"Will you come in an' take a cheer?" said Mrs. Harding, the laws of hospitality forcing her to be polite even to her enemy.
"Yes, for a minute or two, Mis' Harding," he replied, and sat down opposite her, resting his hat on his knees.
Mrs. Long took a fresh dip of snuff, and hitched her chair a little nearer, expectant and curious. A brief silence fell, but it was simply the stillness forerunning a storm. The shrill voices of the boys at work in the field below the house were distinctly audible, and from the kitchen, at the edge of the back yard, sounded the steady click-clack of a loom, plied by a strong, industrious hand.
A bitter feud existed between the Hurds and the Hardings. It dated back to the days when Killus Hurd and Sam Harding were young, and sprang from a dispute over some gold diggings. Unfilled trenches marked the spot where they first quarreled, and as the years seemed to wear the earth away into a deeper chasm, so the break between the two families widened until it passed into history in the settlement. The men were members of the same church, their farms adjoined, their homes were not over a mile apart, but they would not be reconciled. At last death claimed Sam Harding, and a new grave had to be made in the shadow of the "meetin'-house," where the Hurds and the Hardings of a former generation rested side by side in peace.
He had been dead two years, and all outward signs of hostility had ceased; but the elder members of the families had not forgotten. And when Mr. Hurd sat down before Mrs. Harding that morning, her thin cheeks flushed, her faded eyes gathered fire; she had plenty of spirit.
"Mis' Harding, where is that daughter o' your'n?"
The mode of attack confused her for a moment.
"Do you mean Sarah Betsy?"
"Yes, I mean Sarah Betsy."
"She's in the kitchen a-weavin'."