The farm house is not what is called, a “paying investment.” It is not a direct source of income; neither can the other rural buildings be said to produce a direct income. Generally speaking, the farm house can fulfil but four purposes if properly planned and well constructed: the house may serve to keep the family warm in cold weather, cool in hot weather, dry in wet weather, and to gratify a love for the beautiful. Since the farm house as a paying investment is usually a failure, if it does not supply the wants of the household and fulfil its object, it becomes a failure indeed. The first great mistake which the prosperous farmer usually makes is to invest too much money in expensive, hastily planned buildings. The house should be built to serve its inmates; too often the inmates become the servants of the house. A farmer’s wife cannot well afford to devote one room in the overcrowded house to the storage of expensive, useless upholstery and bric-a-brac, nor time to keep them presentable and in order.

The debt incurred for a part of the purchase price of the farm forbids the employment of help to keep in order this home museum of things useful and beautiful, and things useless and ugly. If plainness, durability, and natural beauty in parlor, sitting-room and chamber would only become fashionable, what a burden would be removed from the shoulders of housewives, both in country and city! The time is at hand when health and intelligence should count for more among American women than show and the possession of a miniature upholstery shop. The furnishings of the rooms should minister to the comfort of their owner, and not tend to make life burdensome.

Not infrequently farmers of energy and ability become possessed of more than a competence near the close of life. Having lived in somewhat restricted circumstances, they think to make the close of life more comfortable and luxurious. So, notwithstanding the fact that most of the children have left the paternal roof, they set about building a large house, tear down or remodel, and add to the outbuildings; and at the close of life they leave the possessions encumbered and a farm overloaded with buildings as an inheritance to a child unable, by reason of youth and inexperience, to secure a competence sufficient to live and keep up repairs.

A beautiful farm of 180 acres, in central New York, is provided with the following buildings:

Some of this lay-out is shown in Figures 8, 9, and 10. These buildings could not have cost less than $15,000. A fair valuation of the farm at the present time would be $14,000 to $16,000. The family which now occupies the house consists of man and wife, one child, and two regular employes, one of whom has his own home. The father overloaded the farm with buildings, his son is struggling to keep them in repair, and the wife labors to keep unused rooms presentable. These buildings might well serve for a section of land and a family of twenty.

Another house not far from this one was built nearly a century ago (Fig. 11). If the upper story was a full instead of a half-story, it would fulfil all the demands of a house, except possibly beauty. It stands on a rather steep front slope, which stops abruptly on the shore of one of our beautiful inland lakes (Fig. 12). By reason of the steep incline at the front of the house, a tall building would be far less beautiful than this lean-to, severely plain structure. This simple old house has a restful, almost beautiful appearance when viewed in conjunction with the trees, the steep, sloping lawn, and the broad, placid lake. The shaded veranda gives the idea of social repose far more than does the formal, stiff, restricted one shown in Fig. 9, which has scarcely room for two easy chairs, and is so constructed that no grateful shade is secured. Woe be to the man who destroys this restful old house and substitutes for it a lofty, narrow-waisted one adorned with peaks and spires, bay windows and a filigree cornice!

Before ground is broken for the foundation, carefully considered plans suited to the site, the size and productiveness of the farm, and the probable income, should have been made. It may be said that the size of the house should be governed by the size, or the probable size, of the family. But “it is better to dwell in the corner of the house-top than in a wide house” with insufficient means to maintain it. The general plans should be outlined at least a year before a new building or extensive enlargement of the old is begun. The houses which are to be built in the future should be planned with a view to greater economy, convenience, beauty, and durability. There is now little excuse for erecting poor, uncomfortable, inconvenient houses on the farm. True, the rural population is handicapped, for few city architects have made any study of the plain rural house, and fewer have paid any attention whatever to farm barn construction. Even if architects had given attention to the needs of the rural population, the farmer would feel that he could hardly afford to pay $100 to $200 for the plans of a house costing $1,000 to $2,000, exclusive of the labor which the owner, his men and teams were able to perform upon it. The task of planning a country house is too great for the country carpenter; he cannot even interpret plans correctly; his range of observation and training have been too limited. Then, who is to plan the house? Why, the farmer and his family, and it will take at least two years of study and observation of other houses and their modern conveniences before intelligent, crude plans and instructions are ready to be placed in the hands of the draughtsman.

