Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1888-01-05


Eyes, be-" Mr.. Tslcott rejoined, with
acrimonious prompt2ess.
Something in his voice shook his
neighbours composure. But he carried
off his discontinue creditably.
"Well, he said, "it'll DO a good thing
l s'pose it ought to been done before"
He pulled grass and chewed it undaunt-
edtv for two or three minutes before he
went into the house.
"WellYn said his wife, as she set tho
dish of pork On the table.
Hes sci out to build new line fence,n
said Mr.. Long taking his seat and shov-
ing his knife up and down between the
tines of his fork.
HIS wife turned to look at him. Her
sharp intuition footed out the dark side
OF the statement
you hain't had words with him Elias p"
she said, a quick alarm in her pleasant
face. Nov you didn't have no trouble
with him yesterday about them hens?'
81 told him." said Mr.. Long, reaching
for the coffee-pot, "his hens had been
making tol'able free in my garden, and
the fence better be fixed up. If he's
mind to flare up like a fool don't know
as it's any of my concern"
He took 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.
81 don't know what to make of it," she
kept thinking, in troubled way.
She knew by the rext night The new
line fence was done. 1t was seven feet
high. There was nothing TO be seen a.
cross it except the upper half of Mr..
Talbot'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, uncompromisiEg barrier.
1t was an effective monument to Mr.. Tai
bots 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 stewsd; they had
been made up in catsup, and they had
been pulled while green to be sliced and
picked.
Mr.. Talcott's fence had accomplished
this, and great deal more. 1t 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 fixed rancor.
1t became rapidly known that the two
old neighbors were mot on speaking
terms;" and the causes and circumstances
of the rupture were not a mystery. 1t
Nj
Talcott we're not active participants in
the quarrel. Their old pleasant compan-
ionship seemed virtually ended because,
in their timid womanly submissiyensss,
they obeyed the rIspGken commands of
their husbaRds rather than face the
dspleasure which would have followed a
defiance Of them, But they smiled when
they met each other; they fingered in the
church vestibule to exchange good morn
ing.
The autumn days filled the air with the
dim blue vapor and not unpleasat odor
of bonfire smoke. Mr.. Talcott was late
with his. He had put it off till his fall
clearing was done-the garden freed of
the dried and empty bear vines, and rak
ed off; the weeds pulled up which had
flourished powerless for harm during the
last month or two; and which now stood
black and frozen; few dead bushes cut
down, and the fruit trees trimmed here and
there. 1t was late in November when the
pile lay ready, los down in corner Of
the plundered potato patch. In some of
its rough hollows lay tho remains of
thin snow.
Mr.. Talcott lighted it directly after
supper. Now and then he replenished Iii;
at 8 O'Clock it was still burning, He sat
down on an old stump to look at it as it
leaped snd ficksIed itself out, lighting
up a broad space around it and shining
on the high fence.
Mr.. Talcott sat with his elbows on his
knees and his chin in his hands. There
was a sort of peace in the clear night,
aud in the early quiet which had settled
down upon it. He looked around at the
still, bsre-scene and the palsgray sky,
and felt something of tie tranquility.
A spark from the subsidiDg fire snap
ped INTO little pile OF dry stalks half a
rod distant and they famed up. A twig
took fire from and burned TO its end, and
a loose splinter blazed ia its turn. He
watched the curious line OF light as it ate
its fiiaering way along. There was deep
deposite OF dead leaves drifted up against
the tall fence; they took the alarm, and
glowsd and cracked smartly. And then
the flames mounted Up, and grew broader
and redder-the fence had caught fire.
Mr.. Talcott got up and walked over to
it. Then he returned, with scarcely the
haste that might beioOked for, and start
en- for the pump. He seemed rather to
linger on the way; when he reached it, he
stood a moment without doing anything
in particular before he filled a wooden
pail, which lay near, and went back with
1t. The fence was flaming brightly but
he stopped 10 pick ont a chip which had
got stuck in the sole of his boot, and tied
the old wooden muller he wore around his
neck with hands that were not quite
steady Then he peered all about him, in
an oddly guilty way, emptied his pail of
wates on the ground, and went and sat
down on the stumd again. He looked
cold and cross and uneasy, and anything
but heroic; but there was q new found
warmth within him.
There was quite crowd about the
place half en- hour later, looking .. the
blackened remains of the line fence
several men, attracted by the flames,