Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1915 — SIGNS AND HENS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SIGNS AND HENS

By ISADORE BENSHINGHAM.

“Now you’ve done it, Abner!” exclaimed Mrs. Post. “Done what?” demanded her husband crossly, giving the hammer in his hand a last vicious bang across a nail head. “Killed a purple moth —see, witji the head of the hammer, and it’s a bad sign.”

“Sign, nothing!” growled Abner, but wrathfully. "The only sign I’m interested in at the present time is the sign I'm nailing up right here and now, and it says ‘No Trespassing,’ and the first one who questions it gets a dose of salt and pepper.” “You think you’re quite right, Abner?” insinuated Mrs. Post gently. “I know I’m right!” stormed back her better half. “See here, Maria, no milk-and-water sentiment! This creek was on my- land when I bought it, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Abner, but it’s crooked and cut in on the other side so that neighbor Dodd has near a third of it.” “Let him keep it-; let him keep it! that’s all right!” shouted Abner. “I’ve no objection, but when he sets his visitors to fishing all over it, and his cows wading in to muddy it, and intrudes on my land, let him look out. I’m going to stake it off and set up a barb-wire fence. Then let him and his crowd enjoy the two or three feet of shallow water to their hearts’ content!”

“I* think you’re wrong, Abner,” protested Mrs. Post seriously. “It didn’t used to be this way, but all neighborly and pleasant. I do hope because Mr. Dodd crowed over you a bit when you insisted about there being no .likelihood of a war, and it came, that you won’t harbor up a wicked grievance.”

“Never mind about that,” snapped her husband. “Dodd can’t lord it over me. The sign goes up, and the fence later.”

“And what about the young people?” voiced Mrs. Post, gravely. “Bob

Dodd and our Nell are all but engaged. Going to disturb their happiness?” “Yes, I am!” fairly roared Post “If I so much as hear of my daughter encouraging the son of an enemy. I’ll lock her up in a nunnery!” Mrs. Post sighed and turned away. When she got home she had a good crying spell. She knew her husband was in the wrong, and lamented the fact and feared for the outcome. A neighborly row, she realized, was a thing to be dreaded where a man of the set ideas of her arbitrary husband was concerned. Mrs. Post was superstitious. She had imbibed all current old-country lore regarding signs and tokens from her father and mother, and always had a trite and hackneyed saying of a past generation to fit the case of the moment. To kill a purple moth was worse in her estimation than walking under a ladder, or seeing a white horse driven by a girl with auburn hair on a Friday. Her husband was too wrathy to pay more than passing attention to the killing of an insect. “Accidental, anyhow,” he quieted a certain respect for the predictions of his wife by muttering. “There’s no use! Dodd has been setting down on me hard since he got comfortably fixed in a money way, and I’m not going to stand his high and mighty pride! There’s the 1 warning. I pity those who don’t steed it!” But Post’s work was worse than his bite. His spell of jealousy and resentment might have passed by, only the very next day in the choice of selectmen for the township his neighbor, Dodd, was chosen and he was retired. It was clearly explained to him that this was done to give the north district of the township a fair representation, but Post would not have it that way. “Underhand work —mean, sneaking tactics somewhere!” he insisted on believing. Therewith he no longer spoke to Dodd when he met him, and forbade Nell to keep company with “that young sprig of smartness, Bob Dodd.” Once started f career bolstered

up by unworthy prejudice and hatred, the evil elements in the character of the old man began to hold high sway. Dodd always bowed to him when they met, although all he received in return was a cold stare of indifference and contempt. One day Post ran to the house in a great fuss and worry, grabbed up his gun and made back for the brook. He had discovered a small boat and someone in it, fishing well over on his side of the But when he returned he was ashamed of himself. The intruder turned out to be a girl visitor at the Dodd home.

He was uneasy and unhappy, although he tried to appear outwardly firm and satisfied, the day a big load of barbed 'wire and posts arrived. The brook lined the two farms for about a hundred rods. That entire distance Post drove the posts and" strung the barbed wire. “Hope Dodd enjoys his three feet of water front!” he chuckled, coming in to supper. “Where’s Nell?” he asked of his wife, tracing some deep worry in her patient, worn face.

“I’ve got bad news for you, Abner,” replied Mrs. Post gravely. “So? Well, out with it, and be done with it What is it?” “Nell is going to leave home.” “H’m!” muttered Post, glaring uncomfortably, but trying to keep up a. grim, fierce bearing. “Yes; she is visiting my brother at Acton for a day or two, and he is going to get her a position there. Nell loves us, Abner,” added Mrs. Post, trying hard to keep back the tears, "and she won’t disobey you, but she says it will simply break her heart to remain so near the man she loves, and meet him daily, and pass him by as if he were a stranger.” A week went by. In two more days Nell was to leave the home roof. Post did not unbend. He came in one evening looking worn and troubled. The family was absent at the brother of his wife. A heavy rain had set in. They would not be home that night. Post, lonely and full of darker thoughts than -ever, recklessly extended the small glass of cordial he sometimes-iook to half a dozen. Soggy 'and dozing, he went to sleep on the sofa, forgetting even to drive in the cattle from a lowland pit where they browsed all night when the weather was fair.

It was well on towards morning when a thundering knock at the door aroused Post. He went there, blinking and grumbling, to face his neighbor, Dodd.

“Out with you, quick, Post, and help us!” shouted the excited Dodd. “There has been a perfect deluge, and if ws hadn’t got in time to your cattle they’d have been all drowned. We have got to look to things, for the stream is twenty feet over the banks.” Post forgot his enmity in the arduous exertions of the next few hours. His neighbor certainly saved his cattle. All hands sought,rest as the water suddenly subsided, and then, about noon, to the amazement of all the brook ran dry. It was some hours before this mystery was explained. The force of a terrific deluge had broken out a rocky ledge and diverted the water." There would never be a dividing brook on the two farms again. < And with “the water that had passed away” went all the enmity of Abner Post for the neighbor he had misjudged; and Nell did not go away to work, and the barbed-wire fence was rooted up and cast to the void. (Copyright, 1916, by W. Q. Chapman.)

Grabbed Up His Gun and Made Back for the Brook.