THE LINE FENCE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 18, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 42.

THE LINE FENCE.

A GOOD lawyer learns many lessons in the school of human nature; and thus it was that Lawyer Hackett did not fear to purchase the tract of land that had been "lawed over" for years.

Some of the people wondered why he wanted to get hold of property with such an incubus of uncertainty upon it. Others thought that perhaps he wanted some legal knitting work, and would pitch in red-hot to fight that line fence question on his own hook.

That's what the owner of the adjoining land thought. So he braced himself for trouble when he saw Hackett coming across the fields one day.

Said Hackett, "What's your claim here, anyway, as to this fence?"

"I insist," replied his neighbor, "that your fence is over on my land two feet at one end and one foot at least at the other end."

"Well," replied Hackett, "you go ahead just as quick as you can and set your fence over. At the end where you say I encroach on you two feet set the fence on my land four feet. At the other end push it on my land two feet."

"But," persisted the neighbor, "that's twice what I claim."

"I don't care about that," said Hackett. "There's been fight enough over this land. I want you to take enough so that you are perfectly satisfied, and then we can get along pleasantly. Go ahead and help yourself."

The man paused abashed. He had been ready to commence the old struggle, tooth and nail, but this move of the new neighbor stunned him. Yet he wasn't to be outdone in generosity. He looked at Hackett.

"Squire," said he, "that fence ain't going to be moved an inch. I don't want the land. There wa'n't nothing in the fight anyway but the principle of the thing."—Christian Observer.