Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1886-02-25

house, and new boards stood leaning
against tho we'll stone. BY noon the
next day the posts and scantliugs We're
up and = yard of fence done.
Mrs. Long got up from the dinner
table TO look at it, and turning blank
face upon her husband.
Elias she said, 'he's got it moron
two yards high
Mr.. Long stared at her. Then he
recovered himself.
1t don't make no sort of difference
to me how high he's got it, 'he snapped.
& don't know what to make OF it,
she said, coming back to the table, ,anx-
iously. i don't know why little low
picket like the old one wouldn't done
Jest as well. You can look right
through it jest as well as though there
wasn't nothing there; and it was handy
to hand things across.
She went about the house that day
with an uneasy apprehension in her
face.
Il don't know what to make CT it,
she kept on thinking, in troubled
way.
She knew by the next night. The
new line fence wasdone, It was seven
feet high. There wae nothing to be
seen across it except the upper half of
Mr.. Talcott's house, the tops Of the
trees aud the barn roof Ii rose tall
and stern and forbiddiLg. And there
was no gate. 1t was a hostile, uncOm-
promising barrier. 1t was an effective
monument to Mr.. Talcott's wrath and
resentment.
The summer passed on into the fall,
and the fall became raw and windy,
and eventually snowy.
Mr.. Talcott and Mr.. Long did not
speak TO each other when they met in
street or the postoffice or the black
smith shop they passed each other
grimly. When Mr.. Talcott was ap-
pointed to the school board, Of which
Mr. Long was already a member. he
sent in resignation. When Mr. Long
was put on church committee of
which Mr.. Talcott was one, he refused
, TO act
1t became rapidly known that the
two old neighbors were mot on speak
ing terms;' and the causes aud circum-
stances of the rupture were not mys-
terry. People came on varying pretexts
to look at the fence, from one side or
the other, and hear the story in detail.
Often they went thence oyer to the
other side, and listened with interest
to the complimental version. The
whole affair, perhaps, was welcomed as
break in the monotony of .he general
amicabeness.
1t was sknown, too, that MRS. Long
and Mrs Talcott were not active par
Elephants in the quarrel. Their old
pleasant companlonships seemed virtual
ly ended their backyard intercourse
was necessarily cut off, and they had
| ceased to run in of an evening. But
this was because neither felt free to
enter her neighbor's house, as matters
stood; and because, in their timid wo-
manly submissiveness, they obeyed the
unspoken commands of their husbands
rather than face the displeasure which
would have folio wed defiance of them
They smiled when they met each 9th
er they fingered in the church. vesti-
bule to exchange good d-morning. Once
Mrs. Loug sent in u dish OF fresh fried
cakes by neighbours boy. He told
her that Mrs. Taicott had burst out
crying. She had emptied the dish and
sent it back full of apple sauce.
The autumn days filed the air with
the dim blue yapor and not unpleasant
odor of bonfire smoke. Mr.. TalcOtt
was late with his. He had put it off
till his fall clearing was done-the gar
den freed of the dried and empty bean
vines, and raked off the weeds pulled
up which had fourished powerless for
harm during the last month or two,
and which now stood black and frozen ;
a few dead bushes cut down, and the
fruit trees trimmed here and there. 1t
was late in November when the pile
lay ready, low down in the garden in a
corner of the plundered potato patch.
In some of its rough hollows lay the
remains of a thin STOW.
Mr.. Talcott lighted it directly after
supper. Now and then he replenished
it at 5 o'clock it was still burning. He
sat down on an Old stump TO look at it
as it leaped and flckered itself out,
lighted up broad space around it and
shining on the high fence. His wife
had come out with Il shawl over her
head and watched it a few minutes,
and gone in.
A spark from the subsiding fire snap
/ ped into little pile of dried stalks half
rod distant, and they famed up. A
| twig took fire from them and burned JO
its end, and a loose splinter blaZed in
! it's turn. He watched the curious lit