Few persons are original; therefore, if the little conveniences which help to lighten work and make life more pleasurable are to find a place in the house, they must be seen in other houses. All men have more ideas than any one man; therefore, the range of study should be wide, that whatever is suitable to the conditions may be adopted. After having built many farm houses and barns, and having made a long and most careful study of them, I estimate that from 30 to 40 per cent of the cost of farm buildings is useless, and sometimes worse than thrown away.

A small farm house on a modest-sized farm is shown in Fig. 13. The site is beautiful, and is worthy of a house better fitted to the situation, the farm, and the farmer. The illustration shows seven gables, and the house, therefore, might serve as a model for a work of fiction; but the left-hand side of the house is like unto the right-hand side, so it will not do for fiction, for if the truth must be told, there are eleven gables and twenty-two valleys on this house.

The vine-covered veranda is most beautiful, and looks cool and comfortable, but there are too many vines, and, with the exception of a few days in summer at midday, the air under this veranda would be damp and uncomfortable. It is far better to secure shade by means of awnings and a few tall, well trimmed shade trees, which preclude dampness and permit air drainage, than to overburden the veranda with vines. The covering of this veranda is an unprotected floor, and extends along the front and well around both sides. Notice the too expensive balustrade and frequent fancy posts, an enlarged section of which is shown in Fig. 14. All of this expensive wooden material is exposed to our ever-changeful, paint-destroying climate. The tinsmith, the painter, and the carpenter will reap a rich harvest if the external part of this house is kept in order. It seems hardly necessary to call attention to the chambers, which, of necessity, must be of such a character as to preclude comfort, beauty and repose.

A house built after the ground plan, Fig. 15, might make a not unpleasing picture in the landscape, but it would not be appropriate for the farm, and would be unnecessarily expensive in construction and maintenance. It would be difficult to heat, on account of the great surface exposure due to the broken outlines and numerous corners, which are seldom air-tight. The style might not be altogether inappropriate for a cheap seaside cottage.

A rear view of a somewhat larger house is given (Fig. 16). It would not cause the passerby to stop and stare. It may be compared to a well, appropriately, and simply dressed lady, while the other is a reminder of the over-dressed, furbelowed damsel, who attracts the prolonged stare and the thoughtless comments of every sidewalk idler. Here are seen repose, beauty, elements of durability, and freedom from expensive ornamentation and repairs.

A back view of this house has been shown purposely to emphasize the fact that the rear side of a house may be made nearly as beautiful as the front side. It would be improved both in looks and convenience if a partially enclosed porch were placed over the door and two of the windows.

The planning of a house is not difficult if wants are clearly defined and the principles of economy, dignity, durability and repose, as applied to the exterior of the house, are fairly well understood. If the site is ample, and it always is in the country, you have but to draw a rectangle, the length of which is one-third to one-fourth longer than its breadth. Fig. 17 is a ground plan of the house shown in Fig. 16.

The farm house shown in Fig. 18 is located thirty feet from a dusty, muddy, much-traveled public highway. Opposite to it, and immediately on the road, are located the ill-kept farm buildings. How the aromas of the stables and kitchen are to be kept each on its respective side of the road is a question difficult to solve. Here, as in so many cases, the wife showed better training and more commendable pride in her surroundings and her workshop than the husband. She may coax him some day to set a few trees, which may serve in part to hide his workshop on the other side. There are many things about this farm house which are commendable, and the only wonder is that so few mistakes were made in planning it. Farmers’ wives must have a sort of natural intuition; how else can the fewness of their mistakes be explained, for they have seldom received the slightest instruction along the lines of house-building. True, the tower on the corner is expensive and inappropriate, but if the house had an appropriate setting of trees and shrubs it might be beautiful.

The farm house should have one large bed-room on the first floor, a well appointed kitchen and living room. When the size, number, and arrangement of the other rooms are fixed, the lines which bound the outside of the rooms will not, of necessity, always coincide with the rectangular lines. On one side the house may extend slightly over, on another fall short of the lines which bound the rectangle. Does the rectangle embody fitness and beauty? If the manufactured things by which we are surrounded are noted, it will be seen how many of them are rectangular. The book, the sheet of paper, the pamphlet, the photograph, the picture frame on the wall, the rug on the floor, the writing case, the chiffonier, the trunk, and thousands of objects of use and beauty naturally take the rectangular form: then why not the house? Man constructs along the lines of acute, obtuse, and right angles unless there are specific reasons for adopting curves, while nature’s modes adhere closely to circular and curved outlines.

