NEW ENGLAND FENCES 241 



six resonant wooden clangs, one listens to hear 

 the cow-boy lift up his voice, or the farmer call his 

 sheep. The rail fence is a stile all along its length, 

 and so is a stone wall, though a stone or so is apt to 

 tumble down if you clamber over it in an unaccus- 

 tomed place. The footpath runs right over the 

 rail fence, as easy to be seen in the polishing of the 

 top rail as in the trodden sward. On some much- 

 frequented ways "across lots" as to a spring, a 

 slanted plank on either side the fence affords a 

 comfortable passage, and down its pleasant in- 

 cline a boy can no more walk than his marbles 

 could. Let no one feel too proud to crawl through 

 a stump fence, but be humbly thankful if he can 

 find a hole that will give him passage. A bird can 

 go over one very comfortably, and likewise over 

 a brush fence, and this last nothing without wings 

 can do; man and every beast larger than a squirrel 

 must wade through it, unless they have the luck 

 to come to a pole-barway in it. 



A chapter might be written of fence breakers 

 and leapers; of wickedly wise cows who unhook 

 gates and toss of! rails almost as handily as if they 

 were human; of sheep who find holes that escape 

 the eyes of their owners, and go through them with 

 a flourish of trumpets like a victorious army that 

 has breached the walls of a city; of horses who, in 

 spite of pokes, take fences like trained steeple- 

 chasers, and another chapter of fence walkers. 



