One fruitful cause of dispute between Mrs. McGuire and
the Watsons was the boundary line between the two estates.
In the spring Mrs. Watson and the boys put up a fence of
green poplar poles where they thought the fence should
be, hoping that it might serve the double purpose of
dividing the lots and be a social barrier between them
and the relict of the late McGuire. The relict watched
and waited and said not a word, but it was the ominous
silence that comes before the hail.
Mrs. McGuire hated the Watson family collectively, but
it was upon John Watson, the man of few words, that she
lavished the whole wealth of her South of Ireland hatred,
for John Watson had on more than one occasion got the
better of her in a wordy encounter.
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.
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