Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1875 — THE TWO NEIGHBORS. [ARTICLE]

THE TWO NEIGHBORS.

One evening, as the twilight was dusking into deeper shades, Farmer. Welton stood in hrs door-yard with a gun in his hands, and saw a dog coming out from his shed. It was not his dog, for his was of a light color, while tins was surely black. The shed alluded to was open in front, with double doors for the passage ofcarts, ' and a wicket for pedestrians at the back; and this shed was a part of a continuous structure connecting the barn with the house. Around back of this shed was the sheep-fold. There had been trouble upon Fanner Welton’s place. Dogs had been killing his sheep—and some of the very best at that. He had declared, in his wrath, that he would shoot the first stray dog he found prowling about his premises. On this evening, by chance, he had been carrying his gun from the house to the barn when the canine intruder appeared. Aye, and in the barn he had been taking the skin from a valuable sheep which had been killed and mangled with tigerish ferocity. So, when he saw the strange dog coming through his shed, he brought the gun to his shoulder and, with quick, sure aim, fired. The dog gave a leap and a howl, and, having whisked around in a circle two or three times, he bounded off in a tangent, yelping painfully, and was soon lost to sight. “ Halloo! What’s to pay now, Welton?’’ “Ah—is that you, Frost?” “ Yes. Ye been shootin’ somethin’, ain’t ye?” “ I’ve shot a dog, I think." “ Ye-e-s. I seed him scootin’ ofi. Itwas Brackett’s, I reckon.” Before the farmer could make any further remark his wife called to him from the porch, and he went in. Very shortly afterward a boy and a girl came out through the shed as the dog had come. Down back of Welton’s farm, distant half a mile, or so, was a saw and grist mill with quite a little settlement around it, and people having occasion to go on foot from that section to the farms on the hill could cut off a long distance by crossing Welton’s lot. The boy and girl were children of Mr. Brackett. When they reached home they were met by a scene of direconfusion. Old Carlo, the grand old Newfoundland dog—the Ipving and the loved—the true and the faithful—had come home shot through the head, and was dying. The children threw themselves upon their shaggy mate and wept and moaned in agony. Mr. Brackett arrived just as the dog breathed his last. One of the older boys .stood by with a lighted lantern—for it had grown quite dark now—and the farmer saw what had happened. “ Who did this ?” he asked groaningly. “John Welton did it," said Tom Frost, coming up at that moment. “ He’s been losin’ sheep, an 1 I guess he’s got kind o’ wrathy.” “But my dog never killed a sheep—never! He’s been reared to care for sheep. How came he down there?” “ He went over to the mill with Sis and me;’’ saw the younger boy,sobbing as he spoke; “ and he was running on ahead of us toward home. I heard a gun just before we got to Mr. W’elton’s, but oh! 1 didn’t think be could have shot poor Carlo!” Mr. Brackett was fairly beside himself. To say he was angry would not express it. He had loved that dog—-it had been the chief pet of his household for years. He was not a man in the .habit of using profane language, but on the present occasion a fierce oath escaped him; and in that frame of mind—literally boiling with hot wrath and indignation—he started for Welton’s. John Welton and Peter Brackett had been neighbors from their earliest days, and they had been friends, too. Between r the two families there had Wen a bond of love and good will, and a spirit of fraternal kindness and regard had marked their intercourse. Both the farmers .were hard-working men, with strong feelings and positive characteristics. They belonged to the same religious society and sympathized in politics. They had had warm discussions, but never yet a direct falling out. Of the two, Welton was the more intellectual, and, perhaps, a little more, tinged with pride than was his

neighbor. But they were both hearty men, enjoying life for the good it gave them. Mr. Welton entered his kitchen, and stood the empty gun up behind the door. “What’s the matter, John?” his wife asked, as she saw his troubled face. “ I’m afraid I’ve done a bad thing,” he replied regretfully. '“ I fear I have shot Brackett’s dog.” “Oh, John!” “But I didn’t know whose dog it was. I saw him coming out from the shed—if was too dark to see more than that it was a dog. I only thought of the sheep I had lost, and I fired.” “ I am sorry, John. Oh, how Mrs. Brackett and the children will feel. They set everything by old Carlo. But you can explain it.” “Yes—l can explain it.” j Half an hour later Mr. Welton was going to his barn with a lighted ' lantern in his hand. He was thinking of the recent unfortunate occurrence and was sorely worried and perplexed. What would his neighbor say ? He hoped there might be no trouble. He was reflecting thus when Mr. Brackett appeared before him, coming up quickly and stopping with an angry stamp of the foot. Now there may be a volume of electric influence even in the stamp of a foot, and there was such an influence in the stamp which Brackett gave; and Welton felt it, and braced himself against it. There was, moreover, an atmosphere exhaling from the presence of the irate man at once repellant and aggravating. “John Welton! you have shot mydog!” The words were hissed forth hotly. “ Yes,” said Welton, icily. “ How dared you do it?”

