OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



are concerned,) lead him up to your front 

 door between piles of gaping clam shells. 

 There is no rule of order, or of taste, or of 

 benevolence, that belongs to a man's door- 

 yard, that does not belong to his road-side. 



It is true, there is a liability outside the 

 fence to the incursions of road-menders, who 

 are, for the most part, barbarians ; but there is 

 no more reason for not covering or removing 

 the odious traces of these animals, than for 

 not removing the disagreeable traces of oth- 

 ers. An ugly yellow scar in the turfy mound 

 that supports, maybe, your garden wall, by 

 due attention, and a shovelful or two of fresh 

 mould, can be thoroughly obliterated; but if 

 submitted to the swash of the rains, it gapes 

 and throws off a great ooze of yellow mud, 

 which, next spring time, tempts the foraging 

 shovel of the road-menders again, and in a few 

 years your whole road-side is a disorderly line 

 of jagged earth-pits, with raw boulders cluster- 

 ing at the front of each. A little timely care, 

 often repeated, may at last win upon the re- 

 gard of the barbarian followers of the scraper 

 and hoe, and they may grow unwittingly into 

 a respect for your love of order. Such mira- 

 cles are subject of record. A safer alterna- 

 tive, however, if your road-side be no more 



lOO 



