Great Possessions

ings. Men are like roses and lilacs, which, too carefully cultivated to please the eye, lose somethi

ved among stones, lifted stones, fitted stones. He knows all the various kinds, shapes, sizes, and where they will go best in a wall. He can tell at a glance where to strike a stone to make

stones these days," as though he were

his stocky strong body to lift or lay them. He is a slow man, a slow, steady, geologic man, as befits one who works with the elemental stuf

our Haden in a second-hand book shop. And when he has bought them he takes the first idle day he has, and with his team of old horses goes into the hills, or wherever it may be, and brings them down. He has them piled about his barn and even in his yard, as another man might have flower beds. And he can tell you, as he told me to-day, just where

and is even reluctantly persuaded to do the ordinary stone work of the neighbourhood. He is "well enough off," as the saying goes, to rest during the remainder of his years, for he has lived a temperate and frugal life, owns his own home with the litt

o sooner did he see the open and ready earth than a new light came in his eye. His step quickened and as he went about he began to hum an old tune under his breath. I knew then that I had him! He had taken fire. I could see that his eye was already selecting the ston

sten, or if one does not care to listen he is well content to remain silent among his stones. But I enjoyed listening, for nothing in this world is so fascinating to me as the story of how a man has come to be

of proud manhood walls when he took contracts for foundations, retaining walls, and even for whole buildings, such as churches, where the work was mostly of stone; he told me of thrilling gains and p

ding behind his great, slow, hairy-hoofed horse, in the battered and ancient wagon

at bit of basement wall. How we go through life, losing most of the beauties of it from sheer inability to see! But the old man, as he drives about, rarely sees houses at all, especially wooden houses, and for all modern stucco and cement work he entertains a kind of lofty

t has there been a crack in her, winter or summer"; and more than forty years ago he laid the cornerstone of the ol

ose below it, and braced and nested in by the sheer skill of the mason. The art of the dry wall is the ancient heritage of New England and speaks not only of the sincerity and the conscientiousness of the old Puritan spirit but strikes the higher note of beauty. Many of the older walls I know are worth going far to see, for they exhibit a rare sense of form and proportion, an

borne a hand in nearly everything done in this neighbourhood in the last half-century. He has literally built himself into the country and into

ere, and upon his secure walls rest many of the stores, the churches, and the schools of the countryside. I see again how important

of this ancient s

ss left on his stones when I put 'em in; nev

it, and wanted stone, but he wanted brick. So you see the front,

peculiarities, the radiant charm, the hates and the loves, of the people of this place. He has mirrored his own little age in stone. He knows the town,

of them a prison on the south, and the other a prison on the north. He told me the story of an ancient and bitter quarrel

r a new home, a new family, how many times by Darby and Joan planning a resting place for the sunny closing years of their lives! He could point, indeed, to one wall that symbolized hatred; all the

st a man as ever I knew; and if he has pride, simple and honest also in that. He was anxious not to charge me too much

of children; and has known sorrow and loss, as well as happiness and contentment. Two of his ch

ago was it

-seven

one masons after him. They are good as young men go in a degenerate age. They

p. And he votes as he thinks, though the only man in meeting who votes that way. For when a man works in the open, laying walls true to lines and measurements, being honest with natural things, he comes clear, sane, strong, upon many things. I would sooner trust his judgment upon matters t

is, if at seventy years of age-if ever I live to lay walls with joy at that time of life-if I can look back upon my foundations

ne struck down warmly upon the ruddy bald spot on the top of his head, the white hair around about it looking s

tone that