{"product_id":"2940013761681","title":"The House of All Sorts","description":"THE HOUSE OF ALL SORTS could not have been quite itself in any\u003cbr\u003eother spot in the world than just where it stood, here, in Victoria,\u003cbr\u003eacross James' Bay and right next to Beacon Hill Park. The house\u003cbr\u003ewas built on part of the original property my father had chosen\u003cbr\u003ewhen he came to the new world and settled down to raise his family.\u003cbr\u003eThis lot was my share of the old cow pasture. Father's acreage had\u003cbr\u003elong ago been cut into city lots. Three houses had been built in\u003cbr\u003ethe cow yard, more in the garden and others in the lily field. The\u003cbr\u003eold house in which I was born was half a block away; one of my\u003cbr\u003esisters still lived in it, and another in her little schoolhouse\u003cbr\u003ebuilt in what had once been the family vegetable garden.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBothers cannot be escaped by property owners and builders of houses.\u003cbr\u003eI got my share from the very digging of the hole for the foundation\u003cbr\u003eof the House of All Sorts. But the foundations of my house were\u003cbr\u003enot entirely of brick and cement. Underneath lay something too deep\u003cbr\u003eto be uprooted when they dug for the basement. The builders did\u003cbr\u003enot even know it was there, did not see it when they spread the\u003cbr\u003ecement floor. It was in my memory as much as it was in the soil.\u003cbr\u003eNo house could sit it down, no house blind what my memory saw--a\u003cbr\u003ecow, an old white horse, three little girls in pinafores, their\u003cbr\u003earms full of dolls and Canton-flannel rabbits made and stuffed with\u003cbr\u003ebran by an aunt, three little girls running across the pasture to\u003cbr\u003eplay \"ladies\" in the shrubberies that were screened from Simcoe\u003cbr\u003eStreet by Father's hawthorn hedge, a hedge now grown into tall\u003cbr\u003etrees, flowering in the month of May.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI remembered how I had poked through the then young bushes to hang\u003cbr\u003eover those old rotted pickets, now removed to permit the dumping\u003cbr\u003eof the lumber for my house. I remembered how I had said to Bigger\u003cbr\u003eand Middle, \"Listen, girls, see if you can tell what sort of person\u003cbr\u003eis coming up the street by the kind of tune I blow,\" and I put the\u003cbr\u003eharmonica to my lips and puffed my cheeks. But a gentle little old\u003cbr\u003elady passed, so I played very softly. She stopped and smiled over\u003cbr\u003ethe fence at the three of us, and at the dolls and foolish, lop-eared,\u003cbr\u003ebutton-eyed rabbits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Eh, dearies, but how you are happy playing ladies in this sweetie\u003cbr\u003ewee grove!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd now my house was built in the \"sweetie wee grove,\" and I was\u003cbr\u003enot playing \"lady,\" but was an actual landlady with tenants, not\u003cbr\u003edollies, to discipline. And tenants' pianos and gramophones were\u003cbr\u003etorturing my ears, as my harmonica had tortured the ears of Bigger\u003cbr\u003eand Middle. The little old lady had made the long pause-she would\u003cbr\u003enot come that way again.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145828876528,"sku":"2940013761681","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013761681_p0.jpg?v=1763598671","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013761681","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}