Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-06

Walks along country roads have
| their recompenSe at this time Of year
for the bitter winds which blow along
them.
It was the cynical Duke de la Roche
| foucauld who said that virtue has its
recompenSe, but being virtuous is only
our desire to gain the recompense."
/ Whether one agrees with that as a
general proposition or not, he must find
something of merit in it as applied to
Winter rambles along the country road
Such roads are not what they once
were, of course. The automobile, with
its speedy danger, threatening life and
limb, has taken away the greater part
of the charm of the roadside walking.
It is questionable whether Whitman
would have written his magnificent
Song of the Open Road" in the pres
ent age.
When he penned those memorable
lines, known alas to too few readers,
he knew only dusty thoroughfares lead
ing between long rows of meadows and
fields, adown which not more than a
dozen wagons passed all day long.
Today the once deserted country road
has been converted into boulevard, or
does duty as a shortcut across country
to more heavily travelled roads.
One still may walk 1t, however, II
extremely careful to go on the same
side as approaching cars, and warily
give them plenty of room as they APP
proach. Nor Is it bad policy to occa-
sionally look behind and keep an eye
on the cars coming from that direction.
*
The green has left the countryside,
the beautiful color of grass and shrubs.
Sometimes one is constrained to believe
that Providence meant the sky to be
pale green, too, as it sometimes is at
sunset. Maybe the blue is an after
thought, an improvement, in the mind
of the Creator. But pale, apple
green sky would not be bad, now would
it? If there is peace and solace in
blue, there is also GOODNESS in 1t. Green
would remind us of Spring, and Of pea
soup, perhaps.
If the road no longer presents us
with greenery, it makes up for it by
permitting its homes to stand forth
more visibly. Passengers in flying cars
know nothing of this. They go so fast
they can do nothing more than muir
muir, Pretty along here, isn't it?"
We see what makes it pretty. These
old houses, painted white, with their
green blinds and shutters, and their
old trees, standing bare in the majesty
Of Winter, are not like peas in the pod.
Every one is different, and If we cam
not agree that every one is charming,
architecturally speaking, we can call
them interesting. After all, architecture
is not all there is to a home.
There are architects houses, and
there are carpenters houses, and then
there are houses built by one knows
not whom. Often the home which
shows plainly the efforts of some am
bilious carpenter achieves a solidity and
nominees which the palatial effort
of the trained architect fails of attain
ing.
The passerby likes to see house look
as if human beings lived in it. The
radio aerial, if not too conspicuous,
gives touch of home important in
these days. Here is a neat stucco,
facing the road, but at an angle. The
back porch Is close, and we can look
in at the child's dinner set against the
house wall.
Across the way stands a huge house
of wide siding, with tall red chimney.
If the passerby happens to admire
chimneys, recognizing both their utility