The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1899-02-26
CoId-BIoodcd Revenge.

Two neighbors in Reading. Pa. had a
quarrel and one took peculiar way to re-
venge herself upon the other. As the biz
zard has passed and Washington is now
enjoying its usual balmy winter weather.
this episode may be reported without fear
that any feud in the Capital City will be
intensified by similar act of aggression.
1t is not known what the original cause
of offence was, but these two neigh
bors, Mrs. Marsunek and Mrs. Nestle, had
been on terms of mutual dislike for some
time. Perhaps one of them kept hens, and
the quarrel dated from the time when the
hens scratched up a flower-bed in the
neighborng yard; perhaps one owned a
piano and played thereon at unreasonable
hours, or played badly, or played music Of
the Bowery music hall type. Perhaps the
trouble was more recent, arising from the
fact that when one neighbor slipped on a
treacherous bit of ice the other stood and
laughed. Perhaps one or the other was an
inyeterate borrower, and appropriated
everything in the house from the laundry
irons to the mistress opera glasses. Per-
haps-most likely supposition Of all-the
children of the two families had had a
fight. There are countless reasons why
people who live side by side in an ordinary
city block should fall out with each other.
Whatever its cause may have been, the
quarrel existed.
Mrs. Marsunek's opportunity came dur
ing the late period of blizzard weather.
1t is alleged that on one very cold
night. when the thermometer was de-
grees below zero and the Nestles
were nesting in their downy beds,
this willy neighbor got up and went
into their yard with a bucket Of
water, which she poured over the kitchen
door. The water froze before all of it got
to the sill. and more of it was poured on,
till the lower part of the door was covered
with solid coating of ice. Then she went
around and did the same thing to the front
door. Then. secure in the consciousness
Of plans triumphant, she went to sleep. il
not the sleep Of the just, at least that of
one who had done an effective piece OF
work.
When the Nestles woke in the morning
they thought it was effective-highly so.
They found their doors as tightly fastened
as if the job had been done with hammer
and nails. In. fact, unless Mrs. Marsunek
is more clever with tools than the average
woman, she had used much more effective
means than hammer and nails. The Mes
ties could neither get out of their back
door nor their front door. The butcher, the
milkman. and the coal man came, and found
them imprisoned. There was no hope that
the sun would melt the ice in that sort
of weather and Ratchet was finally hand
ed out through the window and the ice
was chopped away from each door. Then
the injured ones went 10 the authorities
and preferred a charge of malicious mis-
chief
Whatever the outcome OF this particular
case may be, it teaches moral and the
moral is this: that people will go TO more
trouble for vindictiveness and spite than
they will 10 earn a living. If the lady who
thus froze her neighbors into their house
had been obliged 10 go out in the cold
and dark and pour water on a door because
it would benefit some one she would have
felt very differently indeed and would have
thought herself ill-used.