“ I dare shoot any dog that comes prowling about my buildings, when I have had my sheep killed by them.” “ But my dog never troubled your sheep, and you know it!” “ How should I know it?” “You know that he! never did harm to a sheep. It wasn’t in his nature. It was a mean, cowardly act, and (an oath) you shall suffer for it!” “Brackett, you don’t know to whom you are talking.” “ Oho!” (Another oath.) “We’ll find out! We’ll see! Don’t put on airs, John Welton. You ain’t a saint. I’ll have satisfaction, if I have to take it out of your hide!” “ Peter, you’d better go home and cool off. You are making yourself ridiculous.” Now, really, this w r as the unkindest cut of all. Not all the mad words of Brackett put together were so hard as this single sentence; and John Welton put all the bitter sarcasm in his command into it.

Brackett burst forth into a torrent of invective, and then turned away. Half an hour later John Welton acknowledged to himself that he had not done exactly right. Had he, in the outset, in answer to Brackett’s first outburst, told the simple truth—that he had shot the dog by mistake; that he was sorry, and that he w’as willing to do anything in his power to make amends—had he done this his neighbor would probably have softened at once. But it was too late now. The blow had been struck; he hadbeen grossly lnsutted, and' he'would hotback down. Mr. Brackett w T as not so reflective. He only felt his wrath, which he nursed to keep it warm. That night he hitched his horse to a job-wagoh and went down to the village after a barrel of flour. Having transacted his store business he called upon Laban Pepper, a lawyer, to whom he narrated the facts of the shooting of his dog. Pepper was a man anxious for fees. He had no sympathy or soul above that. “You say your dog was ip company with two of your children?” “ Yes.” “And this passage over Mr. Welton’s land, and througli his shed, has been freely yielded by him as a right of way to his neighbors?” “ Yes, sir, ever since I can remember.” “Then, my dear sir, Welton is clearly liable. If you will come with me we will step into Mr. Garfield’s and have a suit commenced at once.” > Mr. Garfield was the trial Justice. "’‘All this happened on Friday evening. 0n Saturday' it had become noised abroad in the- farming district that"there was not only serious trouble between Neighbors Welton and Brackett, but that they were going to law about it. On Sunday morning John Welton told his wife he should not attend church. She could go if she liked. She had no need to ask her husband why he would not go out. She knew he was unhappy and that he could not bear to meet his old neighbor in the house of God while the dark cloud was upon him. Nor did she wishto meet either Mr. or Mrs. Brackett. Bo they both stayed at home.

Peter Brackett was even more miserable than John Welton, though perhaps he did not know it. He held in close companionship the very worst demon a man can embrace—the demon of wrathful vengeance—and, in order to maintain himself at the strain to which he had set his feelings, he was obliged to nurse the monster. He did not attend church on that day, nor did his wife. Twb or three times during the calm, beautiful Sabbath, as he glanced over toward his neighbor’s dwelling, he found himself beginning to wish that he had not gone to see John Welton in such a heat of anger; but he put the wish away and nursed back his wrath. On Monday toward noon the Constable came up from the village and read to John Welton an imposing legal document. It was a summons issued by William Garfield, Esq., a Justice of the Peace and Quorum, ordering the said John Welton to appear before him at two of the clock on Wednesday, at his office, then and there to answer to the complaint of Peter Brackett, etc., etc. The officer read the summons and left with the defendant a copy. silt was the first time John Welton had ever been called upon to face the law; At first he was awe-strickea and then he was wroth. He told himself that he would, fight ijtp 6 the bitter end. And now he tried to nurse his wrath and became more unhappy than before. On Tuesday evening Parson Surely called upon Mr. Weltdn. The good man had heard of the trouble and was exceedingly exercised in spirit. Both the men were of his flock, and he loved and respected them both. He sat down alone with Welton, and asked him what it meant. “ Tell me calmly and candidly all about it,” he said. After a little reflection Mr. Welton told the story. He knew the old clergyman for a true man and a whole-hearted friend, and he told everything just as he understood it. . . “ And Neighbor Brackett thinks, even now, that you shot the dog knowing that it was his?” >- “ I suppose so.” “If you had told him the exact facts

