FullReads

“‘Deed then an’ I will,” said Mrs. Dunleavy, whose face was close against the mosquito netting. “Them old pumpkin vines was no good anny way; did you see how one of them had the invintion, and wint away up on the fince entirely wit’ its great flowers, an’ there come a rain on ’em, and so they all blighted? I ‘d no call to grow such stramming great things in my piece annyway, ‘ating up all the goodness from me beautiful cabbages.”

III.

That afternoon the reunited friends sat banqueting together and keeping an eye on the road. They had so much to talk over and found each other so agreeable that it was impossible to dwell with much regret upon the long estrangement. When the melon was only half finished the stranger of the morning, with her large unopened bundle and the heavy handbag, was seen making her way up the hill. She wore such a weary and disappointed look that she was accosted and invited in by both the women, and being proved by Mrs. Connelly to be an old acquaintance, she joined them at their feast.

“Yes, I was here seventeen years ago for the last time,” she explained. “I was working in Lawrence, and I came over and spent a fortnight with Honora Flaherty; then I wint home that year to mind me old mother, and she lived to past ninety. I ‘d nothing to keep me then, and I was always homesick afther America, so back I come to it, but all me old frinds and neighbors is changed and gone. Faix, this is the first welcome I ‘ve got yet from anny one. ‘Tis a beautiful welcome, too,–I’ll get me apron out of me bundle, by your l’ave, Mrs. Con’ly. You ‘ve a strong resemblance to Flaherty’s folks, dear, being cousins. Well, ‘t is a fine thing to have good neighbors. You an’ Mrs. Dunleavy is very pleasant here so close together.”

“Well, we does be having a hasty word now and then, ma’am,” confessed Mrs. Dunleavy, “but ourselves is good neighbors this manny years. Whin a quarrel’s about nothing betune friends, it don’t count for much, so it don’t.”

“Most quarrels is the same way,” said the stranger, who did not like melons, but accepted a cup of hot tea. “Sure, it always takes two to make a quarrel, and but one to end it; that’s what me mother always told me, that never gave anny one a cross word in her life.”

“‘T is a beautiful melon,” repeated Mrs. Dunleavy for the seventh time. “Sure, I ‘ll plant a few seed myself next year; me pumpkins is no good afther all me foolish pride wit’ ’em. Maybe the land don’t suit ’em, but glory be to God, me cabbages is the size of the house, an’ you ‘ll git the pick of the best, Mrs. Con’ly.”

“What’s melons betune friends, or cabbages ayther, that they should ever make any trouble?” answered Mrs. Connelly handsomely, and the great feud was forever ended.

But the stranger, innocent that she was the harbinger of peace, could hardly understand why Bridget Connelly insisted upon her staying all night and talking over old times, and why the two women put on their bonnets and walked, one on either hand, to see the town with her that evening. As they crossed the bridge they looked at each other shyly, and then began to laugh.

“Well, I missed it the most on Sundays going all alone to mass,” confessed Mary Dunleavy. “I ‘m glad there’s no one here seeing us go over, so I am.”

“‘T was ourselves had bold words at the bridge, once, that we ‘ve got the laugh about now,” explained Mrs. Connelly politely to the stranger.