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

COR aSlawyer aud IN Injunction. In .
brief space of time he found the one,
who promptly charged him ten dollars
for telling him that he couldn't get the
other.
That night Mr.. Bassline did not come
home until after dark, and even then,
that hideous fence glared at him
through the gloomy night, respondent
in the fiendish illumination of twenty
three Chinese lanterns, of as many diff
ferent colors, and no two of the same
size, and all dangling ct irregularly
different distances from the ground and
each other. With q 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 i'll to walk, or were dead, or
for some other reason couldn't get
there.
Mr.. Baseline hurried over to his
neighb0r to make0ne more appeal. He
found the miller packing his goods.
He was going out into the country for u
few weeks, he said, aud 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 or
any other man to build him q fence at
anybody's expense. He liked that
fence. The architect assured him that
it was an Eastlake fence of the purest
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..
Baseline much better than his, Mr..
Netherstone's, carelessness and sloven-
illness. In reply to further inquiries on
the part of his anxious neighbor, Mr..
Netherstone said the tenants were very
old and dear friends of his, whose
names he had forgotten. And MIR.
Baseline went away with dumb FORE
boding 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 drays first, before unloading their
goods drove their pigs into the yard,
and then fought for the choice of rooms
on the first floor. In about half an
hour colored family consisting of two
grand parents, 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
monkey and orchestra, came along and
took possession of the garnet. and
established himself for light housekeep-
ing by Immediately putting the monkey
out on the roof to play while the master
washed 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-
Raphaelish fence of some its gorgeous
brilliance.
Those happy tenants of the grand
house! They fraternized with Mr..
Baseline's 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 NOON the duskv
garrison of the second floor inspected
Mr.. Baseline's memories, and left him
the roosts and the porcelain eggs that
his busy hens had been wont to use for
samples. The children of the tenants,
of all shades, 'sassed' his wife, and on
convenient occasions doubled teams and
clicked" his son Jack, and the monkey
used to climb all over Baseline' porches,
and swarm up his lightning rods, and
grin in at their bedroom windows and
jabber and jabber and frighten the lives
out of them.
The 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
Comanches. And at length, after five
weary weeks of incessant persecution
and suffering. he heard that the Neither
stones had returned to town. Mr..
Baseline sought out his old neighbor
and besought him to accept a peace
to turn out his tenants he might keep
the fence just as he wanted it in fact,
Mr.. Bascline offered to bind himself
to enter into any kind of an agreement
or conspiracy with Mr.. Netherstone to
build fence the shape of q letter Z,
and notched at the top like range Of
mountains, right across the end of the
street, and he would fight the city al
his own expense if it should attempt to
reopen its own thoroughfare.
Well, the miller relented. He
kicked out his tenants. It was SIX
months before the house was fit TO,
him to move his family into. The
hateful fence was replaced by some.
thing simpler and really neater than
Mr.. Netherstone's Eastlake" de.
sign. Peace reigns in the Seventh
Ward and old Isaac Stringer says,
"Ef man sh' d build fence the shape
of q corkscrew round his lot, Tom
Baselide 'ud say it was straight enough
% long as it shet in the land. "-R06eri
j. BuTdette, in N. =. Ledger.
Schooling at Home.
The Dullwitt family are having good
deal of trouble Just now. BENJAMIN