American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1880-10-30

for a lawyer and an Injunction. In q
brief space of time he found the one,
who promptly charged him ten dollar,
for telling him that he couldn't get the
other.
That night Mr.. Baselinc did not come
home until after dark, and even then,
that hideous fence glared ut him
through the gloomy night, resplendent
in the ticnlish illumination of twenty
three Chinese lanterns, of rs many diff
ferent colors. and no two of the same
size. and all dangling at irreguarly
different distances from the ground and
each other. With n howl of unrest Mr..
Baseline shut his eyes, rushed into his
house, and plunging into bed, pulled
the sheets over his head.
At breakfast next morning his wife
said to him:
"You said the other day you must
ascertain from the census enumeration
the number of children in the Seventh
and Ninth Wards, between the ages of
five and eighteen years. They are all
in front of the house, now looking at
that fence, if YOU want to count them. >
And Mrs. Baseline was not far out of
the way in her estimate. Not more
than six or seven children, perhaps, who
were too ill to walk, or were dead, or
for some other reason couldn't get
there.
Mr.. Baseline hurried over to his
neighbor to make one more appeal. He
found the miller packing his goods.
He was going out into the country for :,
few weeks, he said, and on his return
he should move into house over in the
Second Ward. The climate in the
Seventh Ward did not agree with him.
No, he would not allow Mr.. Baseline OF
any other man to build him Il fence at
anybody's expense. He liked that
fence. The architect assured him that
it was an Eastlake fence of the purcst
strain. No, he would not sell the prop
erty, and he would not name any sum,
give or take. He was going to let the
house to some tenants; very quiet, nice
people, of the highest responsibility,
and whose habits of neatness and
method would no doubt please Mr..
Baselinc much better than his, Mr..
Netherstone's carelessness and slOven-
Illness. In reply To further inquiries on
the part of his anxious neighbor, MIR.
Netherstone said the tenants were very
old and dear friends of his, whose
names he had forgotten. And MIR.
Baseline went away with a dumb fore
boiling at his heart.
That evening Mr.. Netherstone moved
out, and the next morning the tenants
moved, or rather, swarmed in, and Mr..
Baseline's worst fears were realized.
Two of the families. who backed up
their draws first. before unloading their
goods drove their pigs into the yard,
and then fought for the choice of rooms
In, .,1@ t,o1f
hour n colored family consisting of two
grand parents, a father and mother.
two aunties and six children, arrived
with their Lares and Penates, and went
into barracks on the second floor.
About noon an organ grinder, with his
and orchestra, came along and
took possession of the garnet. and
himself for light housekeep-
ing by Immediately putting the monkey
out on the roof to play while the master
washed "A couple of blue flannel shirts
for himself, and red jacket and pair
of yellow trousers for the monkey.
When this simple but cheerful appear
ing laundry was hung out of the win
dow to dry it seemed to rob the pre-
fence of some its gorgeous
brilliance.
Those happy tenants of the grand
house! They fraternized with Mr..
wood-pile the first night. and
kept it up right along. Their children
fought with each other, and threw
stones at Mr.. Baseline's family when,
at sunsets quiet hour, those stricken
people sought to drown their sorrows
in the wild dissipation and all-absorb-
ing recklessness of croquet. In the
:. first dark of the MOON the duskv
garrison of the second floor inspected
Mr.. Baseline's henneries, and left him
the roosts and the porcelain eggs that
his busy hens had been wont to use for
...,.l..s-Fho- children of the tenants,
of all shades, "sassed' his wife, and on
occasions doubled teams and
:" licked his son Jack. and the monkey
used to climb all over Baseline's porches,
and swarm up his lightning rods, and
grin in at their bedroom windows and
jabber and jabber and Brighten the lives
out of them.
Tine distracted man would have gone
out into the country with his family,
but he did not dare leave his house en-
tirely at the mercy of these bowling
And ut length. after five
weary weeks of incessant persecution
and suffering, he heard that the Neither
stones ndu TcCuTlleu 10 GOWn. MT.
Baseline sought out his old neighbor
and besought him to accept peace
to turn out his tenants he might keep
the fence just as he wanted it in fact,
Mr.. Baseline offered to bind himself
to enter into any kind of an agreement
Or conspiracy with Mr.. Netherstone to
build a fence the shape of letter Il,
and notched at the top like n range of
right across the end of the
street, and he would fight the city at
his own expense if it should attempt to
reopen its own thoroughfare.
Well, the miller relented. He
kicked out his tenants. 1t was six
months before the house was fit for
him to move his family into. The
hateful fence was replaced by some
hing simpler and really neater than
Mr.. Netherstone's "Eastlake" de-
sign. Peace reigns in the Seventh
Ward and old Isaac Stringer says,
. Ell a man sh' build fence the shape
If corkscrew round his lot, Tom
3aselide 'ud say it was straight enough
10 long as it shet in the land" -Robert
!. Burtlette, IN N. Y. Ledger.
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