A front view of a substantial, appropriate house fronting to the west is shown in Fig. 19. It is the house of which a rear view is shown in Fig. 16. The wide, projecting eaves, the simple roof over the second-story windows, and the plain veranda, all protect the windows from storm and the glaring afternoon sun. The eave-trough near the edge of the roof serves to relieve the plainness of the projecting roof, which really has no cornice. The side and ends of some of the rafters are seen, and no attempt has been made to box them in. The treatment is dignified, plain, inexpensive, and suitable,—therefore it is beautiful. The planting at the left is too thick for any but a dry climate. A lofty elm tree would serve better for shading the veranda in the late afternoon, and permit of better air drainage. The trees shown are deciduous, and therefore cannot form an ideal winter windbreak. If they were evergreens they would be entirely too close to the house. The mournful sighing of evergreen trees in the bleak November winds does not promote cheerfulness.

Four college buildings are shown in Figs. 20, 21, 23, and 24. School buildings can hardly be said to be a part of the farm lay-out, but they will serve quite as well as farm buildings to educate the taste and to train the eye and the judgment. The reader will see at once which two of these buildings are most dignified and pleasing.

In the schools, the people of the rural districts have had no instruction which would lead them to carefully observe and compare buildings of any kind; and hence, with but rare exceptions, they are ill-qualified to make an intelligent study of them. They are totally unprepared to grasp the fundamental principles which should govern the erection of structures on the farm, and totally ignorant of the principles to be observed when large public buildings are planned and erected. Fortunately or unfortunately, some farmers will be called upon to judge of the plans for school and other public buildings. The plans for a president’s house and an expensive college building were submitted to a board of thirteen trustees of a flourishing agricultural college. Ten of these trustees were farmers of more than local reputation. I forbear giving illustrations of the results: suffice it to say, that happily the house fell down before it was roofed in.

A school building for the higher education should be light and airy; but light does not enter a building freely through narrow windows placed in thick stone or brick walls. Fig. 22 shows the effect of narrow and wide windows in the lighting of a building. Observe the shadow cast by the wall between the two narrow windows. The sun is directly in front of the windows for but a small part of the day. Usually it enters at a more or less acute angle, in which case a window three feet wide may be more than twice as efficient in lighting a room as one two feet wide, and a four-foot window three or four times as efficient as one half its width.

Figs. 20, 21, 23, and 24 serve to illustrate some of the fundamental principles which should be observed in constructing expensive public buildings, and they may also serve for comparison, and for educating the eye and the judgment. The knowledge acquired in a study of these buildings may be useful in the planning and erection of rural homes, for in some respects all buildings should be alike. The farmer seldom has opportunity to contrast and study large detached buildings in which beauty, dignity, durability, and, above all, utility, are combined, and he seldom plans and erects more than one homestead; therefore, many buildings should be observed, the desirable and undesirable features noted and discussed thoroughly before the erection of a new structure, however simple it may be, is begun. It requires no little knowledge to construct in the best manner even a modern chicken house.

The consideration of these four school buildings, so different in character, may not be dismissed at once. They are introduced for the purpose of arousing interest and for giving opportunity to study the principles of external construction. The true principles once mastered, their application to rural homes will not be difficult. If Fig. 20 be studied carefully, it will be noticed that the lines are dignified, restful and even beautiful, although the building is constructed on straight lines, with little attempt at ornamentation. This building is sometimes taken for an art gallery, and so it is, for in it is taught the fine art of butter making. Its strong tile roof, ample projection of eaves, and freedom from peaks and valleys give assurance that this building, barring accidents, will stand for centuries with slight repair, and be more beautiful as time tones down and softens the colors.

