nose, what should the generally
fagged-out, half-famished representative of that
dignified public do but reel in his dead minnow,
shoulder his fishing-rod, clamber over the back
fence of the old farmhouse and inquire within, or
jog back to the city, inwardly anathematizing that
particular locality or the whole rural district
in general. That is just the way that farmhouse
looked to the writer of this sketch one week ago--
so individual it seemed--so liberal, and yet so
independent. It wasn't even weather-boarded, but,
instead, was covered smoothly with cement,
as though the plasterers had come while the folks
were visiting, and so, unable to get at the interior,
had just plastered the outside.

I am more than glad that I was hungry enough,
and weary enough, and wise enough to take the
house at its first suggestion; for, putting away my
fishing-tackle for the morning, at least, I went up
the sloping bank, crossed the dusty road, and