One time when the boundary dispute was at its height, she had burst upon John as he went to his work in the morning, with a storm of far-reaching and comprehensive epithets.  She gave him the history of the Watson family, past, present, and future—­especially the future; every Watson that ever left Ireland came in for a brief but pungent notice.

John stood thoughtfully rubbing his chin, and when she stopped, not from lack of words, but from lack of breath, he slowly remarked: 

“Mistress McGuire, yer a lady.”

“Yer a liar!” she snapped back, with a still more eloquent burst of invectives.

John lighted his pipe with great deliberation, and when it was drawing nicely he took it from his mouth and said, more to himself than to her: 

“Stay where ye are, Pat McGuire.  It may be hot where ye are, but it would be hotter for ye if ye were here, and ye’d jist have the throuble o’ movin’.  Stay where ye are, Pat, wherever ye are.”  He walked away leaving Mrs. McGuire with the uncomfortable feeling that he had some way got the best of her.

The Watsons had planted their potatoes beside the fence, and did not dream of evil.  But one morning in the early autumn, the earliest little Watson who went out to get a basin of water out of the rain barrel, to wash the “sleeps” out of his eyes, dropped the basin in his astonishment, for the fence was gone—­it was removed to Mrs. McGuire’s woodpile, and the lady herself was industriously digging the potatoes.

Bugsey, for he was the early little bird, ran back into the house screaming: 

“She’s robbed us!  She’s robbed us! and tuk our fence.”

The Watson family gathered as quickly as a fire brigade at the sound of the gong, but in the scramble for garments some were less fortunate than others.  Wee Tommy, who was a little heavier sleeper than the others, could find nothing to put on but one overshoe and an old chest protector of his mother’s, but he arrived at the front, nevertheless.  Tommy was not the boy to desert his family for any minor consideration such as clothes.

Mrs. McGuire leaned on her hoe and nonchalantly regarded the gathering forces.  She had often thought out the scene, and her air of indifference was somewhat overdone.

The fence was on her ground, so it was, and so were two rows of the potatoes.  She could do what she liked with her own, so she could.  She didn’t ask them to plant potatoes on her ground.  If they wanted to stand there gawkin’ at her, they wur welcome.  She always did like comp’ny; but she was afraid the childer would catch cowld, they were dressed so loight for so late in the season.  She picked up the last pailful as she spoke, and retired into her own house, leaving the Watson family to do the same.

Mrs. Watson counselled peace.  John ate his breakfast in silence; but the young Watsons, and even Pearlie, thirsted for revenge.  Bugsey Watson forgot his Band of Hope teaching of returning good for evil, and standing on the disputed territory, he planted his little bare legs far apart and shouted, dancing up and down to the rhythm: