NEW ENGLAND FENCES 229 



out of place in the landscape till it has gained the 

 perfect fellowship of its natural surroundings, has 

 steeped itself in sunshine and storm, and become 

 saturated with nature, is weather-stained, and has 

 flecks of moss and lichen on its shingles and its 

 underpinning, and can stand not altogether shame- 

 faced in the presence of the old trees and world-old 

 rocks and earth about it. So our fence must have 

 settled to its place, its bottom rails have become 

 almost one with the earth and all its others, its 

 stakes and caps cemented together with mosses 

 and enwrapped with vines, and so weather-beaten 

 and crated with lichens that not a sliver can be 

 taken from it and not be missed. Then is it beauti- 

 ful, and looks as much a part of nature as the trees 

 that shadow it, and the berry bushes and weeds 

 that grow along it, and the stones that were pitched 

 into its corners thirty years ago, to be gotten out 

 of the way. Then the chipmunk takes the hollow 

 rails for his house and stores his food therein, 

 robins build their nests in the jutting corners and 

 the wary crow is not afraid to light on it. What 

 sheltering arms half enclose its angles, where storm- 

 blown autumn leaves find their rest, and moulder 

 to the dust of earth, covering the seeds of berries 

 that the birds have dropped there — seeds which 

 quicken and grow and border the fence with a 

 thicket of berry bushes. Seeds of maples and birch 

 and bass-wood, driven here by the winds of win- 



