The Road and the Roadside

by Burton Willis Potter

In Massachusetts and some of the other States, towns and cities have authority to lay out foot-paths in the same manner as public ways. It is to be hoped ere-long that the intelligent and public-spirited citizens of our towns and cities will cause now and then a good foot-walk to be constructed, where it would shorten the distance from one place to another, and possibly pass through pleasant fields and woods, and over hills commanding beautiful and extensive views. It is not pleasant to walk in the dust and publicity of highways, nor on gravel walks in artificial parks, where sign-boards and policemen warn you frequently to "keep off the grass."

Before our towns and cities spend any more money building boulevards and opening new parks, would it not be well for them to consider the advisability of laying out some foot-paths for the comfort and convenience of pedestrians? At any rate, foot-paths could be made alongside of the road-bed of some of the public ways, so that every pedestrian would not of necessity have to trudge along in the dust or mud incident to the middle of the road.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE ROADSIDE.

Besides the legal duty every dweller by a highway is under, to use it with due regard to the rights of the public, he is under a moral and Christian obligation to maintain order and neatness within and without his roadside. The occupations and amenities of life are so interwoven and intermixed that no one can live for himself alone with justice to himself or to society. There is something in the very nature of things which makes for the reward of unselfish exertion and for the condemnation of selfish acts. "Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life, shall preserve it." Public spirit, like virtue, is its own exceeding great reward. When one benefits the community in which he lives, he thereby also benefits himself; and when he is possessed of the right kind of a public spirit, he will beautify and improve his homestead and his roadside, and will even throw the cobble-stones out of the roadway in front of his house without compensation or even hope of financial reward.

When he plants a tree for the sole purpose of doing something for posterity, and then watches its growth and expansion from day to day until he becomes familiar with its varied aspects in sunny and in stormy weather, and finally, walking beneath its cooling shade and seeing its limbs swaying gracefully over surrounding objects, his heart goes out towards it with a feeling of tenderness and love, and he feels that he has been paid a thousand times for setting it out. When after years of endeavor in trying to keep his roadside neat and clean and covered with greensward, he finds that his example is having some influence on his neighbors, and that even the road-menders begin to respect his efforts to improve the wayside, he feels that he has been amply compensated for all his trouble and care in his own increased enjoyment and in the increased enjoyment he has been the means of giving to the public.

First impressions always have great influence upon our minds. Nothing will give a traveller a poorer and meaner opinion of a town and its inhabitants than dilapidated buildings surrounded by rubbish and broken-down fences. When a traveller passes a house of this character, he instinctively says to himself, "Some shiftless and poverty-stricken family lives here;" but when he passes a well-kept house with pleasant surroundings, he says, "This must be the abode of intelligent and well-to-do people." He feels like stopping and forming their acquaintance, for he is sure that their acquaintance would be worth having. Our opinion of a person's character is always more or less influenced by the clothes he wears and by the house in which he lives. The surroundings of every home of intelligence and tidiness should indicate that it is not the abode of the vulgar and ignorant. Therefore every owner of a homestead should strive to make it a cosey and pleasant home for himself and family. He should take a just pride in keeping his buildings in good repair, well painted and suitably arranged for the purposes of his business and a happy and healthy home life. The surroundings should be made neat and attractive, by the absence of rubbish, and the presence of green grass and shade trees.

If he owns much land, he ought to be landscape gardener enough to set out his fruit and shade trees and to lay out his fields in the best way for convenience and scenic effect. He should also have sufficient rural taste not to locate his barn and other out-buildings in such a way as to shut off the best views from his house. He ought also to have a general knowledge of the nature and uses of trees and forests, and the necessity of their cultivation for the good of himself and mankind at large.

Forest and shade trees greatly enhance the beauties of a country, and no country can be beautiful in the highest degree without them. If the green hills and mountains of New England were stripped of their woods, the lovers of natural scenery and rural life would seek elsewhere the gratification of their tastes. Even the stately homes of England would appear commonplace in the absence of the majestic trees and forests which now encircle them. A plain, modest house, situated in the midst of an open grass-plat and sheltered by a few handsome shade trees, is more beautiful and appeals more strongly to the feelings than the stateliest mansion unprotected from the sun. Who would care to live by the side of the purest stream or body of water, if it were not fringed with trees? Were it not for trees, would there be any beauty in mountain, hill, or valley,—for who can conceive of a beautiful landscape scene devoid of trees?