THE COUNTRY YARD 



and strew broken bottles over the top, that 

 poachers and burglars may cut their blooming 

 fingers off when they try to climb over it. He 

 will spoil the view from a country road, and 

 spoil his own, by blocking the prospect in this 

 fashion, and will scare the stranger by an ex- 

 hibit of " No Trespass " signs in his cabbage- 

 patch — signs such as have likewise appeared in 

 our country within the last forty years. The 

 American seldom wants privacy; isolation yet 

 more rarely. Democracy seems to be preparing 

 the way for a closer social compact, in which in- 

 dividualism must suffer. As a token of it we 

 consider privacy so little that we bring the house 

 close to the road, in order to see the wagons pass, 

 whereas it is in better taste and for better com- 

 fort, to withdraw it by at least a dozen or a hun- 

 dred feet. Then you have some beauty and dig- 

 nity of setting; you do not cheapen yourself by 

 asking the public to look in at your windows, and 

 to listen to the carols of Mary Ann at the tubs. 

 You may also have an avenue before your house, 

 and if you plan this deftly, not only may you lead 

 it toward the road, but make it a vista with some 

 notable passage of scenery at the end — a road 

 7 87 



