vault


A vault, in colonial times, was another word for an outhouse (an outdoor bathroom). Cleaning a vault meant that you were emptying the hole that people went to the bathroom into. 

 


black and white photo of an outhouse
Description | Source
An outhouse with its door open
A very small wooden building with an open door positioned near trees.Image source: Wikimedia, 9/25/2009; http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Old_outhouse.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_outhouse.jpg&usg=__YgPT0nFPyDqIG13Y3VOSHwS60K0=&h=2048&w=1536&sz=1089&hl=en&start=34&sig2=nxk9pd9cXCrqHEqUCrL9gA&um=1&tbnid=Wr9W44NMETifKM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3Douthouse%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26rlz%3D1I7IBMA_en%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1&ei=Zia9SrSnI5TvlAfCqeW1AQ