Jackson, Helen Hunt: Mercy Philbrick's Choice. V1. 9 May 2009
 

Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (October 18, 1830 – August 12, 1885) was an American writer best known as the author of Ramona, a novel about the ill treatment of Native Americans in southern California.

Excerpt
Stephen White stood with his arms folded, leaning on the gate which shut off, but seemed in no wise to separate, the front yard of the house in which he lived from the public highway. There is something always pathetic in the attempt to enforce the idea of seclusion and privacy, by building a fence around houses only ten or twelve feet away from the public road, and only forty or fifty feet from each other. Rows of picketed palings and gates with latches and locks seem superfluous, when the passer-by can look, if he likes, into the very centre of your sitting-room, and your neighbors on the right hand and on the left can overhear every word you say on a summer night, where windows are open.