The building shown in Fig. 21 satisfies neither eye nor judgment. It is a noble building as to size and material, but are not the twenty miniature peaks out of place? It does not have the appearance of a restful school building, but of a mammoth seaside hotel. The many little gables might have been combined into a few large, noble ones, which would have given abundant light and lent dignity and charm to this well built structure. If we now transfer our thought from the large buildings to the brick dwelling house (Fig. 25), we find the same strong lines, the same dignity, and the same durability of roof structure, with a little added ornamentation, as are found in some school buildings. It should have been two-story instead of a story and a half, and the veranda might well have been more ample. This house, too, like the large stone structure (Fig. 20) is restful and satisfying. One instinctively sees that the cost of maintenance of this durable structure will be comparatively little. If this house be compared with the one shown in Fig. 26, it will be easily seen how much more appropriate and beautiful it is. One is built of cream brick and roofed with soft-colored tile; the other is roofed with poor shingles, has a cheap hemlock frame, and is sided with wood, which is covered with gaudy, ready mixed earth paints, which may fade out before the bill for them is paid.

Some day a genius will set forth for the farmer, in simple language and illustrations, the fundamental principles which should be followed in the building of rural homes. When that time comes the present children will then be mature and will have been so energized by nature-study work, which is now being introduced so extensively in the schools, as to be able to appreciate and profit by such literature.

Some of the tree-embowered farm houses have such a restful look and often embody such true lines of beauty that it seems almost sacrilegious to change them. On the other hand, some of them are so ill adapted to farm life, so unhandy and uncomfortable, that radical changes should be made. After the farmer has prospered, he naturally has a desire to build a new house or to transform the old one, not only to secure needed conveniences, but that greater beauty and a more luxurious home may be secured. It is difficult for him to find adequate help to solve the problem if he keeps the cost within reasonable limits. He may know where to begin; he seldom knows where he will end. Usually the first thought should be to preserve the old home, or the greater part of it. The architect is almost certain to advise demolition and the erection of a new house, asserting that the new structure will be no more expensive than the remodeling of the old, which may or may not be true. But he does not always know what is best, as he is usually unfamiliar with the farmers’ needs and traditions. Sacred associations usually cluster round the old farm house; every room and door and window may be associated with some epoch in life’s history. Through yonder door came the happy bride a half century ago; in yonder room the children were born;—every nook and corner has some tale to tell, some happy association. We cross oceans and mountains to view the birthplaces and homes (which happily sometimes are preserved and held sacred) of a Burns and a Shakespeare. Then is it not well to preserve the farm houses, where possibly are the birthplaces of many “Cromwells guiltless of their country’s blood.”

The first thought, then, should be to save and improve the old house, not to destroy it. But most of these farm houses are either too low or too high: that is, they are neither one- nor two-storied, but a story and a half. A two-story wing may often be placed either at the front or side, and may serve to give dignity to the house; or a lower room or two, a few comfortable chambers, and an entrance hall or vestibule may be added. Such addition would make it possible to remove the low, flat-roofed, leaky kitchen to more appropriate quarters. The formerly unused parlor might be transformed into a living-room, the former living-room into a dining-room, and the old dining-room into a kitchen. The details by which this evolution is made must, of necessity, be worked out by those who are to occupy the house. That home is enjoyed best which is planned by those who have to pay the bills; therefore, I shall not go into detail of arrangement. My object will have been accomplished if I succeed in creating a greater respect and love for the houses of our ancestors, and shall have stayed the hand of the iconoclast. Any one can destroy, but few can create.

So reasoned the college graduate on his return to the old homestead. The old house (Fig. 27) was improved by making slight additions and some minor changes. Even the green window blinds and the white siding were not disturbed, only brightened by the use of old-fashioned, unadulterated paints. The major effort was along the line of improving the live stock and making the acres more productive, soon resulting in surplus funds, which were used to erect the large and commodious barn. Simultaneously with the barn came the icehouse, and the windmill for pumping water. The observant passer-by instinctively knows that here are all the outward indications of morality, intelligence, and a rational and progressive system of agriculture. If the family be judged by what is seen in this picture of the farm above ground, the conclusion must be reached that here is a true home.

How different the impression is when we look through the open roadside gate in the next picture (Fig. 28)! Lack of intelligent purpose and of neatness and thrift is written upon every structure, and is especially shown by the want of any logical plan in the arrangement of the numerous small structures. The house, which stands just to the right of the beautiful tree, is modern in many respects, but the front is supported by numerous Grecian columns nearly twenty feet long, as inappropriate and as useless for a farm-house as is a coon’s tail on a lady’s hat.

