“Maybe it ain’t any Hotel Radisson parlor, but still, it’s so much better than anything these hired girls are accustomed to at home that they think it’s fine.  Seems foolish to spend money when they wouldn’t appreciate it.”

But that night he drawled, with the casualness of a man who wishes to be surprising and delightful, “Carrie, don’t know but what we might begin to think about building a new house, one of these days.  How’d you like that?”

“W-why——­”

“I’m getting to the point now where I feel we can afford one—­and a corker!  I’ll show this burg something like a real house!  We’ll put one over on Sam and Harry!  Make folks sit up an’ take notice!”

“Yes,” she said.

He did not go on.

Daily he returned to the subject of the new house, but as to time and mode he was indefinite.  At first she believed.  She babbled of a low stone house with lattice windows and tulip-beds, of colonial brick, of a white frame cottage with green shutters and dormer windows.  To her enthusiasms he answered, “Well, ye-es, might be worth thinking about.  Remember where I put my pipe?” When she pressed him he fidgeted, “I don’t know; seems to me those kind of houses you speak of have been overdone.”

It proved that what he wanted was a house exactly like Sam Clark’s, which was exactly like every third new house in every town in the country:  a square, yellow stolidity with immaculate clapboards, a broad screened porch, tidy grass-plots, and concrete walks; a house resembling the mind of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes to church once a month and owns a good car.

He admitted, “Well, yes, maybe it isn’t so darn artistic but——­Matter of fact, though, I don’t want a place just like Sam’s.  Maybe I would cut off that fool tower he’s got, and I think probably it would look better painted a nice cream color.  That yellow on Sam’s house is too kind of flashy.  Then there’s another kind of house that’s mighty nice and substantial-looking, with shingles, in a nice brown stain, instead of clapboards—­seen some in Minneapolis.  You’re way off your base when you say I only like one kind of house!”

Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie came in one evening when Carol was sleepily advocating a rose-garden cottage.

“You’ve had a lot of experience with housekeeping, aunty, and don’t you think,” Kennicott appealed, “that it would be sensible to have a nice square house, and pay more attention to getting a crackajack furnace than to all this architecture and doodads?”

Aunt Bessie worked her lips as though they were an elastic band.  “Why of course!  I know how it is with young folks like you, Carrie; you want towers and bay-windows and pianos and heaven knows what all, but the thing to get is closets and a good furnace and a handy place to hang out the washing, and the rest don’t matter.”

Uncle Whittier dribbled a little, put his face near to Carol’s, and sputtered, “Course it don’t!  What d’you care what folks think about the outside of your house?  It’s the inside you’re living in.  None of my business, but I must say you young folks that’d rather have cakes than potatoes get me riled.”