st all the time at me. 'Coom
now, Biddy,' says I, 'what put you out so?' says I. 'Sure, it creeps
me skin when I looks at you! Is the pig dead,' says I, 'or anny little
thing happened to you, ma'am? Sure this is far beyond the rights of a
few pumpkin seeds that has just cleared the ground!' and all the folks
laughed. I 'd no call to have tark with Biddy Con'ly before them idle
b'ys and gerrls, nor to let the two of us become their laughing-stock.
I tuk up me basket, being ashamed then, and I meant to go away, mad as
I was. 'Coom, Mrs. Con'ly!' says I, 'let bygones be bygones; what's
all this whillalu we 're afther having about nothing?' says I very
pleasant.

"'May the divil fly away with you, Mary Dunl'avy!' says she then,
'spoiling me garden ground, as every one can see, and full of your bold
talk. I 'll let me hens out into it this afternoon, so I will,' says
she, and a good deal more. 'Hold off,' says I, 'and remember what fell
to your aunt one day when she sint her hins in to pick a neighbor's
piece, and while her own back was turned they all come home and had
every sprouted bean and potatie heeled out in the hot sun, and all her
fine lettuces picked into Irish lace. We 've lived neighbors,' says I,
'thirteen years,' says I; 'and we 've often had words together above
the fince,' says I, 'but we 're neighbors yet, and we 've no call to
stand here in such spectacles and disgracing ourselves and each other.
Coom, Biddy,' says I, again, going away with me basket and remimbering
Father Brady's caution whin it was too late. Some o' the b'ys went
off, too, thinkin' 't was all done.

"'I don't want anny o' your Coom Biddy's,' says she, stepping at me,
with a black stripe across her face, she was that destroyed with rage,
and I stepped back and held up me basket between us, she being bigger
than I, and I getting no chance, and herself slipped and fell, and her
nose got a clout with the hard edge of the basket, it would trouble the
saints to say how, and then I picked her up and wint home with her to
thry and quinch the blood. Sure I was sorry for the crathur an' she
having such a timper boiling in her heart.

"'Look at you now, Mrs. Con'ly,' says I, kind of soft, 'you 'ont be fit
for mass these two Sundays with a black eye like this, and your face
arl scratched, and every bliguard has gone the lingth of the town to
tell tales of us. I 'm a quiet 'oman,' says I, 'and I don't thank
you,' says I, whin the blood