Instinctively we judge people at first sight, and largely by the clothes they wear and the manner of wearing them. So we judge, and often very accurately, of families by the houses which shelter them and the objects which surround them. One can easily tell much of the character of a man by the style and tip of his hat. What noble deeds, what lofty aspirations in this day and age of plenty and opportunity, should we expect to have birth and fruition in the house shown in illustration Fig. 29! This building is not located in the country, but in the suburbs of a small, prosperous inland city. Unfortunately, this village is unlike many beautiful country villages and small cities in western New York in which there are no poor people. What a depressing effect this building must have on the well bred country lad who passes it weekly on his journey to and from the post office!

But how easy to go from one extreme to the other! Too many farm houses stand alone, unrelieved by noble trees or by modest planting of appropriate shrubbery, looking in the distance at the setting sun like lofty, whitewashed sepulchres. On the other hand, the house may be made dark and damp by over-planting. The house shown in Fig. 30 is a comfortable, fairly attractive stone structure, but is made gloomy and damp by the superabundance of evergreen and deciduous trees which fill all the space, barely thirty feet, between the house and the highway.

The church, as well as the farm house, is or should be the home of the farmer; but the church, like the individual, may become proud, in which case the old meeting-house is demolished and replaced by a modern new one, which may serve for a time to stimulate laggards and appear to take the place of changed purposes in life. But the debt saddled on the congregation tends to drive the church-goers to the rear seats and eventually out of doors. I have sometimes thought that a country church could not well be too small. Man is a gregarious animal, and does not enjoy church-going when the seats are but partially occupied.

The plain, substantial stone church shown in Fig. 31 is located in a sparsely settled district on the windy prairies of Kansas. It is certainly most appropriate and fits its environment; all it lacks to make it beautiful is a suitable setting of trees and shrubbery. It would then serve as a reminder of “God’s first temple not made with hands,” and not of one made with a jig-saw.

“It is a plain, rugged, austere structure, like the men who built it, and any proposal to modernize it would be received with disfavor; for it means more to the people than merely a church building—it is a sacred possession that is a part of their life,” and it is an appropriate monument to the sturdy religious character of the pioneers who stood in the forefront as a wall guarding human rights and liberties in those stormy days of the past. The country church should be as truly a part of the farm structure as are the house and barn, located on land held in fee simple.

The school-house also, as well as the church, should form a part of the farm above ground. We sometimes build parlors for the pictures, and palaces for the horses and cattle, and neglect the school-house. A city of 12,000 inhabitants in central New York has many expensive stables, some of them works of art. The barn shown in Fig. 32 is not more than half a mile from the school-house shown in Fig. 33. The beautiful stable might serve as a well appointed dwelling house by making a few minor changes. While such buildings are being constructed, the country school-house, the pride of the American, is left to fall into decay; or, if rebuilt, it is located too often on a little scrap of land which may be almost worthless, as though land in America were the most precious of all our inheritance. This school-house is designed to provide accommodations for both farm and city children living in the suburbs. The school-house has not a tree for shade nor a shrub to admire, situated on the commons among weeds and rocks, provided with one dilapidated outhouse unscreened by fence or tree or vine or shrub, while the stable is surrounded with rare trees and shrubs artistically arranged and a smoothly shaven lawn. Are horses and cattle worth more than boys and girls?

To leave the reader to infer that all school-houses are like the one shown would be misleading. A more pleasing illustration is presented in Fig. 34. Here the meeting-house, the school-house, and a bit of the farm are shown in juxtaposition, as they were found at the meeting of the roads in a shady grove. Since moral character should be the foundation upon which to symmetrically build intelligence and industry, the church may be treated first. While taking the photograph, I was struck by the inexpensive character of the meeting-house. The outside covering was of plain, matched, vertical boards, but they were kept well painted and therefore looked neat, and the seats were entirely comfortable. I judge that here true, practical religion finds a congenial home, for a long line of comfortable sheds were being built to house the horses during the hours of devotion. Then, too, the sheds will serve a doubly humane purpose, for where the pupils live long distances from the school the horse driven in the morning will have comfortable quarters until the school closes in the evening. A public water-trough near by, kept full from a spring, gave evidence that this little church and the school-house were potent factors in promoting civilization. To the right is seen a lad plowing. Here, then, in this picture is represented the three great corner-stones of civilization upon which to build a symmetrical, beautiful superstructure. To build on either one alone is to insure disappointment; when life is grounded on all three the result is practical religion and intelligence eventuating in a better understanding of the complex soil and the interrelations of nature’s modes of action. It means steady and effective employment, the abandonment of nomadic life, and in lieu thereof a permanent home and an abundant supply of the necessaries and comforts of life. The Bible, the school book, and the plow should all be engraven and intertwined in our modern civilization.

