92 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



to use what influence may lie in him (albeit he is not 

 select-man) to abate the nuisance, and to make our 

 village and country road-sides smack of order' and 

 thrift and cleanliness. Good example will do very 

 much in way of reform more, in most instances, than 

 any zeal of preachment. If you approach an old- 

 school neighbor, who has inherited the propensity to 

 cumber the highway before his door with all conceiv- 

 able odds and ends, with any suggestions for a change 

 on the score of neatness or good looks, you will find 

 him, very likely, fortified with his own " idees " on 

 that subject "idees," which, like the independent 

 American citizen that he is, he is in no mood to 

 relinquish. 



" He can't git a livin by looks," and with such 

 speech shrewdly uttered, and emphasized with a rat- 

 tling horse-laugh, he floors your blandest sugges- 

 tions. Yet a wholesome attention to neatness on 

 your own score, which shall creep up to the edge of 

 his enclosures, and work by contrast, will in time 

 operate insensibly upon him. There is something 

 after all " very catching " in good order. 



But most of all, the co-operation of all the town's 

 people, who are disposed to neatness, is to be relied 

 upon. Every country place of any size should have 

 its " village-improvement society," to look after the 

 planting of shade trees, the proper condition of high- 



