Robert Frost: Poems

What can you infer about the speaker in "Birches" from lines 21-27?

but i was going to say the truth broke in with allher matter of fact about the ice storm i should perfer to have some boy bend them as he went out and in to fetch the cows some boy too far from town to learn baseball whose only play was what he found himself summer or winter and could play alone

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Last updated by jill d #170087
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From the cited lines, we can infer that the speaker is saddended by his loss. He would have preferred to lose the birches to a child's play, rather than lose them to the ice storm. The speaker is thinking of children, who might occasionally break a branch or two in play, but who do no permanent damage. The ice storm effectively kills the trees, something a broken branch cannot.

Source(s)

Birches