HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 303 



Gates, in all variety, dependent on position and 

 service, offer charming opportunity for simple and 

 effective rural devices. Far away in the garden it 

 may be worth while to throw a rude rooflet over one, 

 where a man may catch refuge from a shower ; in au- 

 other quarter, you may carry up posts and link them 

 across in rustic trellis, to carry the arms of some toss- 

 ing vine ; a stile, too, where neighbors' children, for- 

 getful of latches, are apt to stroll in for nuts or ber- 

 ries, or on some cross-path to school, may, by simple 

 adjustment of log steps and overhanging roof of 

 thatch, or slabs, take a charming effect, and work 

 somewhat toward the correction of that unflinching 

 and inexorable insistance upon rights of property, 

 which induces many a crabbed man to nail up his 

 gates, and deny himself a convenience, for the sake 

 of circumventing the claims of an occasional stroller. 



Rustic seats are an old and very common device ; 

 but with these, as with gateways and palings, sim- 

 plicity of construction is the grand essential. I see 

 them not unfrequently so fine and elaborate, that one 

 fears a shower may harm them ; and when so fine as 

 to suggest this fear, they had much better be of rose- 

 wood and bamboo. A simple bit of plank between 

 two hoary trunks held firmly in place by the few 

 bits of gnarled oak-limbs from which arms, legs, and 

 back are adroitly hinted, rather than fashioned is 



