property.

In the house next to Dry Valley's lived a widow with a pack of
children that gave the husbandman frequent anxious misgivings. In the
woman there was a strain of the Spanish. She had wedded one of the
name of O'Brien. Dry Valley was a connoisseur in cross strains; and he
foresaw trouble in the offspring of this union.

Between the two homesteads ran a crazy picket fence overgrown with
morning glory and wild gourd vines. Often he could see little heads
with mops of black hair and flashing dark eyes dodging in and out
between the pickets, keeping tabs on the reddening berries.

Late one afternoon Dry Valley went to the post office. When he came
back, like Mother Hubbard he found the deuce to pay. The descendants
of Iberian bandits and Hibernian cattle raiders had swooped down upon
his strawberry patch. To the outraged vision of Dry Valley there
seemed to be a sheep corral full of them; perhaps they numbered five
or six. Between the rows of green plants they were stooped, hopping
about like toads, gobbling silently and voraciously his finest fruit.

Dry Valley slipped into the house, got his whip, and charged the
marauders. The lash curled about the legs of the nearest--a greedy
ten-year-old--before they knew they were discovered. His screech gave
warning; and the flock scampered for the fence like a drove of
/javelis/ flushed in the chaparral. Dry Valley's whip drew a toll of
two more elfin shrieks before they dived through the vine-clad fence
and disappeared.

Dry Valley, less fleet, followed them nearly to the pickets. Checking