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Our talk was changed by the sight of a lady leaning and calling over a fence.

“Mrs. Jeffries,” said she. “Oh, Mrs. Jeffries!”

“Well?” called a voice next door.

“I want to send Leola and Arvasita into your yard.”

“Well?” the voice repeated.

“Our tool-house blew over into your yard last night. It’s jammed behind your tank.”

“Oh, indeed!”

A window in the next house was opened, a head put out, and this occasioned my presentation to both ladies. They were Mrs. Mattern and Mrs. Jeffries, and they fell instantly into a stiff caution of deportment; but they speedily found I was not worth being cautious over. Stuart whispered to me that they were widows of high standing, and mothers of competing favorites for the elocution prize; and I hastened to court their esteem. Mrs. Mattern was in body more ample, standing high and yellow and fluffy; but Mrs. Jeffries was smooth and small, and behind her spectacles she had an eye.

“You must not let us interrupt you, ladies,” said I, after some civilities. “Did I understand that something was to be carried some- where?”

“You did,” said Mrs. Jeffries (she had come out of her house); “and I am pleased to notice no damage has been done to our fence–this time.”

“It would have been fixed right up at my expense, as always, Mrs. Jeffries,” retorted her neighbor, and started to keep abreast of Mrs. Jeffries as that lady walked and inspected the fence. Thus the two marched parallel along the frontier to the rear of their respective territories.

“You’ll not resign?” said Stuart to me. “It is ‘yours till death,’ ain’t it?”

I told him that it was.

“About once a month I can expect this,” said Mrs. Jeffries, returning along her frontier.

“Well, it’s not the only case in Sharon, Mrs. Jeffries,” said Mrs. Mattern. “I’ll remind you of them three coops when you kept poultry, and they got away across the railroad, along with the barber’s shop.”

“But cannot we help you get it out?” said I, with a zealous wish for peace.

“You are very accommodating, sir,” said Mrs. Mattern.

“One of the prize-awarding committee,” said Stuart. “An elegant judge of oratory. Has decided many contests at Concord, the home of Emerson.”

“Concord, New Hampshire,” I corrected; but neither lady heard me.

“How splendid for Leola!” cried Mrs. Mattern, instantly.” Leola! Oh, Leola! Come right out here!”

Mrs. Jeffries has been more prompt. She was already in her house, and now came from it, bringing a pleasant-looking boy of sixteen, it might be. The youth grinned at me as he stood awkwardly, brought in shirtsleeves from the performance of some household work.

“This is Guy,” said his mother. “Guy took the prize last year. Guy hopes–“

“Shut up, mother,” said Guy, with entire sweetness. “I don’t hope twice–“

“Twice or a dozen times should raise no hard feelings if my son is Sharon’s best speaker,” cried Mrs. Jeffries, and looked across the fence viciously.

“Shut up, mother; I ain’t,” said Guy.

“He is a master of humor recitations,” his mother now said to me. “Perhaps you know, or perhaps you do not know, how high up that is reckoned.”

“Why, mother, Leola can speak all around me. She can,” Guy added to me, nodding his head confidentially.

I did not believe him, I think because I preferred his name to that of Leola.

“Leola will study in Paris, France,” announced Mrs. Mattern, arriving with her child. “She has no advantages here. This is the gentleman, Leola.”

But before I had more than noted a dark-eyed maiden who would not look at me, but stood in skirts too young for her figure, black stockings, and a dangle of hair that should have been up, her large parent had thrust into my hand a scrap-book.

“Here is what the Santa Fe Observer says”; and when I would have read, she read aloud for me. ‘The next is the Los Angeles Christian Home. And here’s what they wrote about her in El Paso: ‘Her histrionic genius for one so young’–it commences below that picture. That’s Leola.” I now recognized the black stockings and the hair. “Here’s what a literary lady in Lordsburg thinks,” pursued Mrs. Mattern.