No, Mr. Harding had not observed a man about the place, and for an excellent reason—the fence shut off his view of the charming domestic life of his neighbors completely, and for the first time since its erection he wished it was back in the lumber yard. He had the grace to thank her, and to ask her to come again, after Mrs. Harrihan’s entrance with his dinner, saying that it would taste better with the flowers to look at, and Mrs. Manning poured his tea and buttered his toast, with a great pity for him in his loneliness in her warm heart.
It was the flowers at last which accomplished the downfall of the spitework fence. Acting on the hint of his pleasure in the bouquet on his dinner table, Mrs. Manning kept him supplied with them in liberal measure.
Mrs. Barlow’s roses were now in riotous bloom, and every day a fresh bouquet brightened the sick room. On account of the old wound, the injured ankle did not readily yield to treatment, and for weeks Mr. Harding was an unwilling prisoner, forced to look out at that unyielding expanse of pine until his very soul was sick of it.
He told his grievance in full detail to Mrs. Manning one day with an apologetic air, not willing that his cheery little neighbor, whom he was beginning to respect so much, should think that he indulged in high board fences as a matter of taste.
She heard the story of the Widow Barlow’s delinquencies smilingly, and contrived to throw such a wide mantle of charity, trimmed with humor, over the matter that Mr. Harding actually laughed—and at his own folly.
Even little Barbara lost her fear of “the fence man,” and, after bringing him several bouquets by way of visits of sympathy, she one day made him a social call with the kitten in her arms, also a ball and string with which to show off its accomplishments, and old Mr. Harding actually smiled, and forgot that he hated cats in watching the frolicsome little creature chasing its tail, the ball, or Barbara as she ran with the string.
One day there was the sound of pounding and rending on the Harding premises, and all the children ran excitedly to see.
Carpenters were tearing the spite fence down, and Barbara was in despair for her playhouse, but her childish heart was comforted, for Mr. Harding had given orders, and, when the workmen reached the spot, the boards were sawed down and shaped to match the rest of the structure, and with the dearest little window cut in, to the child’s great delight.
With the fence went every vestige of Mr. Harding’s crustiness toward his new neighbors. Not since his wife’s death had he been so genial and friendly, and the children were a constant source of interest and delight. It even came to pass, through Mrs. Manning’s mediation, that the matter of the boundary line was at last compromised without serious friction, and Mr. Harding really came to confess, to himself, that even the Widow Barlow was not so utterly, so irrevocably bad as she might be after all.
