STONE WALLS 149 



Brewer mowing, down the farther slope, where Jim 

 Brewer was even now at work; and it would be a good 

 time, incidentally, to go and ask him if he could come 

 to-morrow or next day and cut my rear lot. But I 

 did not go. I lay in the shade of the laurel bush and 

 looked, at the wall, and at the great drop of the sky 

 beyond growing pearly pink with afternoon, as it does 

 out over the waters, while the memories of boyhood 

 came back upon me and the wonder of the sea, the 

 haunting call for voyages of the untried soul. The 

 shadow of my laurel bush crept eastward, the click 

 of the mowers ceased, a song-sparrow sang his even- 

 song, before I rose from my converse with a dream. 

 I did not look over into Jim Brewer's mowing, but 

 climbed to my feet with my face to the west, and the 

 last sight of my wall was a line of old gray stones against 

 the pearly sky. 



"The sea is over there!" I said, and walked home- 

 ward through strange, familiar fields. 



