The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-10-28

fined his peculiarities within the limits
of his own household jurisdiction, the
neighbors would have laughed at him
and thought no more about it. But he
could not do this. He could no more
refrain from assisting his neighbors in
strengthening out their lines and set
ting their angles, than the sun could
help shining in at their windows. And
SO, when nearly two years ago he hap
pened to notice that the long line of
pickets which guarded the front of his
own and Netherstone's lots seemed to
swing out . little at the south end,
where Netherstone's place abutted on
Hamilton street, he at once insisted on
having it Strengthened.
Mr.. Netherstone, usually so yielding
and good-naturedly compliant, objected
in an evasive, undecided manner. He
had been In the habit of complying
with his neighbors's whims, and had,
to great extent, acted ON his advice
in the ornamentation of his yard, the
disposal of shrubbery and arrangement
| OF q few lawn ornaments. But he
didn't want to move the fence; it stood
just where the old fence did when he
bought the ground; he didn't believe
it encroached on the sidewalk; if it did,
he would buy it and pay the city well
for it. In short, he didn't want to move
the fence, and the more Mr.. Baseline
insisted, the more the usually quiet and
compliant miller determined that he
wouldn't.
The neighbors were astonished at Mr..
Netherstone's unheard of obstinacy.
And they were no less amazed at Mr.
Baseline's remarkable patience. For
nearly two years he endured the inde-
scribable tofture of this crooked fence,
and its power for cruelty was greatly
aggravated after he rectified his own
line, because that left great unsightly
jog of five inches where the two fences
joined. And only after suffering untold
agonies, and after the peace of his
home had been well-nigh destroyed by
the unsymmetrical fence, had he laid
the matter before the City Council and
obtained redress for his outraged feel
ings, in a peremptOry mandate from
the municipal government instructing
the City Engineer to correct the align
ment of Mr.. Netherstone's pickets.
The miller acquiesced in the judg-
ment of the powers that be, and within
few hours after the departure of the
engineer the fence came down, and
men were setting posts on the newly
established and legally-recognized line.
Mr.. Baseline's eyes danced with
evenly-distributed joy, one eye BEAM
ing no more brightly than the other.
That night he slept the sleep of the
happy man; and if, in the exuberance
of his spirits, he snored, it was with
equal and regular cadences of we'll
balanced mind. Well for the just man
and the hater of rugged inequalities
had his waking been as smooth as his
sleep.
When he walked out on the piaz-
"a after breakfast. his neighbour, the
miller, had already marshaled the men
who were cunning to work with ham,
mer and Ratchet, and was building his
new fence.
And such fence! Mr.. Baseline
caught his breath in one eager, fever
ish grasp and fell into balcony chair,
almost swooning. Great, ragged I'M
planed boards, with the checkered
marks of the weather and the lumber
pile nothing their surfaces; grinning
at Mr.. Baseline with the most horrible
knot-holes; warped out of shape and
into all other shapes; culls from the
refuse of the rats; bit of sixteen-foot
fencing towering above piece of nine
foot flooring; here and there a slab
from the saw mill, nailed on with the
round side to the street and the bark
hanging to it in shreds and patches.
The boys in the street stopped to
stare at it; the horses in the street cars,
when they came within sight of that
fence, baked, and when whipped past
it BY the wondering drivers, SHE'D and
tried to leave the track. Vagrant dogs
looked at it suspiciously, and, whimper-
ing with a vague terror, scampered
clear around the block rather than run
by it. The neighbors got out of bed
and came to look at it, and old Isaac
Stringer said "that ar new fence
of Netherstone's 'ud curdle the milk in
the cellar" The policeman on that
beat loosely asked Mr.. Netherstone if
"was going to leave it out all night?''
And reporter, who heard of it and
came up to look at it, told Mr.. Neither
stone the County Central Committee
would like to buy it for campaign doc
ument.
In response to the wonder of neigh
bors, the chatting of his friends, the
reproachful agony Of Mr.. Baseline, and
the serious inquiries of newspaper re-
porters, the miller simply said that
business had been very dull with him
this year, he was greatly embarrassed,
and compelled to practice the most
rigid economy in order to pull through,
and that was the best fence he could
afford to build. .-.
And when Mr.. Baseline rebukingly
asked him what he had done with the
good fence he had taken down, and why
he did not put it up on the new line,
Mr.. Netherstone calmly replied that he
had lost it through hole in his pocket,
and it had dropped in the straw on the
floor of the car, and he could not find
it. And when his neighbor, with con-
siderable heat, scoffed at this reply as
evasive and deceitful Mr.. Netherstone
then, with an expression of grave
humility, confessed that he had care
lessly dropped the old fence through a
crack in the sidewalk, and boy .got
it and ran away with it. He babe his
distressed neighbor, however, give him.
self no uneasiness, as he would have
the new fence fixed up in the most
artistic and modern style tomorrow.
Hoping as one who hopes against
some awful, unknown, intangible, but
surely impending horror, Mr.. Baseline
closed his eyes that night in fitful
slumber, haunted in his sleeping
moments by the nightmare Of . fence
with more angles than starfish, and
more sinuosities than a grapevine. And
when slumber Stunned his feverish
eyelids, he wondered until his brain
fairly whirled if this fantastic fence was
really the shape of his long-suffering
neighbor's vengeance, or only . horrible
dream. afg
The next morning the fence was there
in all its CHASTITY nakedness. But, about
ton o'clock, a lively-appearing young
man, in plaid suit, u very small hat and
. very large diamond (best flint glass,
| q verv ready but easy manner of sDeoch.