they made the loveliest nest right here in the cherrytree. But they didn't come back this year-you can see the empty nest now."

"Well," said Mother, "let's hope that your housekeeping will be luckier than the orioles' and that you can use your house for a great many years to come."

THINGS TO DO

Find out in what direction your house faces.

Find out how many rooms in your house get the morning sun. The evening sun. Note what time the sun enters the room you are in most. Note the hour the sun leaves the room, and figure how many hours of sunshine the room gets. Which rooms in your house have the most hours of sunshine?

Go down into your cellar and make a list of the ways that dampness is prevented there. Examine all of your premises to see if there is dampness anywhere.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

A comfortable and healthful house must be built in a healthful place. We must consider how clean and pure the air around it is, how much sunlight enters the rooms and how well drained is the ground on which it is built.

Marshy places, little puddles, weed-grown and damp vacant lots nearby are homes for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, not night air, spread malaria. No site is good which is damp. There should be no gutters or basins around a house where water can collect and stand.

Dusty air, filled with street dirt, is bad. No dwelling house should be so close to the street that the air inside is always dust-laden.

The ground on which the house is built must be well drained. Then water that falls on the surface of the soil will be carried away from the house and its foundations. We can find out about this from the city engineer or the

State geologist. Poorly-drained ground causes damp basements. The air from such damp basements will find its way into the house, carrying with it disagreeable odors, and sometimes uncomfortable chilliness. Things stored in damp basements mold, mildew or decay, since the little living germs thrive in moist, dark places.

In our latitude (Do you know what this means?) the sun in winter rises and sets a little south of east or west. Therefore we must arrange our houses so that one side does not get all the winter sun. The best placing of a house is to turn the corners towards the cardinal points. What are these? Make a diagram with a house placed so. In what direction will the street the house faces, run? Sunlight prevents germs from growing. It warms and dries the air. Therefore we need as much as possible in every room in the house.

TO THINK ABOUT

Examine the premises for a block around your home. Your school. Make a map of the block and put in with blue crosses the damp places. How many are there near your home? School? How many stopped-up pipes, basins, barrels, gutters with standing water? Are there mosquitoes near-by? What should be done to improve conditions? What can you do?

How does the city aim to protect people from dusty air which might be blown into our stores or homes? Is your house surrounded with clean air?

Examine your basement and find out if it is damp. Why do we object to damp cellars?

Point to the north. Use a compass if you are not sure. How does your house face? How does your street run?

Why is it hard to grow plants in north windows? Name all the disadvantages you think of from having sun cut off from your yard and house. How should a house be placed so that the rooms may all get a share of the sunshine?

CHAPTER IV

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS

THE weeks that followed were full of excitement and interest for the Weston family-full of hard work, too, for although Father hired a man to dig the cellar and do some of the heaviest work, there remained plenty to keep Father, Uncle George, Paul and Ruth all busy.

Father had suggested that instead of a cellar they might raise the house above the ground on brick columns, with lattice work between.

"That," he

said, "will let the air blow through under the house and will keep the ground from being too damp." But Mother had insisted on a "really, truly" cellar. "While we are about it," she declared, "we

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