NEW ENGLAND FENCES 239 



claws of chanticleer and partlet. These are as 

 certain signs of the sure establishment of spring as 

 the cry of the upland plover. They maintain 

 their post until early summer, when, if they have 

 held their own against bugs, the vines have grown 

 strong enough to take care of themselves and be- 

 gin to wander, and the yellow blossoms meet the 

 bumble-bee halfway. 



The "line fence," of whatever material, may 

 generally be known by the trees left growing along 

 it, living landmarks, safer to be trusted than 

 stones and dead wood, and showing that, as little 

 as our people value trees, they have more faith in 

 them than in each other. The burning and fall of 

 the "corner hemlock," on which was carved in 

 1762 the numbers of four lots, brought dismay to 

 four land-owners. The old corner has lost its 

 mooring, and has drifted a rod or two away. 



What heart-burnings and contentions have 

 there not been concerning line fences, feuds last- 

 ing through generations, engendered by their 

 divergence a few feet to the right or left, or by 

 the question as to whom belonged the keeping up 

 of this part or that ! When the heads of some rural 

 households were at pitchforks' points, a son and 

 daughter were like enough to fall into the old way, 

 namely, love, and Juliet Brown steals forth in the 

 moonlight to meet Romeo Jones, and they bill and 

 coo across the parents' bone of contention, in the 



