Appleboy's fish
lines acquired a habit of derangement equaled only by barbed-wire
entanglements, and his clams went bad! But these things might have been
borne had it not been for the crowning achievement of her malevolence,
the invasion of the Appleboys' cherished lawn, upon which they lavished
all that anxious tenderness which otherwise they might have devoted to a
child.
It was only about twenty feet by twenty, and it was bordered by a hedge
of moth-eaten privet, but anyone who has ever attempted to induce a
blade of grass to grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the
deviltry of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already there was a horrid
rent where Tunnygate had floundered through at her suggestion in order
to save going round the pathetic grass plot which the Appleboys had
struggled to create where Nature had obviously intended a floral vacuum.
Undoubtedly it had been the sight of Mrs. Appleboy with her small
watering pot patiently encouraging the recalcitrant blades that had
suggested the malicious thought to Mrs. Tunnygate that maybe the
Appleboys didn't own that far up the beach. They didn't--that was the
mockery of it. Like many others they had built their porch on their
boundary line, and, as Mrs. Tunnygate pointed out, they were claiming to
own something that wasn't theirs. So Tunnygate, in daily obedience to
his spouse, forced his way through the hedge to the beach, and daily the
wrath of the Appleboys grew until they were driven almost to
desperation.
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