The house was four rooms and a bath with an incidental kitchen and back porch tacked on during the construction. It had been a milking barn with a concrete floor, but my Dad transformed it into a little yellow cottage. The back porch was for hanging cured meat, washing clothes and churning butter. The front porch was a pad of concrete with a roof. We used a cinder block as the step.
As a child I had a "rollaway" bed in my parents room. Mac slept in the back bedroom next to the bath. This became my room when he moved away. We both kept treasures in that room: arrowheads, unusual stones, bits of army gear gleaned from our Dad or from uncles or just, "found" stuff. There was a bullethole in the north wall above the bed to attest to my stupidity. Fortunately nobody was hurt or killed.
I remember that in the beginning we heated the house with firewood in an open hearth. Most of the rest of the house would be near freezing, but that front room was always toasty. Then Daddy brought home a used "oil heater" and things got a little better during the winter. I had a pair of pajamas with white and maroon stripes and one freezing morning I got a little close to the heater and burned holes in them.
We never had an air conditioner, and we didn't know that we needed one. The windows stayed open all summer (unless rain threatened) and the doors were open as well. I don't remember ever locking those doors. It was a good house and my home...
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