A WALK IN THE FIELDS 



self. How they climb the hills and sweep through 

 the valleys. They decay not, yet they grow old and 

 decrepit; little by little they lose their precision and 

 firmness, they stagger, then fall. In a still, early 

 spring morning or April twilight one often hears a 

 rattle of stones in a distant field; some bit of old 

 wall is falling. The Ufetime of the best of them is 

 rarely threescore and ten. The other day, along the 

 highway, I saw an old man relaying a dilapidated 

 stone wall. "Fifty-three years ago," he said, "I 

 laid this wall. When it is laid again, I shan't have 

 the job." It is rarely now that one sees a new wall 

 going up. The fences have all been built, and the 

 farmer has only to keep them in repair. 



When you build a field or a highway wall, do not 

 make the top of it level across the little hollows; 

 let it bend to the uneven surface, let it look flexible 

 and alive. A foundation wall, with its horizontal 

 lines, looks stiff and formal, but a wall that undu- 

 lates along like a live thing pleases the eye. 



When I was a boy upon the old farm, my father 

 always " laid out " to build forty or fifty rods of new 

 wall, or rebuild as many rods of old wall, each 

 spring. It is true husbandry to fence your field 

 with the stones that incumber it, to utilize obstacles. 

 The walls upon the old farm of which I am think- 

 ing have each a history. This one, along the lower 

 side of the road, was built in '46. I remember the 

 man who laid it. I even remember something of 

 .49 



