- end_line
- 4700
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4687
- text
- is a laborious one; it is a bootless one. It is an enterprise to make
the heart break. Vast pains squandered upon a vanity. For how can one
make rotten rail-fences stand up on their rotten pins? By what magic
put pitch into sticks which have lain freezing and baking through sixty
consecutive winters and summers? This it is, this wretched endeavor to
mend rotten rail-fences with their own rotten rails, which drives many
farmers into the asylum.
On the face of the old man in question incipient idiocy was plainly
marked. For, about sixty rods before him extended one of the most
unhappy and desponding broken-hearted Virginia rail-fences I ever
saw in my life. While in a field behind, were a set of young steers,
possessed as by devils, continually butting at this forlorn old fence,
and breaking through it here and there, causing the old man to drop
- title
- Chunk 8