Barn door

“ The day was perfect, and Shirley found a beautiful place to sit, high and sheltered, where she would not be noticed when the trolley-cars sped by; and, as she ate her sandwiches, she let her imagination build a beautiful piazza where the grassy rise came up to the front of the barn, and saw in thought her mother sitting with the children at the door. How grand it would be to live in a home like this, even if it were a barn! If they could just get out here for the summer, it would do wonders for them all, and put new heart into her mother for the hard work of the winter. ”

“ You look across the still white fields. Your barn looms black in the near distance, the white mound close at hand is your wood-pile, the great trees stand like sentinels in the moonlight; snow has drifted upon the doorstep and lies there untracked. It is, indeed, a dim and untracked world: coldly beautiful but silent—and of a strange unreality! You close the door with half a shiver and take the real world with you up to bed. ”

“ The door had just banged behind a big, hearty boy of seventeen, whom he could still see through the narrow window trudging off toward the barn.
The lively whistle that sounded through the closed windows seemed to aggravate the man's ill-temper. ”

“ In the yard is a long wooden shed, with a corrugated iron roof; there are two doors on opposite sides, like barn doors, and black against the light of the farther door I can see men sitting at a table, and boy scouts running upon errands. ”

“ You know it will sound a great deal worse to talk about living in a barn than it will to go in and see it all fixed up with rugs and curtains and screens and the piano and a couch, and the supper-table set, and the sun setting outside the open door, and a bird singing in the tree. ”

“ Two or three new windows, a door with a little porch, a lattice or so for vines, a gable upon the roof lifting an inquiring eyebrow—and what was once a barn had become a charming cottage. It seemed curiously to have come alive, to have acquired a personality of its own. A corner of the great garden had been cut off and included in the miniature grounds of the cottage; and a simple arbour had been built against a background of wonderful beech trees. You felt at once a kind of fondness for it.
I saw Mary Starkweather in her garden, in a large straw hat, with a trowel in her hand. ”

“ In these warm, still nights we take down the slat screens that hang between the hand-hewn chestnut beams of the old barn, and with the open rafters of what was a hay-loft above us, we look out of the door-frame straight up at the stars and sometimes drag our cots out on the wide bank that tops the wall, overlooking the Opal Farm, and sleep wholly under the sky. ”

“ I knew there was only one bolt, and that a manageable one, between me and Turkey, for he slept in a little wooden chamber partitioned off from a loft in the barn, to which he had to climb a ladder. The only fearful part was the crossing of the barn-floor. But I was man enough for that. I reached and crossed the yard in safety, searched for and found the key of the barn, which was always left in a hole in the wall by the door,—turned it in the lock, and crossed the floor as fast as the darkness would allow me. ”

“ If you want a window where you can toss hay up into the barn loft, it may be cut just above the door. A boy who has seen the inside of a real barn will be able to cut some strips of the heavy paper, and paste them together, fastening them to the back wall of the barn to show where the cow and the horse stalls are. ”

“ This is altogether too cold a night to be promenading without a coat on.” She had dressed herself fully while she was talking and the others followed suit with all speed.
[119]
The barn door was carefully closed, but the big inside bolt was unfastened and they knew by that that Sahwah was outside somewhere. The wind had swept the snow off the drive and there was not a footprint to be seen. They spent some time looking all around the barn and up on the roof and then concluded that she must have gone down the drive, because, if she had gone anywhere else, there would be footprints. ”

“ Star mounted the seat beside Harley, and they were ready.
They turned to look back at the barn as the car started. The old servant was having a little trouble with the big door, trying to shut it. "That door is a nuisance," said Graham as they swept away from the curb. "It must be fixed. It is no fit door for a barn anyway." Then they curved up around Allister Avenue and left the barn far out of sight.
They were going across country to the Graham home to pick up Elizabeth. ”

