body knows how many
dollars a dozen, and the connoisseurs make treasures of the few bottles
of that vintage which are left.

It was a restricted and narrowly limited life in the old days. Religion,
or rather sectarianism, was apt to be simply a matter of inheritance,
and there was far more bigotry in every cause and question,--a fiercer
partisanship; and because there were fewer channels of activity, and
those undivided into specialties, there was a whole-souled concentration
of energy that was as efficient as it was sometimes narrow and
short-sighted. People were more contented in the sphere of life to which
it had pleased God to call them, and they do not seem to have been so
often sorely tempted by the devil with a sight of the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them. We are more likely to busy ourselves with
finding things to do than in doing with our might the work that is in
our hands already. The disappearance of many of the village front yards
may come to be typical of the altered position of woman, and mark a
stronghold on her way from the much talked-of slavery and subjection to
a coveted equality. She used to be shut off from the wide acres of the
farm, and had no voice in the world's politics; she must stay in the
house, or only hold sway out of doors in this prim corner of land where
she was queen. No wonder that women clung to their rights in their
flower-gardens then, and no wonder that they have grown a little
careless of them now, and that lawn mowers find so ready a sale. The
whole world is their front yard nowadays!

* * * * *

There might be written a history of front yards in New England which
would be very interesting to read. It would end in a treatise upon
landscape gardening and its possibilities, and wild flights of
imagination about the culture of plants under glass, the application of
artificial heat in forcing, and the curious mingling and development of
plant life, but it would begin in the simple time of the early
colonists. It must have been hard when, after being familiar with the
gardens and parks of England and Holland, they found themselves
restricted to front yards by way of pleasure grounds. Perhaps they
thought such things were wrong, and that having a pleasant place to walk
about in out of doors would encourage idle and lawless ways in the
young; at any rate, for several years it was more necessary to raise
corn and potatoes to keep themselves