1901 
THH RURAL NEW-YORKER 
555 
Stackpole’s Stump Fence. 
“I don’t see but what you will have 
to submit, Cyrus.” said Colonel Bow- 
ker. “'J’he law seems to be pretty clear 
on the subject. When the State grants 
a railroad a charter and a town grants 
it the right of way the railroad com¬ 
pany can take, at a fair appraised value, 
any property lying in the line of its sur¬ 
vey, provided the owner refuses to sell 
at an agreed price. That covers the 
facts in this case. You refuse to sell 
the company a strip on the south side of 
your orchard. The State says to tne 
company, ‘We give you the right to ap¬ 
propriate that land at our appraisal.’ 
It’s no use for the owner to protest. 
The law can do nothing for him. If 
there was a ghost of a chance to fight. 
Cyrus, I’d be glad to do what I could 
for you. But a lawyer can’t do any¬ 
thing when there’s no law on his side.” 
Colonel Bowker tipped his chair back 
and threw one leg over the corner of 
his littered table. An old man, tremb¬ 
ling with impotent rage, sat in a rickety 
armchair on the other side of the table. 
His chin quivered and his thin lips kept 
opening and shutting as the senior vil¬ 
lage lawyer spoke. 
"Then, ef the law can’t do anything 
for me. I’ll do it for myself!” cried the 
old man, bringing his witheretl fist 
down on the arm of the chair. “I’ll see 
ef a man kin be robbed of what’s ue’n 
his’n for 50 year, and be’n in the family 
for more’ll a hundred!” 
“I hope you won’t do anything rash, 
Cyrus,” said the Colonel, blandly. "It’s 
a case where the welfare of the many 
overrides the welfare of the individual, 
you see. The law provides no recourse 
for the individual in such a case.” 
“I got done with the law, I tell ye!” 
shouted the old man, fiercely. “I’m de¬ 
pendin’ on myself now. I said, ef the 
law couldn’t help me. I’d help myself. 
I’ll see ef they kin run their consumed 
trains through my orchard without ray 
permission. A man’s proputty’s his 
own. Th’ ain’t no law that kin knock 
that fact out o’ the Ten Command¬ 
ments.” 
Colonel Bowker accompanied his irate 
client to the door. “Better be cautious, 
Cyrus,” he said, as the old man plunged 
down the steps. “Don’t do anything in 
a hurry. Take time to think it over. 
.\nd remember that I am always ready 
to advise you on any point that may 
come up.” 
Cyrus Stackpole drove home in a blind 
rage. He was one of those old men who 
are as set as the everlasting hills, and 
the fact that everything seemed to be 
arrayed against his will in this instance 
only served to make his resolve the 
stronger. He was bound and determined 
that the new railroad should not pass 
through his orchard. There was no par¬ 
ticular reason why it should be denied 
this right of way, except that Cyrus had 
taken a notion not to allow it. The 
trees in the orchard had been set out by 
his father’s father, and their knotted 
and wrinkled trunks and limbs had long 
since passed the age of fruit bearing. 
They only served to cumber the ground. 
But Cyrus would not cut them down 
and plant new ones. They were a part 
of the old order of things, and Cyrus 
was a conservative of the conservatives. 
A peck of bitter, worm-eaten windfalls 
from the old trees was more to his lik¬ 
ing than a bushel of sound and tooth¬ 
some fruit from a younger and more 
vigorous stock. That the pert modern 
railroad should desecrate his venerable 
orchard was not to be endured. It went 
against the old man’s grain, and that 
grain was exceedingly tough. 
As it happened, however, Cyrus 
Stackpole fell into the clutches of a se¬ 
vere attack of inflammatory rheumatism 
soon after his visit to Colonel Bowker’s 
law office and about the time when tae 
raili-oad men came to grade and prepare 
the roadbed across his orchard. The 
work was all done while the old man 
was groaning and fuming in bed; and 
by the time he got about again the ties 
and rails were laid through his orchard. 
Then the first train came along roar¬ 
ing triumphantly, and vomiting black 
smoke over what remained of the an¬ 
cient apple trees. 
