The King of Folly Island; And Other People

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1888. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... III. No one would suspect, from the look of the lane itself, that it had always been auch a provoker of wrath, and even a famous battle-ground. While petty wars bad raged between the men and women of the old farms, walnut-trees had grown high in air, and apple-trecs had leaned their heavy branches on the stono walls and, year after year, decked themselves in pink-and-white blossoms to arch this unlucky by-way for a triumphal processiou of peace that never came. Birds built their nests in the boughs and pecked the ripe blnckberrics; green brakes and wild roses and tall barborrybushes flourished in their season on either aide the wheel-ruts. It waa a remarkably pleasant country lane, where children might play and lovers might linger. No one would imagine that this lane had its lawsuits and damages, ita annual crop of briefs, and suecession of surveyors and quarrelsome partisans; or that in every generation of owners each man must be either plaintiff or defendant The surroundings looked permanent enough. -No one would suspect that a cer tain piece of wall had been more than once thrown down by night and built again, angrily, by day; or that a well-timbered cornhotiso had been the cause of much litigation, and even now looked, when you came to know its story, as if it stood on its long, straight legs, like an ungainly, top-heavy beast, all ready to stalk away when its position became too dangerous. The Barncts had built it heyond their houndary; it had been moved two or throe times, backward and forward. The Barnct house and land stood between tho Crosby farm and tho high-road; the Crosbys had never heen ablo to reach the highway without passing their enemies undor full fire of ugly looks or taunting voices. The intricacies of legal com plications in the matter of r...