So far the general characteristics, fitness, durability and beauty of the country farm house have been discussed and illustrated, together with such public buildings as are directly related to rural life. But having discussed the size, best proportions, and most suitable materials for the house, and having put them into visible form, the building may be made hideous and unnecessarily expensive by careless or ignorant treatment of external details.

Most of the farmers who now occupy the country west of the Alleghanies came from the east and brought with them a varied assortment of styles of architecture inherited from the many European countries from which they or their ancestors came. These people, though of limited means, had pride and tenacity of purpose, and they could not easily change to the plain and appropriate exterior treatment of the farm house. This inheritance and persistence, as shown in the farm houses of the middle states, is fitly illustrated by the expensive and heavy return cornice, the massive columns, and the complicated and ornate entablatures which are supposed to adorn an otherwise plain house.

I have said that there is no place for the story-and-a-half house. Here is shown (Fig. 35) the results of two serious mistakes; viz., an effort to build a cheap frame of such a form that it is almost impossible to tie the building together, with the result that the roof is in danger of collapsing; and the attempt to beautify this cheap structure by over-heavy, complicated cornices. An enlarged detailed drawing of a typical return cornice is shown in Fig. 36. On the right is shown a cross-section outline of the members of the cornice. There are ten of them. The mouldings are now “stuck” by machinery, but these were made by hand, and 10 and 8 were formed of two pieces each, making twelve members in all. The infinite pains and labor in preparing the material and placing it cannot be realized except by a carpenter who has spent weeks and months in sawing out, in planing and “sticking,” and mitering such an elaborate system of useless ornamentation. Compare this with the cornice, or rather projection, of a house (Fig. 19) which cost $6,000. Fig. 36 shows a projecting eave of scarcely one foot. The next illustration (Fig. 37) shows one of nearly two feet. The latter is far superior to the former in that it is quite as beautiful, is inexpensive, and protects the external paint and woodwork far more than does the former. The piece at the top of the rafter serves to cover the projecting cornice, and as a roof-board as well, and gives opportunity to place the eave trough well outside, which prevents damage to the house should it ever leak. The frieze board is simple and serves its purpose well. It has taken a long time to learn that a wooden roof which is at least one-third pitch is far more durable than the flat roof shown in Fig. 38. Here the return cornice is carried across the entire end of the house, and the gable is ceiled with plain matched boards, both likely to leak and to rapidly become paintless.

Many veranda and porch floors and outside doors have no roof over them, or other protection. This is poor economy. It would be better to reduce the cornice to the fewest possible members, if it were necessary to do so, in order to secure means to roof the veranda, which, unprotected, decays rapidly. Or the money expended on the cornice, which results in neither use nor beauty, might well suffice for the building of an additional room, or to provide many conveniences, such as hot and cold water, storm sash, and window screens.

When the farmer reached the fertile, treeless prairies he was compelled to economize in lumber. Some genius soon discovered that the best and most scientific method of constructing the frame of a house was along the lines of ship construction (Fig. 39): that is, ribs, joined to a sill or sills, encircling the entire structure and placed at equal distances apart. Two keels or sills joined together by joists, straight ribs—joists—instead of curved ones, a roof instead of a deck, and the balloon frame (Fig. 40)—the best of all frames when properly constructed,—was invented. Unwittingly the ship construction, slightly modified, was adopted. In this frame the westerner departed radically from the style of his ancestors, but he could not be satisfied with a plain oversail projection. He could not afford the heavy box cornice. Having succeeded so well on the frame, he set about inventing a new style of decoration for the projecting eaves, but the cornice was not a success. The decorations shown in Figs. 41 and 42 serve to make hideous many a cheap dry-goods-box house, which blisters and cracks in the hot prairie winds. These houses sometimes receive no paint or one coat, or at most two, and in a few years, what with storm and sun, mischievous boys and wind cracks, this ginger-bread, dog-eared cornice, made of inch lumber by the use of scroll saw, looks as dilapidated as a college boy after a cane-rush.