The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1882-09-16
The Old Rail Fence.

The placing of barbed wire fences around
farms, usurping the place of the old rail
fence, destroys half of the pleasure of farm
ing There is something about the old
rail fence that is real comfortable, and the
barbed wire fence is forbidding, cold, re-
pulsive. Until you come to think of it,
there does not seem as though there was q
great deal of solid comfort in a rail fence,
but there is. Did you ever see twos sold
farmers leaning against a rail fence,
whiting and talking politics or a horse
trade for hours together? They are more
comfortable, and rest more than they would
if they we're occupying the softest sofa or I
the best stuffed arm chair in the world.
There are SO many shapes man can get
into to rest about a rail fence. First the
farmer will fold his arms and rest them on
the top rail and lean his breast on the fence
and talk for half an hour, until his legs
are tired, then he will step one foot up on
the second rail from the bottom, and stand
and whittle for half an hour until the top
of the rail is as polished as piece of ma
hogany. Then he will change feet and
lean one elbow on the second rail from the
top, and sharpen his knife on his boot and
talk for half an hour about how he is go-fs
ing to pay the mortgage on his farm next Il
year. After that position becomes irksome
he will turn his back to the fence, stand on
his heels, and place his tive elbows on the
top rail, and lean against the fence, and for q
half an hour he will tell about how the old 4
mare that he is trying to trade off cleared q
out all the teams on the road coming back
from the celebration at town, after the fire. 'N
works on the Fourth, and how if he wasn't =
fixed just as he is, and wanted the twenty
dollars boot money to send Nathan off to, Is,
the select school, there is no man ON earth
can buy that mare. Then he viii get
tired and stand around sideways, put his s:l
left arm up on the fence, and begin to y
whittle again, and swear the man who runs i
the cheese factory down at the corner is 4
skinning us farmers out of our eye teeth. -,
Without going into details as to ninety /,
nine other combinations by which farmer
can rest on, about or against rail fence,
it may not be out of place to speak of sit7a.
ting on top of fence The farmers, after 3
trying several positions, will instinctively .
climb up the fence and rest on the top rail,
their feet resting on the third rail from the ii'
top, which is always laid with projection L
enough to make good footing, and an hour .
will pass as the fellows talk of the times
when they settled in the country. and of
the hardships they have endured, and how
the children have grown up and gone away, lh'
and the conversation will drift into sleepy II
channel, and the sun will begin to sink in or
the west, and the hornyhanded sons of toll r
will suddenly remember that the chores :
are to be done, and with a goodnight,
Lige," and a "Drop around agin tomorrow, q
Ike" they will separate, and one will take d
milk pail and one legged stool and go 1
towards the lot where the cows have come
home while the other will go across the
road to the barn and throw down some hay NJ
for the horses, and they will both go to bed
at eight o'clock as tired as though they,
had been moving, But they had splen7nC {
did easy visit on the old rail fence. lla,L