Garden Boundaries 401 



of ledge and field into splendid stone walls. Their 

 beauty is a gift to the farmer's descendants in reward 

 for his hours of bitter and wearying toil. One of 

 these fine stone walls, six feet in height, has stood 

 secure and unbroken through a century of upheavals 

 of winter frosts — which it was too broad and firmly 

 built to heed. It stretches from the Post Road in 

 old Narragansett, through field and meadow, and by 

 the side of the oak grove, to the very edge of the 

 bay. To the waterside one afternoon in June there 

 strolled, a few years ago, a beautiful young girl and 

 a somewhat conscious but determined young man. 

 They seated themselves on the stone wall under the 

 flickering shadow of a great Locust tree, then in full 

 bloom. The air was sweet with the honeyed fragrance 

 of the lovely pendent clusters of bloom, and bird and 

 bee and butterfly hovered around, — it was paradise. 

 The beauty and fitness of the scene so stimulated the 

 young man's fancy to thoughts and words of love that 

 he soon burst forth to his companion in an impas- 

 sioned avowal of his desire to make her his wife. 

 He had often pictured to himself that some time he 

 would say to her these words, and he had seen also 

 in his hopes the looks of tender affection with which 

 she would reply. What was his amazement to be- 

 hold that, instead of blushes and tender glances, his 

 words of love were met by an apparently frenzied 

 stare of horror and disgust, that seemed to pierce 

 through him, as his beloved one sprung at one 

 bound from her seat by his side on the high stone 

 wall, and ran away at full speed, screaming out, "Oh, 

 kill him ! kill him ! " 



2D 



