The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1922-03-21

! Questions would be split into kind
ling wood 10 make bonhres to cele
.bgate our victories more noble than
those Of war.
History does not reveal the name Of
TIE inventor Of the old zigZag fence
bat have always felt grateful to that
! unknown genius Was the pioneer
! T:rginianWho first split rails and then
built 9 snake-fence. an artist? /
think he way. He may not have been
i an educated man bat he was a scholar
! fer ne contributed an original idea to
the fund Of human knowledge. AS
/ long as i:ve I shall feel grateful and
think kindly Of the unknown inventor
Of the old woHm-fence for every cor
ner was and is college and all of
them taken together make the great
est university the world has ever
known. Dc You doubt the assertion
Then learn a little botany and make
an cid fence corner Your study
there your doubt Will be dissolved. /
rode into the country years ago, when
there were no automobiles, rode with
slowly moving funeral procession.
It was wearisome ride eight miles
Hong The ride would have been much
more trying if it had not been for
the company of a bright English girl
in her teens who kept me good COM
pany. She had come across the wa
ter when an infant and lived in the
country. | soon discovered that she
was dissatisfied with country life. She
told me that she grew so lonesome
sometimes that she actually wept. For
some cause the slowly moving hearse
stopped and Of course all the process
sion Of carriages which followed it.
I got out Of the carriage and pluci;ed
few flowers and plants from an old
fence corner and during the remand
er of the journey told her the story
of the flowers and the plants, told her
how rich in botanical lore the old
fence corners were and how the
birds brought the fruit of every ber-
ry-plant and vine to the old fence
row, where they SO frequently built
their nests, to feed their young, how
the seed took root protected by the
fence corners, thus making every an
gle along its line a laboratory for
plant study and bird lift. She was
interested and her eyes kindled and
the little window I had opened into
the mysteries of an old fence corner.
When I went home that night l sent
her an elementary treatise on botany.
She devoured it and bought other
books along the same line. She once
told me that there had never been a
lonesome hour in her life after sne
made the old fence corner her lahola
tory and that all desire to live in the
city had left her and that no induce
ment could persuade her to leave the
flowers, plants and birds Of the hedge
rows.
Did YOU ever think of Low much
God has put into small compass to
delight and edify your soul? There
is no place for loneliness in this
world.
! Blessed old fence! You stand as
monument to an unlimited timber
supply. Who ever looked down the
line of a zigzag rail fence and did not
see beauty and art in it? No two
rails are alike nor any two Of the
same size. The split followed the
grain of the tree. straight as shin
gle-twisted as a vine," I can hear
the old rail-splitter soiloquiZe as ne
drives with the steel wedge one after
another. Then the split surface was
like the waves and troughs of the sea,
and again they were varicolored as
the timber from which they were split.
Are you old enough to have walked
along the line of new rail fence,
and do you still remember the whiff
YOU got Of the new oak timber?' OF
course you remember it, and you will
never forget it. 1t was pleasant to
the nostrils and is still pleasant to the
memory. Are you old enough to re-
member how these new, white rails
turned to that gray, satiny sheen as
they became weather-beaten, then
when they got older do you recall how
the moss and lichens grew on them?
Many great men have gone and are
even yet going, to school to the moss
es and lichens-did | not tell you that
the fence corners were colleges?
Blessed inventor of the old fence!
Both artist and his art are no more.