Easy for you to say that, Andy McGuffey. Why, you're a regular old pessimist, like all your canny Scotch ancestors were. You love to look at the world through smoked glasses. On my part, I prefer to use rose-colored ones, and expect the best sort of things to happen, even if I do get fooled lots of times. It had stood there, repaired at stated and frequent intervals, for at least two score of years. Hundreds upon hundreds of Scranton lads, long since grown to manhood, and many of them gone forth to take their appointed places in the busy marts of the world, kept a warm corner in their hearts for sacred memories of that dear old fence. As to the identity of the boys in question, from whom those remarks proceeded, they might just as well be briefly introduced here as later, as all of them are destined to take part in the lively doings that will be recorded in this and in other volumes of this series.
