the dry wall that stands of itself that the old stone mason loves best
of all.

As we drove along the road the old man pointed out to me with his stubby
whip so many examples of his work that it seemed finally as if he had
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
the town, and at seventy years of age he can look back upon it all with
honest pride. It stands. No jerry-work anywhere. No cracks. It stands.

I never realized before how completely the neighbourhood rests upon the
work of this simple old man. He _founded_ most of the homes here, and
upon his secure walls rest many of the stores, the churches, and the
schools of the countryside. I see again how important each man is to the
complete fabric of civilization and know that we are to leave no one
out, despise no one, look down upon no one.

He told me stories of this ancient settler and of that.

He was a powerful queer man--he wanted the moss left on his stones
when I put 'em in; never a hammer touched the facings of _his_ wall...

"That is properly a woman's wall. She was the boss, you might call it,
and wanted stone, but _he_ wanted brick. So you see the front, where
people can see it, is of stone, but the sides is all brick."

Thus like the true artist that he is, he has not only built himself his
own honesty, truth, skill, into the town, but he has built in the
inexhaustible peculiarities, the radiant charm, the hates and the loves,
of the people of this place. He has mirrored his own little age in