“ Now you see there is no inference to be drawn from the fact that Miss Lizzie did not hear it when she was in the barn or in the yard for that matter. And you recollect how the side door stands with reference to the yard. That when a person is out around the corner, under the pear tree, or even under the first pear tree that stood from the south door to the barn, he cannot see up to that door because of that jog. ”

“ The little drive, determined to get there as soon as possible, pushed its way straight through an old barn, and arrived at the door simultaneously with the flagged lavender walk for the humble who came on food. ”

“ I woke, and creeping out of my lair, and peeping from the door of the barn, which looked into the cornyard, found that the sun was going down. I had already discovered that I was getting hungry. I went out at the other door into the close or farmyard, and ran across to the house. No one was there. Something moved me to climb on the form and look out of a little window, from which I could see the manse and the road from it. ”

“ And I sot there lost in wistful retrospection of the view from our back door where there wuz but one object in front of me, and that wuz a plain barn with no cupolas or minarets, or towers or domes on it. No, jest a plain barn with a slidin' door enriched and bejeweled when open only by the form of my beloved pardner. And the only vista visible the grassy path that led round the hen house to the ash-barrel, and the only ornamental water, the waterin' trough embellished only by the green moss on its sides. ”

“ They can't live there that way. It would be a dandy place to live if the windows were bigger and there were doors like a house, and a piazza, and some fireplaces. A great big stone fireplace in the middle there opposite that door! Wouldn't that be sweet? And they'll have to have electric lights and some bathrooms, of course."
Her brother tipped back his head, and laughed.
"I'm afraid you wouldn't make much of a hand to live in a barn, kid," he said. "You're too much of an aristocrat. How much do you want for your money? ”

“ The lanterns, hung from overhead, greatly relieve the somber effect of the heavy beams. At the rear of the hall a broad door space makes a frame for a pretty picture,—a field of buttercups and daisies, a distant house, and two arching elms. A large closet, once the harness-room, is fitted up with shelves and contains all the necessary china for a "spread" such as is given to the village folk several times a year, when dances are held in the old barn. ”

“ The door of a dwelling-house, which ought to correspond to the human size, is confined to seven or eight feet in height, and three or four in breadth. The proportions proper for the door of a barn or coach-house, are widely different. Another consideration enters. To study intrinsic beauty in a coach-house or barn, intended merely for use, is obviously improper. But a dwell{323}ing-house may admit ornaments; and the principal door of a palace demands all the grandeur that is consistent with the foregoing proportions dictated by utility. ”

“ The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving them the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from him, he strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door. ”

“ She could not get into the barn unless she went into the yard, naturally, and that she should stop there by the trees five or ten minutes is perfectly consistent. Does that look unreasonable? Do you not see families out in the yard, strolling about in your own yards, stopping under the trees, sitting under the trees, especially when they have a right to have a little leisure. Mrs. Churchill says, “I stepped inside the screen door, and she was sitting on the second stair, at the right of the door. ”

“ In the Morning when I awoke, I went up the Street and with Weakness fell down, so that Streams of Water ran over me, till helped up by the Clerk of the Parish's Wife, who led me till I came to the wall, by which I held, and with great Trouble got to the Barn, but the Owner of the Barn was so barbarous as to unhang the Door the next Day; a young Man, out of Compassion, hung the Door again. ”

“ A man and woman, dretful shabby lookin’, wuz a standin’ by the door of the hut, and the man had a shovel in his hand, and had been a loadin’ sand into a awful big wheelbarrow that wuz a standin’ by—seemin’ly ready to carry it acrost the fields, to where some man wuz a mixin’ some motar, to lay the foundations of a barn. ”

“ There was a handsome building already standing; a long low barn of friendly warm clinkered brick, with the wide new doors of a garage at one end, and at the other, across an arch, [313] beyond which cows and horses might be fenced some day, was a homely, comfortable cottage, of the type that faces a thousand English lanes, steep roof cut by white-curtained dormers, latticed deep windows against which vines were already trained, and a hooded doorway with a brass knocker. ”