Upon this Cyrus bestirred himself, 
.Jthough physical exertion still senfi ex¬ 
cruciating pains through his joints. The 
irogular passengen train schedule had 
been in operation just a day, when he 
began to do for himself what the law 
'could not, or would not, do for him. At 
3 o’clock on a Tuesday tfternoon, his 
wife having driven to the village, Cyrus 
hDtched up a yoke of oxen and began to 
drag stumps from the stump fence on 
the north side of the orchard to the rail¬ 
road bed. He chose the largest and 
soundest and toughest stumps he could 
find, and by 6 o’clock had a formidable 
fence built across the railroad on the 
• exact boundary of his orchard. The 
roots of the stumps bristled in the di¬ 
rection from which the next train would 
approach—the train from Wilmington— 
due to pass at 8 o’clock in the evening. 
Should the locomotive strike those for¬ 
midable roots the butt of the stump 
would only be driven firmer into the 
ground. Something would have to stop, 
or smash, and Cyrus felt confident that 
it would not be the stump. 
It was several minutes past C when 
the horn blew for supper. Cyrus was 
glad of the extra time and glad that his 
field of operations was hidden from the 
house by a rise of land. When he came 
slowly up from the orchard with the 
tired oxen his wife met him at the back 
door. 
“Here’s a letter for you,” she said. 
‘■'Supper’s a little mite late, but the old 
maro limps so I couldn’t git home as 
soon as I planned. Better read the let¬ 
ter ’fore ye set down to eat, hadn’t ye? ’ 
“No,” answered Cyrus, limping to the 
barn with the oxen. “It’ll keep until 
after I’ve* had a cup o’ tea, I reckon.” 
Cyrus Stackpole ate his supper delib¬ 
erately and then sank into the old pad¬ 
ded rocker by the window and opened 
his letter. Hardly had he commenced 
to read it when, with a startling cry, he 
sprang to his feet again and ran stumb¬ 
ling to the barn. Her husband’s cry and 
sudden leap caused Mrs. Stackpole to 
drop a lot of plates she was carrying to 
the sink; but not even the terrific crash 
of broken crockery elicited the slightest 
attention from Cyrus. The letter had 
fluttered from the old man’s hand to the 
floor as he can and Mrs. Stackpole 
stooped and picked lit up with shaking 
fingero. Something in that letter, she 
knew, had caused her husband’s sudden 
dismay. 
She turned first to the signature. It 
was from Prank—their own dear boy, 
from whom they had not heard for two 
years and whom they had about given 
up for dead since he disappeared in the 
Alaskan gold fields. 
“Dear Father and Mother,” he wrote, 
“1 am coming home at last—a rich man! 
Have been out of the world, practically, 
since I wrote you last—living in a hut, 
200 miles beyond civilization. Will tell 
you all when I see you. Ixmk for me 
next Tuesday evening. I learn that you 
have a new railroad now and I can 
reach you by train the same evening I 
get to Wilmington, God bless you both! 
Lovingly, i-’k.\nk.” 
What was there in that blessed letter 
that could have caused her husband 
such distress? Mi*s. Stackpole wiped 
the tears of joy rfom her eyes and sped 
out to the barn. 
“Cyrus!” she cried. “What on airth 
air you doing?” 
Cyrus was hurriedly replacing the 
yoke on the necks of the weary oxen. 
His hands trembled. His face was over¬ 
spread with an ashen gray pallor. 
“Git out of the way!” he shouted, as 
he lashed the oxen from the barn, the 
long chain that dangled from ohe yoke 
clattering behind. He caught a lantern 
from a nail and hurried after the start¬ 
led and bewildere<l beasts. 
“Where oir you going, Cyrus?” de¬ 
manded his wife, following the distract¬ 
ed old man, as he led (be oxen over the 
crest of the hill to the orchard bars. Cy¬ 
rus made no reply, and his wife follow¬ 
ed him. 'I'lien she saw the bristling 
stump fence aci'oss the railroad, and the 
whole dreadful truth flashed upon her. 
Cyrus had built a fence to stop or wreck 
the next train, and that was the very 
train that Frank had written he should 
take from Wilmington! 
