To be fair to illustrator True Williams in regard to the style of fence he drew in _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ and other scholars who have untangled the fence discrepancy, see Beverly David's discussion of the fence illustration in her book _Mark Twain's Illustrators, Vol. I_, p. 246-247. Williams drew illustrations from Twain's original manuscript which stated the fence measured only four feet high. The dimension was later changed with strike marks on the original manuscript. Williams himself later drew and published a Tom Sawyer illustration of a fence using vertical planks. I have both True Williams illustrations of the fence online side-by-side in this feature: http://www.twainquotes.com/TWW/TWW.html Barb