o Cousin Maria wiped her hands on her long gingham apron (she had been
washing her best set of china), and she sat down and told him all about
it.

"You see, George," said she, "that there line was the boys' telegraph
line, afore they sold it to the mica people; and when the boys put it up
they expected to make a heap of money, which I reckon they didn't do, or
else they wouldn't have sold it. But these mica people wanted it, and
they lengthened it at both ends, and bought it of the boys--or rather
of Harry Loudon, for he was the smartest of the lot, and the real owner
of the thing--he and his sister Kate--as far as I could see. And when
they stretched the line over to Hetertown, they came to me and told me
how the line ran along the road most of the way, but that they could
save a lot of time and money (though I don't see how they could save
much of a lot of money when, accordin' to all accounts, the whole line
didn't cost much, bein' just fastened to pine-trees, trimmed off, and if
it had cost much, them boys couldn't have built it, for I reckon the
mica people didn't help 'em a great deal, after all) if I would let them
cut across my grounds with their wire, and I hadn't no objection,
anyway, for the line didn't do no harm up there in the air, and so I
said certainly they might, and they did, and there it is."

When George Mason heard all this, he walked out of the back-door and
over to the wood-pile, where he got an axe and cut down the pole that
was in Cousin Maria's back yard. And when the pole fell, it broke the
wire, just as Mr. Martin had got to the sixth word of a message he was
sending over to Hetertown.

Cousin Maria was outraged.

"George Mason!" said she, "you can stay here as long as you like, and
you can have part of whatever I've got in the house to eat, but I'll
never sit down to the table with you till you've mended that wire and
nailed it to another pole."

"All right," answered George Mason. "Then I'll eat alone."

When Mr. Martin and the mica-mine people and the Akeville people and
Harry and Kate and all the boys and everybody black and white heard what
had happened, there was great excitement. It was generally agreed that
something must be done with George Mason. He had no more right to cut
down that pole because he had once lived on the place, than he had to go
and cut down any of the neighbors' beanpoles.

So the sheriff and some deputy sheriffs, (Tony Kirk among them), and a
constable a