MY NEIGHBORS FIELD 



fence about the field and restricted it to a 

 few wild-eyed steers, halting between the 

 hills and the shambles, many old habitues 

 of the field have come back to their haunts. 

 The willow and brown birch, long ago cut 

 off by the Indians for wattles, have come 

 back to the streamside, slender and vir- 

 ginal in their spring greenness^-and leaving 

 long stretches of the brown water open to 

 the sky. In stony places where no grass 

 grows, wild olives sprawl ; close-twigged, 

 blue-gray patches in winter, more translu- 

 cent greenish gold in spring than any 

 aureole. Along with willow and birch and 

 brier, the clematis, that shyest plant of 

 water borders, slips down season by season 

 to within a hundred yards of the village 

 street. Convinced after three years that 

 it would come no nearer, we spent time 

 fruitlessly pulling up roots to plant in the 

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