might as well have not merely a make-believe playhouse, but a real little house that can be used as an overflow to put extra company in and that will be comfortable in both winter and summer. Do you remember two years ago, when Paul had the scarlet fever? How fine it would have been if we had had a little house then to keep him in so that the big house would not have had to be quarantined.

So the cellar had been dug, and Paul had noted with interest that the soil under the cherry-tree was almost like sand, just as the ground-map had shown it. "Why is it good to build on sandy soil?" Paul had queried. "Yes," chimed in Ruth, "last Sunday Mr. Horton read from the Bible to us about the man who built his house on the sand and the winds and the floods beat on the house and it fell, but the house that was built on a rock stood firm."

Father laughed. "I fancy that has puzzled older people than you," he said, "and I am not sure that I can give you a perfectly correct explanation, but I think Jesus had in mind the sandy valley of the River Jordan. The Jordan is like a mountain torrent rushing along in a sort of trough made by its clayey banks. When the snow melts, the river overflows its banks. Sometimes a day of rain will make the river suddenly rise four or five feet. So when the Bible says, "The rain descended and the floods came,' you must think of the Jordan at full flood sweeping away the houses that were built on the sandy plain. But a house built on a rock standing above the plain would be safe from the flood."

"I see," said Ruth, slowly, "but here in Pleasantville we don't have any river to flood us and wash away our houses."

"But," persisted Paul, "why is sand better for our house? I should think rock would be just as good, or dirt."

"I can very easily show you," said Father, "if you will get me a square of cheese-cloth and three tumblers."

A moment later Paul returned and Father cut the

cheese-cloth into three squares and put one over each tumbler. Into one piece of cloth he put several spoonfuls of sand, into another some dirt and into a third a lump of clay; then he slowly poured a little water upon each. "Now you can see," he said "that clayey soil holds water, that ordinary dirt lets it drip through a little more quickly, but that in sandy soil water runs away almost at once. You can see why it is good to build your house where after a rain

the ground will quickly dry and where, if a drain-pipe should break, the filthy waste-water will run away quickly instead of remaining in the ground a long time. Of course, a broken drain ought to be mended at once, but until it is mended the sewage should drain away as quickly as possible. I have heard that under a certain old English palace the ground is so soaked

A few days later the cellar was completed. The walls were made of smooth brick, with a layer of broken stone between them and the earth. Broken stone was also put in the bottom of the cellar space and cement over it to form the cellar floor. "Now,' said Uncle George," if we should have a rainy season, the water will drain away from our house and we shall always have a good, dry cellar."

Ruth looked admiringly at the smooth walls. "My!" she exclaimed, "Up at Dorothy Frost's house we went down in the cellar one day to get some apples and the walls were dreadful. They were awfully rough and dirty."

"The Eskimos," said Uncle George, "have an odd way of smoothing the inside walls of their snowhouses. When the house is all built, a fire is made inside and kept burning until the snow walls begin to melt. Then the fire is put out, or else a hole is made in the roof to let the cold in, and Presto! in a moment the hut walls are beautiful, shining ice. It makes the snow-house much stronger and Mr. Stefansson, the great Arctic explorer, says that it is also pleasanter to have a hard wall and not to brush off a bushel of snow every time you happen to brush against the ceiling."

Another thing that interested Paul was the cellar windows. There were two on each side, and for each window Father made a carefully-fitted screen. "Now," said Paul. "I guess that gray cat of Frosts' can't get in and eat all our cream!" Paul had never quite gotten over his disappointment the summer before when, on an especially hot day, they had planned to make ice-cream and he had gone down cellar to find Billiken, the Frosts' cat, washing his face beside the empty cream jug.

"No," laughed Father, "Billiken will have to be pretty clever to get through these screens, and, what's more, so will Mr. and Mrs. Fly and all the little flies. Lots of people screen all the upstairs windows and

then wonder where the flies come from, when all the time the cellar windows are wide open.

"But they could just as well close the cellar windows," said Paul.

"No," said Father. "We want a fresh current of air blowing through the cellar to keep it sweetsmelling and dry."

"The Frosts' cellar windows were all shut when I was down there," said Ruth, "and they were so. dirty that no light could come in, and there were piles: of everything lying around and

"There, there, Ruth," said Mother. "It is not nice to visit people and then talk about them afterward. Never mind the Frosts. We have only our own house to attend to. And I shall expect you and Paul to keep this cellar just as clean and nice as it is now no old rubbish, no dirt, no smells. Every spring, or oftener if it needs it, we'll whitewash the walls with lime-I know Paul will enjoy slopping the whitewash around-and we'll never be ashamed to have anyone come into our cellar, will we?"