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a large barn, evidently having been built a section at a time and carrying appendages such as a tool house and shop, a cow barn, and a chicken house. The house usually looked fairly good but the barn was in need of paint and repair in many places. I feel that after Uncle Judson died, things began to slip a bit despite Cousin Kate's efforts. And, much as I loved Cousin Kate, I had to recognize that she was very careless about her dress nor was she a good housekeeper -- in fact, in the latter respect, she was probably one of the worst. As she grew older, and was burdened with more and more work around the farm, she became very careless about her clothes. Her favorite costume was an old black, tight-fitting dress with a remarkably short skirt for the times, and a low neck which did nothing to hide her magnificent bosom. I think she wore a corset. She usually wore black silk stockings and high-heeled pumps on her extremely tiny feet. But her clothes looked worn and wrinkled and she apparently had ceased to give a damn anymore about her appearance while on duty at the farm. If she went into town, she got spruced up and looked very sharp -- and she still could look [[underlined]] very [[/underlined]] sharp if she worked at it a bit. 

As for the interior of the house, particularly when we went there in the summer after Father died, it was a shambles and an almost incredible mess nearly everywhere. The handsome colonial entrance in the center of the front of the house, which led into a front hall with a stairway to the second floor, had been abandoned for a side-door into the murky, cluttered living room. Only the yellowing lace curtains provided any vestige of cheer. Located in a haphazard fashion around the living room, were heavy, worn, mahogany antiques, two sooty, pot-bellied stoves, a walnut Victrola and an ancient upright piano. Soiled hooked rugs covered sparsely the timeworn board floor. The trim was varnished a dirty brown and an array of somber family portraits and old engravings in chipped frames largely obscured the faded red wallpaper. Acetlyene lamps provided illumination. Piles of old newspapers and magazines lined the walls. The spinet desk was helped with letters, ads, clippings and phonograph records. The abandoned front hall was piled with old magazines. The upper hall was likewise full of hundreds of copies of various periodicals of all types, sizes, shapes and subjects. In fact, this ungodly disorder spread throughout the entire house, laced by the odors of the barnyard and almost continuous cooking. 

The kitchen was dominated by an immense coal stove, and walking room was limited by the vast wooden tables, icebox, bins and shelves loaded with kettles, pans, bowls, pots, dishes, cutlery, silver and provisions. The room was normally heavy with smoke, steam, fat-laden mist and flies, while the cacophony of the animals and clank of farm machinery drifted in through the open window. There was no plumbing whatever in the house. Drinking water was carried in from a well behind the barn and bathing was accomplished in the kitchen at a sink served by a hand pump.