The great storm of yesterday cleared the air as well as cleaned the beaches, and the river was fresh and sparkling as though the tempest had added new life, so that the listless midsummery water was now as champagne¹, “with beaded bubbles winking² at the brim.” The air was heavy with sweetness and with song, the fields and meadows painted as the rose. The buckwheat was in bloom, and a million bees were humming. The pasture was gay with pink gerardia, or reflected the summer sky where the day-flower blossomed. There was no commingling³ of these late flowers. Each had its own acre, exercised squatter⁴ sovereignty, and allowed no trespassing⁵. The only evidence of man’s interference, except the buckwheat-field, was a dilapidated worm-fence, and this is one of several instances where beauty increases hand 196in hand with decay. The older such a fence, the better; when merely a support for Virginia creeper or the rank trumpet-vine, it is worthy⁶ the rambler’s regard. Wild life long ago learned what a safe snug-harbor such ruined fences offer. It puzzles even a mink⁷ to thread their mazes⁸, and the shy rabbit that has its “form” in a brier-hidden hollow of the crooked⁹ line feels that it is safe.

There are traces of these old fences of which no record remains¹⁰, placed perhaps by the very earliest settler in a tract¹¹ that he had cleared and which has since gone back to an almost

分享到：