A quarrel is like a tumble weed in its capacity for growing in size, and, tossed back and forth by the windy tongues of the Widow Barlow, who gloried in “speaking her mind,” and old Mr. Harding, who cherished his right to the last word as religiously as a woman, the original difference had grown to be a very serious thing, indeed. “I’ll fix her!” he had exclaimed, after the last tilt of words which occurred between them. “I’ll put up a fence so high she can’t scream over it, and if she comes inside my yard I’ll buy a dog.” He thoroughly enjoyed that bit of spite work, and amused himself immensely in overseeing the ungainly structure as it went up, completely obstructing the objectionable widow’s view on the east side. She had no redress, for he had given her the benefit of the disputed line, and a man could put up bill boards on his property if he wished to, and he hugged himself to think of her rage and disgust. He did not in the least overestimate it, and he heard with glee from the neighbors and the housekeeper the savage onslaughts on his character which she was making, and it was not long before a moving van backed up before her door, a “To rent” sign appeared, and Mr. Harding was alone with victory. He was soured in the operation, it must be confessed. No man can habitually nurse hatred and spite in his bosom without becoming contaminated. When gentle, soft-voiced Mrs. Harding was living, with her generous heart and hand, her noiseless, unostentatious way of settling a difficulty, it would have been quite impossible for him to have indulged in such an exhibition; she would have loved him out of it insensibly, and have so limbered the widow’s acrimonious tongue with the oil of kindness that the quarrel would have died at birth; but it was a sorry day for him when the better part of himself was laid away under the green in the cemetery, and he was quite free to be his untrammeled self. Some way the mother’s voice, as it floated over the top of the ugly fence, reminded him of her. It was such a gentle, loving voice, with a flute-like clearness in it which made every word audible. They had never had any children, he and the wife who would have made such a tender mother, but he imagined she would have spoken to them just as this mother was speaking if she had been surrounded by active, questioning lads and lasses, and his surly mood softened as he heard them chattering over the treasures of broken china they were finding in the widow’s refuse heap. “We’ll build the playhouse right here. The big, high boards will make such a nice back,” said little Barbara. “Maybe the man won’t like us to drive nails in his fence,” Rodney suggested. “But this side of it is ours,” laughed the mother, softly. “He can only claim one side of even a nuisance; but you must be careful not to annoy him with too much noise.”