Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/179

170 take five or six papers and two or three magazines. He would find it would pay him in the long run, and there ought to be a law made, compelling him to go to the post office once a day."

Mr. Maxwell burst out laughing. "And another to make him mend his roads as well as mend his ways. I tell you Gray, the bad roads would put an end to all these fine schemes of yours. Imagine farmers calling on each other on a dark evening after a spring freshet. I can see them mired and bogged, and the house a mile ahead of them."

"That is true," said Mr. Harry, "the road question is a serious one. Do you know how father and I settle it?"

"No," said Mr. Maxwell.

"We got so tired of the whole business, and the farmers around here spent so much time in discussing the art of roadmaking, as to whether it should be viewed from the engineering point of view, or the farmers' practical point of view, and whether we would require this number of stump extractors or that number, and how many shovels and crushers and ditchers would be necessary to keep our roads in order, and so on, that we simply withdrew. We keep our own roads in order. Once a year, father gets a gang of men and tackles every section of road that borders upon our land, and our roads are the best around here. I wish the government would take up this matter of making roads and settle it. If we had good, smooth, country roads, such as they have in some parts of Europe, we would be able to travel comfortably over them all through the year, and our draught animals would last longer, for they would not have to expend so much energy in drawing their loads."