The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-07-16
THE END OF A FEUD.
From the San Francisco Argonaut.

1t was certainly a frst-rate feud and a
source of much pride to the settlers in
and about Hickey township, just as a
haunted house, or a murder mystery, or a
long-lived scandal might have been, only
the feud was much more satisfactory be-
cause it had been on for four years, and
hardly month had passed during all
that time that had not witnessed some
new episode in the affair, and each one
seemed more startling than its predeces-
sor. And so it was that the good people
of Hickey township held their heads just
a little bit higher than their less fortu-
nate friends who reside in more peaceful
portions Of the country.
1.-THE feud-all started on account of
yearling calf-than which, permit me
Ga stock raiser of limited but fruitful ex-
perience) to interpolate, there never was
nor can there ever be a creature m ore
hopelessly, unreasonably 'ornery' and
one more productive of sinful language
and display of sultry temper on the part
of its keepers. Yearling calves have
caused the recording angel more trouble,
broken up more old friendships, produced
more family jars andin the form of veal be-
gotten more Indigestion and the insomnia
resulting therefrom than but this is,not an
essay on the sinful sportive steerlet and
his shortcomings
The Walkers and Benedicts had been
old neighbors for years, back in Ioway."
In fact the elder Walkers and the elder
Benedicts had been married about the
same time, at the beginning of the war,
and had just settled on adjoining home
steads when the first gun was fired on
Sumter. The men enlisted in the same
company, fought side by side, ate and
slept and suffered together, and at home
their young wives waited and wept to-
gether. When the little Walkers and the
little Benedicts grew large enough to run
about, they were playmates and boon
compartments the children of one fam
lily felt as much at liberty III
the home of the others as they did in
their own-for % years the two families
lived in peace and amity, and then that
miserable calf precipitated an irreparable
row. 1t was too bad, all the neighbors
said but it is a noticeable fact that
none of them attempted to patch up a
peace-life in Hickey township and at
Hickey Corners would have been dull, in
deed, but for the feud so everybody sat
by and watched each new phase of the
affair with, nervous, morbid interest, and
commented thereon, but not in manner
Ilkely 10 prove COHQuClN6 70 u bEuCc On INC
part Of the disputants.
1t was this way: The Benedict and
Walker houses had been built on adjacent
corners of Ithe homestead quarters, and
were quite close together: in fact, one
well sunk on the quarter section line be-
tween the two homesteads, had furnished
water for both families for the first four
years after coming to Dakota. and it was
only a short distance from either house.
But it came to pass on the Walker do
main there was born and grew and waxed
fat and Sassy a brindle calf, with a
right smart chance of white in its eyeand a
plethora of deep-dyed mischief in its
soul-and he (for it was a young gentle
man "critter'i) while yet of tender age
but tough of record, cngendered the feud.
He had wandered away the day before,
and when he returned at night the gate
of the calf pen was shut against him, and
in the morning when Papa Benedict arose
from post-breakfast family prayers, and
followed by the younger male Benedicts
hied him toward the stable, he beheld his
neighbours incipient steer nipping in the
bud sundry young and toothsome cab
bages and kicking out of the earth, in his
bovine abandon. all he could not eat.
Then Papa Benedict was wroth and
thereupon did he give way to naughty,
surrounded the offending calf and brought
him up for judgment.
Now Papa Benedict was a man of
hasty temper, but easily Gained; so
when the calf was rendered him at the
end of a long picket rope his wrath had
decreased several degrees and he wound
the rope around his hands and started to
lead the calf home.
1t was while he was bordering on what