does not know now of the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
Thee will know of trials of the spirit and of the temper
that thee has never yet experienced."

I said I thought this was probable, but I thought
inwardly that I would gladly be tried that way. The old
man went on:--

"I said eight feet to friend Silas, but thee may say
to him that I have thought better of it, and that I have
ordered thee to make the fence ten feet high. Thee may
say that I am now going to Philadelphia, but that I will
write to him my order when I arrive. Meanwhile thee will
go on with the fence as I bid thee."

And so the old man entered his cab again and rode
away.

I amused myself at his notion, for I knew very well
that the street-boys and other loafers would storm his
ten-foot wall as readily as they would have stormed the
Malakoff or the Redan, had they supposed there was
anything to gain by doing it. I had, of course, to
condemn some of my posts, which were already cut, or to
work them in to other parts of the fence. My order for
spruce boards was to be enlarged by twenty per cent by
the old man's direction, and this, as it happened, led to
a new arrangement of my piles of lumber on my vacant
land.