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Show with a pick and shovel, ana livea on suit meat and hard crackers, but all the time there was one thought running through my mind, ono ambition, and that was to go back to Missouri some day and buy the old home in Franklin county and end my days thero. Well, after a time things began to come my way. I got hold of soma pood property, and made money. For a fow years I was protty bny with large enterprises, building stamping mills, opening up new mines, and so ou, till eventually I bad two thousand men in my employ. But I hadn't forgotten the old home, and after a fow years more I got to fueling homesick one day and just pulled right tip and started for Kt. lonis. Arriving thore I stopped only long enough to get some drafts turned into currency, and with a big bundle of bank notes under my shirt I took tho train for Franklin county. It seemed to mo that I was feeling twenty years younger th$m at any time since I had started for the coast, I can't tall you what my feelings were as the train neared the old place. 1 was a boy again. "Well, I finally reached the house, but I hardly knew it. Nothing seemed familiar to me. The barn had no paint on and the doors were falling off or banging by ono hinge. The fences had been movod about and permitted to run down, and you know what a change the tearing down of fences will make in a farm place. The beautiful lawn in front of the house was a cow pasture. All t he shrubbery had been destroyed. A big elm tree, in the branches of which I hud taken many a Sunday afternoon nap, had been chopped down, probably for the fire wood that could be got out of it. The house itself was in a sad state. The paint was peeling off from exposure to the weather. The green blinds wero hanging every way, and the vines which I had myself trailed tip the columns of the galleries had been torn down and ruined by the cows. Worso than all, the German gardener and dairyman, who owned the place, had built a cowbarn almost over the dear old well, and its waters had been polluted by the drainage. drain-age. When I saw this I gave up and went back to tho railway Btation. I carried car-ried my bundle of bank notes with me, and I did not buy the old place. I give yon my word and honor that I cried all the way to St. Louis." The most perfect house in Washington, and the most beautiful, ia that of Mr. Warder, a retired reaper and mower manufacturer of Springfield, O. It is a Dutch house, with a stone court and gable roofs. It was built by Richardson, the greatest architect this country has as yet produced, and the designer of many of the finest private houses in Washington. Washing-ton. He not only designed the Warder house, but the furniture which it contains, con-tains, and under his direction the very hangings were selected and patterns cut. The result is said to be the most artistic home in America. There is nothing ostentatious os-tentatious about it, and it was not so very costly. I am glad to add that it is a real home. There is one house in town, and certainly cer-tainly the handsomest house in Washington Wash-ington considered as a sample of modern residence architectnre.that is, in fact, too large. H is the chateau of Senator Sawyer. Saw-yer. The mansion was designed before the death of Mrs. Sawyer, and she was very fond of going over the plans, suggesting sug-gesting changes here and thore, and arranging in her good housewifely eye the whole domestic establishment from carpets and curtains to the monogram mono-gram on the linen. When Mrs. Sawyer Saw-yer died the senator said there was no ' mason why he should go on with the house, except that Mrs. Sawyer Saw-yer had wanted it built. He had no use for it himself. So the house was finished, and as soon as three or four rooms were ready for occupancy the senator and his married daughter moved in. I am told that the senator, while proud of the house, is oppressed by its vast size. AH tho rooms seem empty because the wife is not there. In showing one through the groat house the senator pauses here and there to remark that "mother'" planned this and "mother" wanted that so and so. Senator Sawyer is in many ways a very sweet old man, even if ho is fat and waddly. "I suppose it was foolish to build such a big house as this just for two or three quiet people to live in," he said, "but I don't regret it. If I got only $5,000 for it when I sell it 1 won't be sorry I made the investment, because mother took so much interest in it." The finest house for the purposes of entertainment of large crowds in Washington Wash-ington is the British legation. The legation lega-tion building is nearly as large as tho White House, and much more conveniently conven-iently arranged. All the rooms on the lower floor, including a ballroom half as big as the east room, two or three large drawing rooms, a dining room and a number of smaller rooms, can be thrown into what is practically one huge apartment, apart-ment, along with a long, wido hall. It is said by raperts that the legation can comfortably accommodate a larger number num-ber of people than the White House. Above tho drawing rooms on the lower floor, and running round the grand staircase, stair-case, is a gallery on which two or three hundred people can stand and overlook the brilliant scene bolow. The British legation house was for a long time the only one here owned by a foreign government. gov-ernment. The bricks with which it was built were imported from England. Now tho Mexican government has its own building in Washington. When tho British minister bought tho property on which the legation house stands, somo ten or twelve years Rgo, there was a great outcry against him. It was charged that the site was away out in tho country, coun-try, and that the minister had been playing play-ing into tho hands of the real estate speculators. iow the property of the Uritish government in Washington could be sold lor twenty times the sum paid forii, Walter Weixkax. OSHIMi'M HOUSES. '.. They Are Yearly Growing Larger and More Costly Large Sums Ex- ' penued ia Homes. A WONDERFUL IMPROVEMENT. Washington Will Be a City of Palaces and Modern Castles A Striking Dis-s Dis-s play of Beautiful Architecture. -w- ' -y-ASIllSGTOST, July 7.