But men still living remember how their very mothers baked bread in a brick oven, and have seen in operation many of the queer old cooking things we somewhat younger mortals wonder at in museums. Only a bit further back, the fireplace, at its most generous, had room for a seat in the corner, and grandmother sat there,—it was really what the kitchen-planners would call a rest corner,—sometimes, comfortable old creature, smoking her honest pipe and observing the stars by daytime as she watched the smoke on its journey up the big chimney. But the newfangled kitchen range was much more convenient; the easier management of a coal fire made a new day in household economics; a delighted generation busily bricked up the fireplaces. And so the sturdy useful kitchen stove is not so very ancient; and the homely, hospitable kitchen, even of our childhood memory, is still so new that only to-day is the Spirit of Efficiency providing it with routes of travel to save those wasted steps that mother used to take, and a cosy rest corner, cunningly placed to solace the soul of a tired cook with prophylactic contemplation of the most restful available scenery.

But the life of our larger cities is growingly inimical to kitchens. In the more distinguished sections, unfortunately, one must be more than ordinarily well-to-do to live in a house that has a kitchen: otherwise one lives in an apartment and has a kitchenette. In my bright lexicon, published by the Century Company in 1889, there is no such word. The thing did not exist. This Peter Pan of domestic institutions, the baby kitchen that never grows up, had yet to be born. And a great army of other equally unborn babies, who would be shrewdly created male and female, waited in the mystery of non-existence until such time as they, too, should enter upon life, grow up, discover each other in happily surprised couples, love, marry, and set up housekeeping with two rooms, a bath, and a kitchenette. It was then impossible—though I have since done it myself—for a gentleman to take his morning bath, shave, and cook the breakfast all at the same time, stepping with accurate judgment out of his porcelain bath-tub and into the contiguous kitchenette, and so back and forth, bathing, lathering, shaving, percolating the coffee, and turning the toast. Perhaps, also, humming a little tune.

Here, too, as the rhapsodist I have already quoted would say, is rhythm; nor is it impossible that the same imagination would find a wild yet orderly beauty in the design extemporized by his wet footprints between his kitchenette and his bath-tub.

But the thing isn't a kitchen, though it serves many of the kitchen's practical purposes. It lacks the space, dignity, comfort, and opportunity for helpful conversation. I cannot imagine any gentleman of the future recalling with poignant pleasure his childhood kitchenette. In fact, I cannot even imagine a child in a kitchenette.

THE PLUMBER APPRECIATED

'DID you ever,' said he, 'know a plumber who had grown rich?'

We stood in the kitchen. Outdoors it was a wonderful winter morning, snow-white and sparkling, felt rather than seen through frosted windows, for the mercury last night had dropped below zero, and, although reported on the way up, was not climbing with real enthusiasm. On the floor was a little sea of water, in shape something like the Mediterranean, with Gibraltar out of sight under the kitchen sink. The stove (unfortunately) had been lighted; and a strange, impassive boy stood beside it, holding in pendant hands various tools of the plumber's craft. The plumber stood in the Mediterranean. And I, in my slippers and bath-robe,—a foolish costume, for the sea was not deep enough to bathe in,—hovered, so to speak, on the edge of the beach.

I suppose I wished to impress this plumber with my imperturbable calm. Upset as I was, I must have realized the impossibility of impressing the boy. Swaggering a little in my bath-robe, I had said something jocular, I do not remember just what, about the rapid accretion of wealth by plumbers. He lit his pipe. 'Did you ever,' said he, 'know a plumber who had grown rich?'

Now until that winter I had never thought of the plumber as a man in many respects like myself. One may winter for years in a city apartment without meeting a plumber, but hardly without reading a good many humorous trifles about them in current literature; and my idea of this craftsman had been insidiously formed by the minor humorists. Summer, in my experience, had been a plumberless period, in which water flowed freely through the pipes of my house, and gushed obligingly from faucets at the touch of a finger. It was like an invisible brook; and, like a brook, I thought of it (if I thought of it at all) as going on forever. Nothing worse happened than a leak at the faucet. And when that happens I can fix it myself. All it needs is a new washer.

I run down cellar and turn off the water. I run up from the cellar and take off the faucet. I put in the new washer, which is like a very fat leather ring for a very thin finger, and screw on the faucet. I run down cellar, turn on the water, run up from the cellar, and look at the faucet. It still leaks. So I run down cellar, turn off the water, run up from the cellar, take off the faucet, make some slight alteration in the size, shape, or position of the washer, put on the faucet, run down cellar, turn on the water, run up from the cellar, and look at the faucet. If it still leaks (as is rather to be expected), I repeat as before; and if it then leaks (as is more than likely), I run down cellar, turn off the water, run up from the cellar, take off the faucet, make some slight alteration in the size, shape, or position of the washer, put on the faucet, run down cellar, turn on the water, run up from the cellar, and look at the faucet. Perhaps it leaks more. Perhaps it leaks less. So I run down cellar—and turn off the water—and run up from the cellar—and take off the faucet. Then, talking aloud to myself, I take out the new washer, throw it on the floor, stamp on it, kick it out of the way, put in a newer washer, put on the faucet, run down cellar, turn on the water, run up from the cellar, and look at the faucet. If (and this may happen) it still leaks, I make queer, inarticulate, animal noises; but I run down cellar, turn off the water, run up from the cellar, and take off the faucet. Then I monkey a little with the washer (still making those queer animal noises), put on the faucet, run down cellar, turn on the water, run up from the cellar, and look at the faucet. Sooner or later the faucet always stops leaking. It is a mere matter of adjusting the washer; any handy man can do it with a little patience.

Winter in the country is the time and place to get acquainted with the plumber. And I would have you remember, even in that morning hour when the ordinary life of your home has stopped in dismay, and then gone