Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/460

 444

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

walls, its dainty white curtains, its window ledge of growing plants, and its open shelves of Canton dishes, which, by the way, were presented to Miss Briggs by some of her neighbors. On the second floor are three small bedrooms and a bath- room, each a marvel of cleanliness, simplicity, and good taste.

In the basement are some storing-places and a bathroom used by the neighbors.

If the house, with the spirit of freshness and friendliness that pervades it, is a pleas- ure to the neighbor- hood, the backyard is a constant surprise. The tiny inclosure, usually the receptacle of all sorts of unsightliness, is neatly boarded and painted, and is trans- formed into a refreshing greenery, with potted palms, geraniums, and ferns. At one side some boxes furnish houses for the animals or reptiles which a nature-study class are observing.

That Miss Briggs has been able to keep the home so attract- ive has been due to the co-operation of an efficient housekeeper, Miss Louise Schmidt. Between these two the conventional rela- tions of mistress and maid are supplanted by a sincere friend- ship that finds its expression in a helpfulness, not only in matters of household convenience, but in the larger duties of life. It was not easy to find such service. In the first year Miss Briggs was on Tehama street she had eight different house girls, all but one leaving on their own account. Some of them were doubtful about the propriety of a young woman's keeping house alone, especially in such a neighborhood, and all objected to treating the neighbors as courteously as they did visitors from

KITCHEN.