- B I At the wedding of Mar-all Mar-all Karet K'aine and Walter -- S ft I iJamrcsch it was fouud .111 jineessary to limit tho 1 1 H Dumber of invitations on If If account of the smallncss W W of tho house. Yet tho house which Mr. hlaino occupies is not a small one by liny means. It has au enormous drawing room and two or tbro large parlors, apartments which can be readily thrown into one. It is one of the largest houses in the city, and probably can accommodate as large a throng on a social occasion as any other. Washington, is full of large houses, designed de-signed for social entertaining, and yet the general complaint ia that the houses are too small. Parlors are often crowded crowd-ed almost to suffocation. " In no other way can the growth of the society of the capital be better illustrated than by this increasing inadequacy of tho houses which do the official entertaining. The official society of the cupital is built on such lines that it has outgrown even the handiwork of the architect and the builder. Mr. Blaine'e own house, occupied occu-pied by Mr. Leiter, is one of the largest private houses in the country, and at times it is not large enough for the demands de-mands made on it. All the cabinet officers find the same trouble, though they rented the largest dwellings they could find in the city. The palatial home of the rice president comes nearor filling the bill than any of the other official houses, but even it is sometimes uncomfortably thronged. The fact is, at no distant day the leading official homes in Washington will have to be palaces, or prove inadequate to the needs of the elaborate and extended society which flocks to thorn. One of the most magnificent houses in Washington is that which Senator Hearst has just occupied. That is to say, the Hearsts have occupied a part of the house; though it is hardly fair to say that Senator Hearst has occupied this house, either, for he is not much of a factor in the domestic organization. The great house has been built and furnished entirely by Mrs. Hearst. The senator has not bothered his head about the matter, mat-ter, except to pay the bills, an easy task for him. He told Mrs. Hoarst to go ahead and pick out her site and see her architect and tho contractors and build up a house, and when she was ready to move in he would move in with her and that would be all there was to it, so far as he was concerned. He has faithfully kept his part of the contract, and when Mrs. Hearst decided to move into a part of the house while tho remainder was being be-ing finished Uncle George, as the senatoi i known by all of his friends, took possession pos-session of the little corner assigned him , without a bit of grumbling. But Mrs. ; Hoarst was a bitterly disappointed woman. wo-man. The great bouse was promised het by the contractors the first day of last October; then it was to be ready in November, No-vember, and finally in December. "Surely," Mrs. Hearst thought, "we 1 shall be able to get in for the social season." sea-son." But it was Lent before even a part of the house coitid be occupied, and to this day the workmen are hammering away in some of tha best rooms of the house. The lesson of this is that if palaces are Deeded for the leading houses of the American capital, the palaces should be built. , They cannot be ordered one month and be ready for occupancy the ' next. The American stylo of building homes to order, much as shoemakers make shoes or tailors trousers, will not apply with satisfactory results in the 'creation of palaces such as Washington is becoming the seat of. The tendency here now is toward great houses. Probably there are fifty housen in town which would do credit to any European capital. They are not exactly palaces, but the palace is the next step Iwyoud. Oue may look forward a few years and in his mind's eye see the hills which surround Washington covered with castles and chateaux of princely grandeur. These will be the homes not .of earls aiid dukes and barons, but of the 'wealthy citizens of America who seek -along with a delightful climate the sochd advantages of the capital. A cordon of hills surrounds the entire city, at a distance dis-tance varying from two to four miles from the Capitol, and when these are crowned by modern palaces and ca,4'os, as they some day will be, the result will lie a city the fairest on earth. Going back again to the Hoarst house. It is said its mistress has discovered already al-ready that a mistake was made in not planning for a mansion twice as large. It is a house of seventy rooms, and one hundred and fifty rooms would be about right, ehe thinks. ' This is encroaching upon the domain of tha palatial, sure enough, and such quantities of furniture as tiiat house has swallowed up, continuing continu-ing to cry lustily for more. Every day for three months big wagons have been emptied of their contents iu front of the Hearst mansion. I have heard it said that thore is already in the hou.so $170,-000 $170,-000 worth of furniture, rugs, pictures aud hangings, and I can easily believe it. Many of the fine pictures and antique ruga were purchased by Mrs. Hoarst while abroad, and her fancies and not the prices dictated every investment. Much of the furniture wasmudetoordei from designs furnished by tho architect or .by Mrs. Hearst herself. . "This is a pretty tine house, of course," said Uncle George Hearst, while smoking smok-ing his after dinner oijjar in a room linod and coiled with his favorite California red wood, "but it is nothing like the old home we used to have dowu in Missouri. Think-of au old fashioued southiru farm house, with a big gallery or porch, running run-ning around tha whole structure, a great lawn in front, filled with trees a hundred years old, a well . which contained .the best.waleH" hn world, and an orchard tint f!i m v. Vfli etiw the fine rmjt tuo lips or man ever touched. That was our old home in Franklin county, Missouri There I lived till I was BO years old, working on the farm and enjoying en-joying life a only farm boys do enjoy it. In 1850 1 was taken with the California fever and went out to the coast. I had some hard times. I worked in the mines ' (...,... - .. . |