nd great vital element for which provision must be made in "our
house" is FIRE. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire
in all its extent and branches,--the heavenly fire which God sends us
daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic fires by
which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light our nightly
darkness.

To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If God's gift of vital
air is neglected and undervalued, His gift of sunshine appears to be
hated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended on
ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavished to
keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box,--it has no
fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue; but, oh,
joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside folding-shutters, so
that in the brightest of days we may create there a darkness that may be
felt. To observe the generality of New-England houses, a spectator might
imagine that they were planned for the torrid zone, where the great
object is to keep out a furnace-draught of burning air.

But let us look over the months of our calendar. In which of them do we
not need fires on our hearths? We will venture to say that from October
to June all families, whether they actually have it or not, would be the
more comfortable for a morning and evening fire. For eight months in the
year the weather varies on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and
freezing; and for all the four other months what is the number of days
that really require the torrid-zone system of shutting up houses? We all
know that extreme heat is the exception, and not the rule.

Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through the valley of the
Connecticut, and observe the houses. All clean and white and neat and
well-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms,--but all
shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates had all sold out and
gone to China. Not a window-blind open above or below. Is the house
inhabited? No,--yes,--there is a faint stream of blue smoke from the
kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind open in some distant back-part
of the house. They are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like
potato-sprouts in the cellar.

* * * * *

"I can tell you why they do it, papa," said Jennie,--"it's the flies,
and flies are certainly worthy to be one of the plagues of Egypt. I
can't m