IDIOSYNCEASIES OF GATES. 221 



choice bric-a-brac. If it had a latch, it was 

 rusty or did not fit ; and if it had not, it was 

 fastened, either by a board slipped in to act as a 

 bar and never known to be of proper size, or in 

 some occult way which would require the skill of 

 " the lady from Philadelphia " to undo. If it 

 was of the fashion that opens in the middle, each 

 individual gate had its particular "kink," which 

 must be learned by the uninitiated before he 

 or, what is worse, she could pass. Many were 

 held together by a hoop or link of iron, dropped 

 over the two end posts ; but whether the gate 

 must be pulled out or pushed in, and at exactly 

 what angle it would consent to receive the link, 

 was to be found out only by experience. 



But not all gates were so simple even as this : 

 the ingenuity with which a variety of fastenings, 

 all to avoid the natural and obvious one of a 

 hook and staple, had been evolved in the 

 rural mind was fairly startling. The energy and 

 thought that had been bestowed upon this little 

 matter of avoiding a gate-hook would have built 

 a bridge across Salt Lake, or tunneled the Uin- 

 tas for an irrigating ditch. 



Happily, we too had learned to " slip through," 

 and we passed the gate with its rope puzzle, and 

 the six or eight horses who pointed inquiring 

 ears toward their unwonted visitors, and has- 

 tened to get under cover before the birds, if any 

 lived there, should come home. 



