point of view
makes such a difference!

The road that wound down through the valley, skirting its hills,
bridging its brooks, and connecting the lonely homestead with the rest
of the human world, had on one side a beautiful border of all sorts of
greeneries, just as Nature, with her inimitable touch, had placed them.
It was a home and a cover for small birds; it was a shade on a warm day;
it was a delight to the eye at all times. Yet in the farmer's eye it was
"shiftless" (the New Englander's bogy). The other side of the road he
had "improved;" it gloried in what looked at a little distance like a
single-file procession of glaring new posts, which on approaching were
found to be the supports of one of man's neighborly devices--barbed
wire. Rejoicing in this work of his hands on the left, he longed to turn
his murderous weapons against the right side. He was labored with; he
bided his time; but I knew in my heart that whoever went there next
summer would find that picturesque road bristling with barbed wire on
both sides. It will be as ugly as man can make it, but it will be "tidy"
(New England's shibboleth), for no sweet green thing will grow up beside
it. Nature doesn't take kindly to barbed wire.

The old stone wall at that time was an irresistible invitation to the
riotous luxuriance of vines. Elder-bushes, with their fine cream-colored
blossoms, hung lovingly over it; blackberry bushes, lovely from their
snowy flowering to their rich autumn foliage, flourished beside it; and
a thousand and one exquisite, and to me nameless, green things hung upon
it, and leaned against it, and nearly covered it up. And what a garden
of delight nestled in each protected corner of an old-fashioned zigzag
fence! Yet all these are under the ban--"shiftless."

Thanks be to the gods who sowed this country so full of stones and
trees, that the army of farmers who have worried the land haven't
succeeded in turning it into the abomination of desolation they admire!

And now, having relieved my mind, I'll go on with the bluejay hunt.

The next morning it was, for a rarity, fine. I started up the wood road
ahead of my guide, so that I might take my climb as easily as such a
thing can be taken. Passing through the bare pasture, I entered the
outlying clumps of spruce which form the advance-guard of the forests on
Greylock, and here my leader overtook me, urging his fiery steeds, with
their empty sled. Now horned beasts have had a certain t