They had, it is true, bettered their predecessors to the extent of exchanging a stilted greeting when they met; but this perfunctory salutation was usually hurtled across the historic borderline and was seldom concluded without some reference to it. For Ellen Webster was an aggravating old woman dowered with just enough of the harpy never to be able to leave her antagonist in peace if she saw him at work in his garden.
“Mornin’, Martin,” she would call.
“Good mornin’, Miss Webster.”
“So you’re plowin’ up a new strip of land.”
“Yes, marm.”
“I s’pose you know it would save you a deal 6 of cartin’ if you was to use the stones you’re gettin’ out to fix up your wall.”
Then the hector would watch the brick-red color steal slowly from the man’s cheek up to his forehead.
To pile the stones on the heap so near at hand would, he recognized, have saved both time and trouble; nevertheless, he would have worked until he dropped in his tracks rather than have yielded to the temptation.
His wall, indeed! The impudence of the vixen!
Angry in every fiber of his body, he would therefore wheel upon his tormentor and flash out: