Mary had masterminded a rational reconstruction of the house, room by room, wall by wall, steaming away wallpaper, sometimes even removing the plaster beneath the paper in order to replaster in the rough country style she liked, then sealing the plaster with plain white paint. She’d even plastered firecrackers into the walls, a trick of the Chinese she’d read about, so that if a fire ever broke out, the firecrackers would explode and wake everyone.
