The line fence ran up the bluff toward the summit of the ridge to the
east. On each side it was set with smooth green slopes of pasture and
pleasant squares of wheat, until it reached the woods and ran under the
oaks and walnuts and birches to the cliffs of lichen-spotted stone which
topped the summit.
Bill walked the full length of the fence to see how much of the old
material could be used. He recognized the bell on one of Harkey's
cattle, and he grew wrathful at the sight of another cow peacefully
gnawing the fresh, green grass, with the bell, which belonged to the
black cow, on her neck.
It was mid-spring. Everywhere was the vivid green of the Wisconsin
landscape; the slopes were like carefully tended lawns, without stumps
or stones; the groves rose up the hills, pink and gray and green in
softly rounded billows of cherry bloom and tender oak and elm foliage.
Here and there under the forest tender plants and flowers had sprung up,
slender and succulent like all productions of a rich and shadowed soil.
Early the next morning Bill and his two hands began to work in the
meadow, working toward the ridge; Harkey and his brother and their hands
began at the ridge and worked down toward the meadow; each party could
hear the axes of the other ringing in the still, beautiful spring air.
Bill's hired hand, on his way to the spring about the middle of the
forenoon, met Jim Harkey, who said wickedly in answer to a jocular
greeting:--
"Don't give me none of your lip now; we'll break your necks for two
cents."