in the beginning do you think he would have held his anger?” , , . m , This was a hard question f° r John Welton, but he answered it mani"hHy : “ Truly, parson, I do noi think he would.” “ Were you ever more unhappy' in your life than yon have been since this .trouble

came?" “ I think not.” ♦ ’ “ And, if possible, Neighbor Bracket. 1 is more unhappy than you.” “ Do yop think so ?” “ Yes. He is the most-angry and vengeful. | A brief pause, and then the parson resumed : “ Brother Welton, with you are needed but few words. You are a stronger man than Brother Brackett. Do you not believe he has a good heart?” “ Yes.”

“ I wish you could show him how true and good your own heart is.” “Parson!” “ I wish you could show him that you possess true Christian courage.” “ Parson, what do you mean ?” “ I wish you had the courage to meet him and conquer him.” “ How would you have me do it ?” “ First, conquer yourself. You are not offended ?” “No. Goon.” And thereupon the good old clergyman drew up his chair and laid his hand upon his friend’s arm and told him just what he would have him do. He spoke earnestly and with tears in his eyes. “Brother Welton, have you the heart and the courage to do this ?” The farmer arose and took two or three turns across the floor and finally said: “I will do it!”

On the following day, toward the middle of the afterhoon, Peter Brackett stood in the dooryard with his head bent. He was thinking whether he should harness his horse and be off before dinner or whether he would wait until afternoon. He could not work; he could not even put his mind to ordinary chores. “ I wonder,” he said to himself, “ how the trial will come out! I s’pose Welton’ll hire old Whitman to take his case. Of course the office’!) be crowded. Tom Frost says it’s noised everywhere and that everybody’ll be there. Plague take it! I wish-v —” His meditations were interrupted by approaching steps, and on looking up he beheld Neighbor Welton. “ Good morning, Peter.” Brackett gasped, and finally answered: “ Good morning,” though rather crustily. Welton went on, frankly and pleasant>y: ‘ ' “ 1 ou will go to the village to-day?” “ I s’pose so.” “I have been summoned by Justice Garfield to be there, also; but really, Peter, I don’t want to go. One of us will be enough. Garfield is a fair man, and when he knows the facts he will do what is right. Now, you can state them as well as 1 can, and whatever his decision is I will abide by it. Y T ou can tell him that I shot your dog, and that your dog had done me no harm.” “Do you acknowledge that old Carlo never harmed you—that he never troubled your sheep?” inquired Brackett, with startled surprise. “ It. was not his nature to do harm to anything. I am sure he would sooner have saved one of my sheep than have killed it.” “ Then what did you shoot him for?” “ That is what I was just coming at, Peter. You will tell the Justice that I had lost several of my best sheep—killed by dogs—that I had just been taking the skin from a fat, valuable wether that had been so killed and mangled—that I was on my way from my house, with my gun in my hand, when I saw a dog come out from my shed. My first thought was that he had come from my sheep-ibld. It was almost dark and I could not see plainly. Tell the Justice that I had no idea it was your dog. I never dreamed that I had fired that cruel shot at old Carlo until Tom Frost told me.”

“How? You didn’t know it was my dog?” “ Peter, have you thought so hard of me as to think that I could knowingly and willingly have harmed that grand old dog? I would sooner have shot one of my own oxen.” “But you didn’t tell me so at first. Why didn’t you?” “ Because you came upon me so—so—suddenly ” “O pshaw!” cried Brackett, with a stamp ot his foot. “ Why don’t you spit it out as it was? Say I came down on you so like a hornet that you hadn’t a chance to think. I was a blamed fool—that’s what I was.” “ And I was another, Peter; if I hadn’t been I should have told you the truth at once, instead of flaring up. But we will understand it now. You can see the Justice ” “Justice be hanged!—John— Dang it all! what is the use? There! —Let us end it so!” From her window Mrs. Brackett had seen the two men come together, and she trembled for the result. By and by she saw’ her husband, as though flushed and excited, put out his hana. Mercy! was he going to strike his neighbor? She was ready to cry out with affright—the cry was almost upon her lips—when she beheld a scene that called forth rejoicing instead. And this was what she saw: She saw these two strong men grasp one another by the hand, and she saw big, bright tears rolling down their cheeks; and she knew that the fearful storm was passed, shd that the warm sunshine of love and tranquillity would coma again.