4 MY REAL ESTATE. 



rious outlay. If an additional fire-engine 

 is bought, or a new school-house built, or 

 the public library replenished, it is done in 

 part out of my pocket. 



Here, however, let me make a single ex- 

 ception. I seldom go home (such language 

 still escapes me involuntarily) without find- 

 ing that one or another of the old roads 

 has been newly repaired. I hope that no 

 mill of my annual seventy or eighty cents 

 goes into work of that sort. The roads 

 such as I have in mind are out of the 

 way and little traveled, and, in my opin- 

 ion, were better left to take care of them- 

 selves. There is no artist but will testify 

 that a crooked road is more picturesque 

 than a straight one ; while a natural border 

 of alder bushes, grape-vines, Roxbury wax- 

 work, Virginia creeper, wild cherry, and 

 such like is an inexpensive decoration 

 of the very best sort, such as the Village 

 Improvement Society ought never to allow 

 any highway surveyor to lay his hands on, 

 unless in some downright exigency. What 

 a short-sighted policy it is that provides 

 for the comfort of the feet, but makes no 

 account of those more intellectual and spir- 



