NEW ENGLAND FENCES 233 



world — which, indeed, it may slowly sink into; 

 or the accumulating layers of earth may in years 

 cover it; but it will still be a wall — a grassy ridge 

 with a core of stone. A wall soon gets rid of its 

 new look. It is not propped up on the earth, but 

 has its foundations in it; mosses and lichens take 

 quickly and kindly to it, and grass and weeds 

 grow out of its lower crevices, mullein and brakes 

 and the bulby stalks of goldenrod spring up beside 

 it. Black-raspberry bushes loop along it, over it, 

 and stretch out from it, clumps of sweet elders 

 shade its sides, and their broad cymes of blossoms, 

 and later, clusters of blackberries, beloved of 

 robins and school-boys, bend over it. When the 

 stones of which it is built are gathered from the 

 fields, as they generally are, they are of infinite 

 variety, brought from the Far North by glaciers, 

 washed up by the waves of ancient seas, and 

 tumbled down to the lower lands from the over- 

 hanging ledges: lumps of gray granite and gneiss, 

 and dull-red blocks of sandstone, fragments of 

 blue limestone, and only a geologist knows how 

 many others, mostly with smooth-worn sides 

 and rounded corners and edges. All together, 

 they make a line of beautifully variegated color 

 and of light and shade. One old wall that I know 

 of has been a rich mine for a brood of callow 

 geologists, who have pecked it and overhauled it 

 and looked and talked most wisely over its stones. 



