The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-07-15
"BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOR."
By Martha McCulIoch-WiIIia,ns.

By Martha McCulIoch-Wlllians. Copyrighted. 1907. by Homer Sprague.
 "Five--nine--eleven- Miss Gatty counted cautiously, surveying her Hook of hens. T cant make out any more--but. dear me. the creatures alike"
 Again she counted. again. yet again. The tale was still the unlucky thirteen. Miss Cctty looked wirried. Well sne might. The hens were not her own, but held in trust for her absent sister.
 That, however. was less disquieting than the potentialities. behind possible runaways Since the missing three ,e had not come to the feeding call. It was clear that they were either dead or in duress. Either state meant the same thing-trespass upon the Labor lawn and strawberry beds. The Labor establishment loomed big and imposing two hundred yards away. but that was no distance at all to active foragers. such as white leghorns. Moreover there had been trouble b. .fore-trouble which had left a residuum of strained relations between the big house and the cottage. The cottage was almost the Gattys sole possession, albeit there had been time when everything In sight had been Gatty land.
 T don't know what to do. Susanna would go look for them." Miss Gatty said to the clothes-post. her sole sup port and confident. "I suppose I ought to do itA7but then how can I? Those Lalors are so new, and so rich. they'd insult newly. they weren't even afraid to be nasty to Susanna. Actual ly the woman told her she had no business to keep hens if she couldn't afford wired runs for them. AS though we hadn't a right to keep anything we pleased on our own place. But l do wish Susanna were here. That's selfish-she Is having a fine time at quarterly meeting. and. patience Knows, she goes seldom enough anywhere"
 Miss Gatty was slender and pale and pretty, if she had turned thirty. She had appealing brown eyes, and slim hands, taper fingered in spite of house and garden work. She loved the gar den. Indeed, 1t had been her salvat- ion, after she had worn herself to shadow wrestling with primary schol- ars. She did not in the least mlnd hens there. True they scratched and pecked. and wallowed nightly. and her garden was in fact chaotic. Flowers grew indiscriminately cheek and jow1 with vegetables.
 Notwithstanding she understood how aggravating vagrant hens might be to
 
 with strawberries ripe, the flock was a bosom of destruction. Those at .her feet, having eaten. their breakfast to the last grain. began straying lightly, and, as they walked preening them selves. Watching them narrowly, she saw suspicious scarlet flocks upon more than one white breast. They had certainly been at the Labor berries. She put her hands up over her heao' thinking hard.
 It was 8 o'clock of a lovely June morning. Birds sang rlotousiy all about. Miss Gatty listened to them. and said. nodding her head toward the hens: "I do believe all this comes of going against nature If you had broods' like the birds. you'd be too busy feed ing them to go hunting mischief.
 "Humph! they'd be worse than ever say thank the Lord there are no soualling keepers to whoop them up. If there were well. I'd have to move that's all." gruff masculine voice said behind her. Miss Gatty tuhed as though shot What she saw confront ing her evoked a strangled cry of dis may. A tall man stood glowering at her, and swinging militantly a bunch of headless white hens. I've brought hack your property-not being thief. be went on. "Now-let me pay you for the satisfaction I had in wringins their necks Let me also warn you the rest will go the same way as sure as they cross nay fence. Here! Take the money! If five dollars is not enough-
 ..Will YOU please to go away-instant