ypt
from cellar to garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first
closed by outside blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains,
notwithstanding which it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You
found where the cake plate was by the buzz which your hand made, if
you chanced to reach in that direction. It was disagreeable,
because in the darkness flies could not always be distinguished
from huckleberries; and I couldn't help wishing, that, since we must
have the flies, we might at last have the light and air to console us
under them. People darken their rooms and shut up every avenue of
outdoor enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but flies; in fact,
flies are all they have left. No wonder they become morbid on the
subject."

"Well now, papa talks just like a man, doesn't he?" said Jenny. "He
hasn't the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what he
would do, if he were a housekeeper."

"Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut my
eyes on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I would
let the cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer days
when coolness is the one thing needful: those days may be soon
numbered every year. I would make a calculation in the spring how much
it would cost to hire a woman to keep my windows and paint clean, and
I would do with one less gown and have her; and when I had spent all I
could afford on cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my heart
and turn off my eyes, and enjoy my sunshine and my fresh air, my
breezes, and all that can be seen through the picture windows of an
open, airy house, and snap my fingers at the flies. There you have
it."

"Papa's hobby is sunshine," said Marianne.

"Why shouldn't it be? Was God mistaken, when He made the sun? Did He
make him for us to hold a life's battle with? Is that vital power
which reddens the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through the
fruits and flowers of no use to us? Look at plants that grow without
sun,--wan, pale, long-visaged, holding feeble, imploring hands of
supplication towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw away
a vitalizing force so pungent, so exhilarating? You remember the
experiment of a prison where one row of cells had daily sunshine and
the others none. With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, the same
care, the inmates of the sunless cells were visited with sickness and
death in double measure. Our whole population in New Eng