<h2><SPAN name="chap42"></SPAN>FALLEN FENCES</h2>
<p class="poem">
The woods grew dark; black shadows<br/>
rocked<br/>
And I could scarcely see<br/>
My way along the old tote road,<br/>
That long had seemed to me<br/>
<br/>
To wind on aimlessly; but now<br/>
Came full to life; the rain<br/>
Would soon strike down; ahead I saw<br/>
A clearing, and a lane<br/>
<br/>
Between gray, fallen fences and<br/>
Wide, grayer, grim stone walls;<br/>
So grim and gray I shrank from thought<br/>
Of weary, aching spalles.<br/>
<br/>
On stony knoll great aspens swayed<br/>
And swung in browsing teeth<br/>
Of wind; slim, silvered yearlings shook<br/>
And shivered underneath.<br/>
<br/>
Beyond, some ancient oak trees bent<br/>
And wrangled over roof<br/>
Of weatherbeaten house, and barn<br/>
Whose sag bespoke no hoof.<br/>
<br/>
And ivy crawled up either end<br/>
Of house, to chimney, where<br/>
It lashed in futile anger at<br/>
The wind wolves of the air.<br/>
<br/>
I thought the house abandoned, and<br/>
I ran to get inside,<br/>
When suddenly the old front door<br/>
was opened and flung wide<br/>
<br/>
And she stood there, with hand on knob,<br/>
As I went swiftly in,<br/>
Then closed the door most softly on<br/>
The storm and shrieking din.<br/>
<br/>
A space I stood and looked at her,<br/>
So young; ’twas passing strange<br/>
That fifty years or more had gone<br/>
And brought no new style’s change.<br/>
<br/>
The sweetness, daintiness of her<br/>
In starched and dotted gown<br/>
Of creamy whiteness, over hoops,<br/>
With ruffles winding down!<br/>
<br/>
We had not much to say, and yet<br/>
Of words I felt no lack;<br/>
Her smiles slipped into dimples, stopped<br/>
A moment, then dropped back.<br/>
<br/>
I felt her pride of race; her taste<br/>
In silken rug and chair,<br/>
And quaintly fashioned furniture<br/>
Of patterns old and rare.<br/>
<br/>
On window sill a rose bush stood;<br/>
’Twas bringing rose to bud;<br/>
One full bloomed there but yesterday,<br/>
Dropped petals, red as blood.<br/>
<br/>
Quite soon, she asked to be excused<br/>
For just a moment, and<br/>
Went out, returning with a tray<br/>
In either slender hand.<br/>
<br/>
My glance could not but linger on<br/>
Each thin and lovely cup;<br/>
“This came, dear thing, from home!” she sighed<br/>
The while she raised it up.<br/>
<br/>
And when the storm was done and I<br/>
Arose, reluctantly<br/>
To go, she too was loath to have<br/>
Me go, it seemed to me.<br/>
<br/>
When I reached old Joe Webber’s place,<br/>
Upon the Corner Road,<br/>
I went into the Upper Field<br/>
Where Joe, round-shouldered, hoed<br/>
<br/>
Potatoes, culling them with hoe<br/>
And practised, calloused hand,<br/>
In rounded piles that brownly glowed<br/>
Upon the fresh-turned land.<br/>
<br/>
“Say, Joe,” I said, “who is that girl<br/>
With beauty’s smiling charm,<br/>
That lives beyond that hemlock growth,<br/>
On that old grown-up farm?”<br/>
<br/>
Joe listened, while I told him where<br/>
I’d been that afternoon,<br/>
Then straightened from his hoe, and hummed,<br/>
Before he spoke, a tune<br/>
<br/>
“They cum ter thet old place ter live<br/>
Some sixty years ago;<br/>
Jest where they cum from, who they ware,<br/>
Wy, no one got to know.<br/>
<br/>
“An’ then, one day, he hired Hen’s<br/>
Red racker an’ the gig;<br/>
We never heard from him nor could<br/>
We track the hoss or rig.<br/>
<br/>
“Hen waited ’bout a week, an’ then<br/>
He went ter see the Wife;<br/>
He found her in thet settin’ room:<br/>
She’d taken of her life.<br/>
<br/>
“An’ no one’s lived in thet house sence;<br/>
Some say ’tis haunted,-but<br/>
I ain’t no use fer foolishness,<br/>
So all I say’s tut! tut!”<br/></p>
<p class="left">
WINIFRED VIRGINIA JACKSON</p>
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