The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-04-09
THE DAILY STAR
THE BOUNDARY LINE.
.TAgents' Herald.l


A little, insignificant, triangular strip
of land began the trouble; and this land
% swampv that during three-fourths of
the year it was nearly all water. The
early spring rains swelled the pool, rem
iniscent of January's thaw, and the SIM
mering heat of July and August left this
blotch on a fair landscape, green
scummed and stagnant-the conserva-
tory of the incisive musketo, and the
shelter of melodous batrachia.
l will weave you story OF honest
warp and woof, on the loom of romance,
with the shuttles of fact No lovelier
village in all the prairie garden of the
West than Lakeview; no handsomer
farms than the adjoining inheritances OF
Edgar and Robert Winston. They were
cousins. In parenthesis, most critical
reader, not the village and the farms
held this relationship, but the two diff
ferent men, with the identical family
name.
They had been born within a stones
throw of one another; had grown up to-
gether, and individually looked down
from six feet of stalwart youth on boy
hood that seemed more miracle than a
regret. The had dswam in, skated on, and
fshed out of the same ponds and streams;
had secured the same fields and woods for
game, and had oft-times missed single
squirrel with double shot. Together
they had brought down their birds on
wing and lifted their eyes to the same
coquettish maiden. They had consecu-
lively been Tilted by the beautiful idol,
and mutually agreed, even when their
scared hearts gave no credence to the
fiippant speech, that they "didn't care a
straw" for such flirt.
And as the years sped on they forgot
LOW it was they ever came to love this
girl, who flung herself into the arms of
an aristocratic sprig of gentee society,
one who bankrupted an over-indulgent
father, robbed faded wife of her dowry,
and clandestinely left her to face the
worlds inquisitive sympathy, while he
afforded score of newspaper scribes the
eagerly-clutched opportunity to chroni-
Gle his abrupt departure to Europe with
another mans conjugal property.
And still the weeks came in and the
months went out, bringing to and leaving
with the Winstons, health, vigor and
prosperity. They married good, sensible
women, and sturdy boys and blushing
girls romped at the fireside,a and clambered
high on the roof-trees III two happy
homes. Broad acres blossomed with
plenty, and into ample store-houses was
gathered repletion of cereal wealth.
Then came divine chastisement to rebuke
pride and check ambition. Venerable
parents bestowed their last blessings and
quietly passed beyond the echoes of NOR
tality. Treasured children were sur
rendered in obedience to a Savior's call,
an abnegation sanctifed by the baptism
of affections o'er-fowing grief.
But life is itself too imperative to
waste its numbered moments in vain
questioning of the DEGREES Of its ever
dreaded arbiter. The Winstons rose from
freshly-turned sods, bedewed with tears
that stern manhood could not repress.
and severally went out into the arena of
daily toll, to battle with its exigencies
and valorously prove their fidelity to its
demands.
Why here am letting the shuttle lag,
and permitting thread of sentiment to
work itself into the plain fabric of mar.
rative! How about the cloud?
A trifing speck at first on the horizon
of suspicion, it gradually assumed fore
boding shape, and finally burst with al
the fury OF .tempestuous wrath. The
corner Of swampy ground was on Robert
Winston's farm, and it had long been ar
eye-sore to both its owner and his Cousir
Ldgar. One day the latter suggested
that it be filed up, and offered to assis
his relative by resetting the fence him
self. This neighborly tender was
promptly accepted, ana the work in due
time finished, but not to Roberts salts
faction. He frankly admitted that what
had been done was great improvement
and ought to have been done years be
fore, but be could not 'divest his mind Of
the idea that Edgar had purposely over
reached him in the measurement, anc
despoiled his farm of several perches
He stoutly claimed that the new fence
had been run without surveying merely
to the advantage of Edgar, and that the
cost of replacing it was comparatively
nothing to the value Of the land of which
his cousin had robbed him. Yes, it ever
came to calling hard names, and invoking
the majesty of procrastinating law.
The Young people of both familie.
were forbidden social intercourse with
each other; their mothers became es
tranged, and the entire community
which had looked up to the Winstons a,
exemplars of affection and propriety, wa
seandalized by civil suit to determine
the issue between them. The flicker O
passion flashed into steady fame of dis
cord. A brace of unscrupulous lawyer
artfully famed the blaze and deferred
action to share the bounty freely wrunl
from both the cousins. And they, wh,
for fifty years had been as it were NOR,
than brothers, who had fought each 9th
ssers fights, titled each other sfields, nurse,
eact3others offspring and basked in eacl
others prosperity, became less than stran
gers. The fountains of love were choke,
by the slime of resentment, and the octo
.,--s of hota eonrod tho varv lifa.hInod n