THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
made yourself. A home-made table is one of the 
easiest things to prepare. Get an old, rejected mill- 
stone, and set it on boulders. In the hole through 
the middle fix a large vase, to hold flowers; or, if 
you will, saw a section of a big tree that is three feet 
in diameter, and make the section three feet high. 
Let the bark cling to such a table, and lest it cleave 
off, drive in a few nails. I am using sections of 
smaller trees for seats, and similar sections serve 
admirably for seats elsewhere, as, for instance, about 
your croquet ground, or in sheltered nooks behind 
the edges. I have three living arbors, and con- 
sider them delightful features of my homestead be- 
cause they are so entirely natural looking, like large, 
solid trees. I find that the birds approve of these 
dense evergreen growths as much as I do, and they 
nest overhead, and sing, without being disturbed 
by their neighbors in the hammocks below. 
Concerning arbors of wood I say little; and about 
all those other structures put up by carpenters, the 
less that is said the better. They are out of place, 
and out of taste, unless it be to hold up vines. I 
have seen rustic work carried clear out of natural 
proportions, and made fantastic. The most ar- 
tificial and disagreeable country place I ever saw 
[364] 
