Page 47 - BoringStoriesPolyKidswArtwork_Neat

Here, the drainage pipe that ran inside the wall of the house would pour out a
torrent of water, much like a waterfall, at a spot about five feet up off the
ground level. Oh, we loved it! It would last for several minutes until the
backed up pool of water had exhausted itself then it would revert to its
normal trickle of water.

It was great fun, but, that final flight of stairs was not really a flight of steps
and, it was not on the inside of the house. It was an outside sidewalk, with
no steps, that ran at a 45-degree angle downwards from just outside the
kitchen to the basement level washing-ironing room where our maid had her
quarters. The rain made that steep sidewalk a slick as ice! On one of those
rainy-day episodes I had just finished splashing in the waterfall and was
sprinting up the sidewalk to go back up to the roof and plug up the drain
once more when my bare feet slipped on the slick concrete and I fell right on
my face. I still have the broken off front teeth to show for it, although they
have long since been capped.

Inside, Smith Cottage was large but Spartan. We had the basics in furniture,
but they were functional and made of wood rather than upholstered. A few
pictures hung on the walls, and sheer curtains hung at the windows and on
the French doors. A measure of our lack of cluttering “stuff” was that in that
entire large house there were only four small closets, one in each bedroom
and an extra one in the master bedroom.
We did have a telephone, though. It was one of those slender upright models
with the microphone at the top and the speaker in a separate unit that you
held to your ear. We debated as to where to locate it so that it would be
conveniently located to both floors. Eventually, we hit upon placing it on the
stairway landing halfway between the first and second floors. When the
phone rang, which was very seldom, we had to rush up the stairs either to
the landing or down the stairs to reach it. It was amazing that we did not
break our necks!

Both porches upstairs were screened and opened up to the three bedrooms
through French doors. My father eventually appropriated the porch by my
bedroom for a photographic darkroom. He ran water pipes and drains on
the side of the house, walled it in, and had a marvelous work space. He had
placed his bed headboard against the French doors in his bedroom and
could not enter from that direction, so he had to enter the darkroom through
my room. He would spend hours and hours in his darkroom developing film

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