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Show 1 1 I Kathleen Norris Says: Bui Wing the Family Bell Syndlcatt.-WNV rtaturci. TAere U th secret of building a homt; making it place whert tveryont hoi a good time.'' By KATHLEEN NORRIS THE world is full of handsome, hand-some, useless buildings that have cost incalculable incalcu-lable fortunes, and that are no use at all. In your town and mine-everywhere, mine-everywhere, whether you're driving through New York or Newport, Santa Barbara or Forest Lake, you see these gorgeous homesteads shut up. Even in housing shortages they can't rent these ridiculous ridicu-lous palaces because to keep the bathrooms reasonably warm would take more fuel than anyone can get, to say nothing of the great sepulchral sepul-chral hallways, and the pantries, pan-tries, and the vast cave that once was a dining room. The history of these old places is a tragic one, not because so much happened in them but because nothing did. Some rich, dull old man and ambitious woman built every one of them, realized very soon that there was something dead about the place and that it would never come alive. I know one house outside of London Lon-don that cost two million dollars, and never was lived in not for a moment. I know another, in Hillsborough, Hills-borough, Calif., into which the husband hus-band and wife never moved. It haf 31 rooms, and the floors of all the downstairs rooms are patterned In Parian marbles. These people got a divorce and for awhile the husband lived on with a servant or two, in the gate lodge. Nobody ever has lived in the house. Pathetic Monuments. Up Fifth avenue there are hundreds hun-dreds of these pathetic monuments to man's idea that brownstone walls and plate glass windows, tiles and brocades, bolserle from Paris and rugs from the Orient, will somehow miraculously turn themselves Into home, some day. The real building of a home must be done with elements that these people never possess and never can buy. Love, to begin with, and dependence de-pendence upon each other, service, children, work and laughter. If by any lucky chance you are a woman who has these things, then the best thing you can do out of a whole world of service is to incorporate incor-porate them Into a home. Harriet, who writes me from a mid-west town, has a home, and just to read of it makes one feel what real riches are. "Having the seven children always about and their friends also, who number seven times seven," she says, in a letter inviting me to visit her, "I can't promise quiet or order not always. For my daughters are friendly creatures, and the five boys are all over the place porch roofs land rain barrels and ladders are their natural perching places. But we do have all the things you write about; a lunch table out in the side yard; a game room where their possessions pos-sessions are never disturbed; a spe-Icial spe-Icial closet In which they hang school coats and hats and put books and pencils In special pigeonholes. We have a ritual for Saturday nights, 1 cookies, cokes and pencil games; we "Mailt by torn rich, dull old man, , , TRVE WEALTH Big fine houset of themselvei can't bring happinea. l($ the people in them that make the difference. There are plenty of mansions around the world, built by lonely rich people who hoped to get some renZ joy out of them. Too late they discovered dis-covered that huge empty rooms are a mockery. It takes children and their friends, and cousins and uncles and aunts, ami lots of acquaintances acquaint-ances to put life into a house. They make noise and they' wear out the furniture, and they cost a lot to feed, but they bring human warmth and gayety. They make a "house into a home." Today's letter is from a mother of seven children. They haven't much, as posses-sions posses-sions go just a small house, not big enough for the five boys and two girls and their lively friends but they have the secret of happiness. build as many traditions as we can like a picnic on Dad's birthday and a comfort drawer for serious bumps, cuts, or injustices this drawer Is filled with odd toys and treasures, from which the afflicted one may select se-lect Our children think they are lucky, and other children do too, and that's what I want to give them; household laws of order and helping, happy companionship, home security. securi-ty. Work and Fun. "Of course, I never stop," the letter goes on. "Meals and beds, socks and floors, picking up and sewing together there Is no end to It I market twice a week, bake once, have my main meal in the ; middle of the day, and sandwiches i nothing else, but their variety can be endless and cooked fruit and perhaps cookies or gingerbread or pudding for supper. "We put unbuttered bread of all sorts on a tray, fill bowls with chopped eggs, mayonnaise, Jam, peanut butter, cheese, corned beef-whatever beef-whatever we can get with tomatoes and lettuce, and everyone makes his own sandwich, and the children feel sorry for other children, who hove to set tables and eat potatoes and beans tor dinner. "And what a good time It all sums up into!" There is the secret of building home; making it a plnce where everyone has a good time. AU the empty, dusty, magnificent palaces of the world don't hold have never held the joy of even one hour In such a home as this. They moulder away in your town and mine, and the children go romping by them, never even stopping to look In at their forbidding gates. It you want to build a great mansion, man-sion, build it in the happy simple lives of your family cousins, uncles, aunts, old people, children. That Is the only real building; that Is what makes America what she is today. |