TAKING REINS IN HAND. 91 



There are absurd ideas afloat in regard to the front, 

 and back side of a house, which infect village morals 

 and manners in a most base and unmeaning way. In 

 half the country towns, and by half the farmers, it is 

 considered necessary to retain a pretending front 

 side upon some dusty street or highway, with tightly 

 closed blinds and bolted door ; with parlors only 

 ventured upon in an uneasy way from month to 

 month, to consult some gilt-bound dictionary, or Mu- 

 seum, that lies there in state, like a king's coffin. The 

 occupant, meantime, will be living in some back cor- 

 ner, slipping in and out at back doors, never at ease 

 save in his most uninviting room, and as much a 

 stranger to the blinded parlor, which very likely en- 

 grosses the best half of his house, as his visitor, the 

 country parson. All this is as arrant a sham, and 

 affectation, as the worst ones of the cities. 



It is true that every man will wish to set aside a 

 certain portion of his house for the offices of hospi- 

 tality. But the easy and familiar hospitalities of a 

 country village, or of the farmer, do not call for any 

 exceptional stateliness ; the farmer invites his best 

 friends to his habitual living room ; let him see to it 

 then that his living room be the sunniest, and most 

 cheerful of his house. So, his friends will come to 

 love it, and he, and his children to love it and to 

 cherish it, so that it shall be the rallying point of the 



