fact, I seem to be about the only member who didn’t. I told him so, and he said I lied. I’m—I’m mighty glad you horned in when you did. It’s always a dread of mine that some day I’ll have to thrash that chap. And you’ve saved me from doing it—this time. It’d be a hideous bore. And then there’d be good old Clive to be made blue by it, you know. And besides, Uncle Oz and his dad were—”

“I know,” she soothed. “I know. You won’t carry it any further, will you? Please don’t.”

“I suppose not,” he answered. “But, really, after a man calls another a liar and—”

“Oh, I suppose that means there’ll be one more neighborhood squabble,” she sighed, puckering[31] her low forehead in annoyance. “And two more people who won’t see each other when they meet. Isn’t it queer? We come out to the country for a good time. And we spend half that time starting feuds or stopping them. People can live next door to each other in a big city for a lifetime, and never squabble. Then the moment they get to the country—”

[31]

“‘All Nature is strife,’” quoted Thaxton. “So I suppose when we get back to Nature we get back to strife. And speaking of strife, there was a girl who was going to let me beat her at tennis, this morning; instead of spending the day scolding me for being called a liar. Come along; before all the courts are taken. I want to forget that Oz Creede and I have got to cut each other, henceforth. Come along.”

On the following morning, appeared a little “human interest” story, in the Pittsfield Advocate. One of those anecdotal newspaper yarns that are foredoomed to be “picked up” and copied, from one end of the continent to the other. Osmun Creede had written the story with some skill. And the editor had sent a reporter to the courthouse to verify it, before daring to print it.

The article told, in jocose fashion, of the[32] clause in old Osmun Vail’s will, requiring his great-nephew and heir to maintain Vailholme, at request, as a hotel. An editorial note added the information that a copy of the will had been read, at the courthouse, by an Advocate reporter, as well as Thaxton Vail’s signed acceptance of its conditions.

[32]

It was Clive Creede who first called Thaxton’s notice to the newspaper yarn. While young Vail was still loitering over his morning mail, Clive rode across from Rackrent Farm, bringing a copy of the Advocate.

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