“ I can think of no finer picture of rural peace than such a barn as this, the cool wind sighing gently through the wide doors, the beams stretching across the cavernous space above dotted with the gray nests, the air full of the friendly, homey twittering of the birds, some resting and preening their feathers on the beams, others swinging in amazing flight down and out through the doors to skim the grass of the neighboring fields and marshes for food, then flashing back again to the hungry nestlings. ”

“ The doors of the barn are in wretched condition; they will shut with a little human strength to help their worn out hinges, but not otherwise. The side of the great building seen from the road is much discolored in sundry places by slops poured from the upper windows, rendering it unsightly and offensive in other respects. ”

“ Mother could get well out there in that fresh air, and Doris would get rosy cheeks again. There would not likely be a school about for Carol; but that would not hurt her for the summer, anyway, and maybe by fall they could find a little house. Perhaps she would get a raise in the fall. If they could only get somewhere to go now!
But yet—a barn! Live in a barn! What would mother say? Would she feel that it was a disgrace? Would she call it one of Shirley's wild schemes? Well, but what were they going to do? They must live somewhere, unless they were destined to die homeless. ”

“ You know beggars shouldn't be choosers, but I'm sure one would choose a spacious place like this any day in preference to most of the ordinary city houses, with their tiny dark rooms, and small breathless windows."
"Even if 'twas called a barn?"
"Even if 'twas called a barn!" said the woman with a flitting dance in her eyes that reminded him of the girl Shirley.
"Well, I'm learning a lot, I tell you!" said the young man. "The more I see of you all, the more I learn. It's opened my eyes to a number of things in my life that I'm going to set right. By the way, is Miss Hollister here? ”

“ But of course I suppose we shall. One couldn't live in a barn in the winter, even though it is a palace for the summer"; and she looked about wistfully. Then, her eyes lighting up, she said in a low tone, for the young man's benefit alone:
"I think God must have made you do all this for us!" She turned and walked swiftly over to one of the new casement windows, looking out at the red glow that the sun in sinking had left in the sky; and there against the fringes of the willows and maples shone out the bright weather-vane on the spire of the little white church in the valley. ”

“ They do not come in single file, but sun themselves on the fences by the half dozen, run over the green-house, breaking panes of glass, climb up on the outside to the gable window of the barn, flit across the garden walks at twilight, conceal themselves under the low shrubbery, as if defying all efforts at dislodgement. ”

“ The lamp hung against the barn-wall, softly illuminating the lower part of the building, where bits of hay and white dust lay in the hollows between the bricks, where the curled chips of turnip scattered orange gleams over the earthen floor; the lofty roof, with its swallows’ nests under the tiles, was deep in shadow, and the corners were full of darkness, hiding, half hiding, the hay, the chopper, the bins. ”

“ The barn is still more dim than the land, so that a stretch of soft brown darkness is all that is known of the far-off roof. Nearing footfalls are heard in the road, and a woman's singing grows clearer. ”

“ There was an undertone of sadness and suppressed excitement, for it was in the minds of all the Hollisters that the time in the old barn must of necessity be growing brief. The fall would soon be upon them, and a need for warmth. They must go hunting for a house at once. And yet they all wanted this one day of delight before they faced that question.
At last they reached the final curve and could see the tall old tree in the distance, and the clump of willows knee-deep in the brook. By common consent they all grew silent, watching for the first glimpse of the dear old barn. ”

“ When the feet are sore and swollen, and when the pack-straps cut the shoulder like a knife, the journey may be tiring, but the glorious rest in a musty old barn, with creaking stairs and cobwebbed rafters, amply compensates for all the strain of getting there.
Lazily we drop into the straw, loosen our puttees and shoes and light a soothing cigarette from our little candles. The whole barn is a chamber of mysterious light and shade and strange rustlings. The flames of the candles dance on the walls, the stars peep through the roof. ”