Wilfred gave her a compliant look.
"You can't do that, you know," he said, in an undertone, to Gardener Jim. "It's their fence. They don't want it down."
Gardener Jim made no answer. He took the axe from Wilfred's hand and dealt the fence a stroke, and then another, and at every one it seemed as if something fell. Eliza strode over to him, and, without reason, stood there. Sophy left her seed-sowing on the other side and came also, and she, too, watched the boards falling. The women were pale and their eyes showed terror, whether at the unchained power of the man or at the wonder of life, no one could have told.
Wilfred sauntered away to the old apple-tree, and began picking off twigs here and there, to drop them on the grass.
Gardener Jim threw down the axe at last and wiped his forehead.
"Where you want them boards piled?" he asked Eliza briefly.
"Down there by the wood-shed." Her voice trembled. "They'll make good kindlin'."
Over the space where two or three sound posts were standing, she spoke to her sister. There was something strident in her voice, as if she pleaded for strength to break the web of years.
"You better have some o' them boards."
"Mebbe I had," said Sophy.