Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1886-04-28

rising over to Hannah" she said.
They had known each other by their
first names for some fifty years.
When Mrs. Long opened the kitchen
door at O'Clock the next morning,
and stood looking out at the early
August day in the moment before the
fried pork had sizzled itself quite
brown, and the coffee come to a boil
her faculties concentrated themselves
upon an unexpected circumstance just
beneath her eyes.
"Elias," she said, she's tearing down
the line fence. He's got Job Dryer
helping him." She was devoid Of sus-
picion concerning the fact; her voice
was merely inquiring.
Mr.. Long was tipped back against
the wall studying the city paper to
front legs of his chair to the floor at
his wife's announcement, and came to
the door rather slowly, Hestood there
rubbing his chin doubtfully, and then
went down the steps, and towards his
neighbours yard. Some inner con-
seriousness prompted him to make g.
careless and indirect approach-to
pause and inspect the garden, and
stop to tighten the empty clothesline,
and to bring up at the fence in an acct
dental and unprecedented way.
Mr.. Talcott was working energetice,l-
ly. A pile of worm eaten posts, pulled
up by the roots, and broken pickets,
lay before him. A little further down
Job Dwyer was amassing a similar
heap.
"I thought likely you'd think better
of it," Mr.. Long observed, with his
eyes fixed warily on the other. "This
fence has been wanting fixing for quite
g. spell. l don't know as It's worth
while tearing it down; thought, meb-
be, a little fixing up'd do it. But Pm
willing to do my share, if you be cal
culating to build q new one" After
an unresponsivep pause: "You're calcu-
lating to build q new one, l s'pose?"
Eyes, I be-" Mr.. Talcott rejoined,
with acrimonious promptness.
Something in his voice shook his
neighbours compCsure. But hecarried
off his discontinue creditably.
"Well," he said, ''it'u be a good
thing. Is'pose it ought to been done
before" He pulled grass and
chewed it undauntedly for two or
three minutes before he went into the
house.
"Well?" said his wife, as she set the
dish of pork on the table.
''He's set out to build a new line
fence" said Mr.. Long, taking his seat
and showing his knife up and down be-
tween the tines of his fork.
His wife turned to look at him.
Her sharp intuition rooted out the
dark side OF the statement.
"You hain't had words with him,
Elias ?" she said, g. quick alarm in her
pleasant face. "Now you didn't have
no trouble with him yesterday about
them hens?"
ST told him." said Mr.. Long, reach
ing for the coffee-pot, "his hens had
been making toll Fable free in my garden,
and the fence better be fixed up. II
he's mind to flare up like a fool, [
don't know as it S any of my concern"
He took a swallow from his cup.
His wife watched him wistfully. She
looked dazed.
She went about the house that day
with an uneasy apprehension in her
face.
sfI don't know what to make of it,"
she kept thinking in troubled way.
She knew by the next night. The
new line fence was done 1t was seven
feet nigh. There was nothing to see
across it except the upper half of Mr..
Talcott's house, the tops of the trees
and the barn roof. 1t rose tall and
stern and forbidding. And there was
no gate. 1t was a hostile, uncompro-
missing 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.. Longs
tomatoes had not suffered again from
Mr.. Talcott's hens. They had ripened
finely. They had been eaten raw and
stewed; they had been made up in cat
sup, and they had been pulled while
green to be sliced and picked.
Mr.. Talcott' s fenceha accomplished
this, and a great deal more. It had
stood there like an evil monster, and
had never been crossed. 1t had come
down like a curse from the skies, and
shut off all the old communication,
and turned the old friendship into a
hard enmity, and the old trust into a,
fixed rancor.
1t became rapidly known that the
two old neighbors were mot on speak
ing terms;" and the cause and circum-
stances of the rupture were not a
mystery, It was known, too, that
Mrs. Long and Mrs. Talcott were not
active participants in the quarrel.
Their old pleasant companionship
seemed virtually ended because, in
their timid wonanly submissiveness,
they obeyed the unspoken commands
of their husbands rather than face the
displeasure which would have followed
q defiance of them. But they smiled
when they met each other; they lin
gered in the church vestibule to ex-
change good morning.
The autumn days filled the air with
the dim-blue vapor and not unpleas-
ant odor of bonfire smoke. Mr.. Tai
colt was late with his. He had put it
off till his fall clearing was done-the
garden freed of the dried and empty