The village station was a mile beyond 
the Stackpole farm. The train would 
not have even begun to slow down when 
it passed through the orchard. It was 
already getting dusk. It would be pitch 
dark by the time the train came along— 
in just an hour. 
Cyrus Stackpole never looked at his 
wife, but worked with feverish haste; 
and she did not interrupt him, for she 
knew that every moment was precious. 
The oxen strained mightily at the great 
stumps, but they were so crowded to¬ 
gether and interlocked that it was hard 
to get them off the track. Cyrus had 
performed his defiant task unfortunately 
well. 
“Light the lantern!” cried the panting 
old man at last. His wife took the 
match he flung her and kindled the 
slight flame in the dusty globe. Cyrus 
bent and adjusted the chain anew by 
the candle’s feeble light. Then the oxen 
strained together once more, but the 
biggest stump of all would not move. 
The long, tough roots were wedged be¬ 
tween and under the rails. 
“God!” groaned the old man. It was 
the shortest of prayers, but it was a 
prayer and not an imprecation. 
“Hark!” cried the trembling old wife. 
From far off through the darkness came 
a faint rumbling sound. It was the 
evening train from Wilmington! 
“Cyrus!” exclaimed the woman. “Red 
light’ll stop ’em—I’ve heard so. Hain’t 
we got anything to make a red light 
with? Quick!” 
Cyrus disgorged the contents of all 
his pockets at one sweep. Among them 
was an old-fashioned red bandanna 
handkerchief. His wife seized it with a 
cry of joy, and, catching up the lantern, 
hastened down the track toward the ap¬ 
proaching train. She turned up the wick 
of the lantern until it smoked furiously. 
Then she wrapped the red handkerchief 
around the globe held the lantern up in 
both hands and slowly swayed it to and 
fro. 
The train was almost upon her before 
the engineer saw the faint red signal. 
But the air-brakes did their magic work, 
and the engine stopped within 20 feet 
of the last huge bristling stump of Cy¬ 
rus Stackpole’s fence across the rail¬ 
road. Frank Stackpole was one of the 
first passengers to leap from the inter¬ 
cepted train. 
“What in thunder—why! Father’s old 
orchard!” he exclaimed. “And here— 
mother!” He caught a tottering gray¬ 
haired figure in his strong arms. Mrs. 
Stackpole like all heroines, had first ac¬ 
complished her deed, and then fainted 
away! 
The railroad company did not enter a 
complaint against Cyrus 'Stackpole. His 
big, black-haired, healthy son may have 
had something to do with that, and he 
may not. Very likely, the unresiricted 
and undisputed right of way through 
the old man’s orchard was an induce¬ 
ment. At any rate, the matter was drop¬ 
ped, and Cyrus Stackpole proved to be 
so subdued in spirit that, only two days 
after his stump fence disappeared fiom 
the track, he rode through his own or¬ 
chard on one of the detested trains, on 
his way to Wilmington with his son, to 
buy a brand-new suit of clothes and 
“see the sights.”—James Buckham, in 
the New York Evening Post. 
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Kitchen Mathematics. 
In following recipes “an egg” or “a 
cupful” arc terms used easily, without 
(binkitig tliat the size of eggs and o'' 
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Ten common-sized eggs weigh one 
ix)und. 
Soft butter, the size of an egg, weighs 
one ounce. 
One pint of coffee and sugar weighs 12 
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One quart of sifted flour (well heaped) 
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One pint of best brown sugar weighs 
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Two teacupfuls (well heaped) of cof¬ 
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Two teacupfuls (level) of granulated 
sugar weigh one pound. 
Two teacupfuls soft butter (well 
packed) weigh one pound. 
'One and one-thiixl pints of powdered 
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Two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar 
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One tablespoonful (well rounded) of 
soft butter weighs one ounce. 
One pint (heaped) of granulated sugar 
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Four teaspoonfuls are equal to one 
tablespoonful. 
Two and one-half teacupfuls (level) 
of the best brown sugar weigh one 
pound. 
Two and three-fourths teacupfuls 
(level) of powdere<l sugar weigh one 
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One tablespoonful (well heaped) of 
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