This Week's Story

Broadcast: January 18, 2004

THE TWO NEIGHBORS

     They lived side by side with a creek between them and they never talked much to each other. It was actually a cat that started the whole thing. Mr. Dalstedt thought the cat was his because it came over to his porch in the mornings, scratching on the door until he fed it.
     Mr. Zinnel was sure it was his cat because it came over to his place in the afternoons to sleep in the sunlight in his front window.
     Well, one morning, the cat didn’t come back so Mr. Dalstedt went looking for it. That’s when he saw the cat in the window.
     "Wacha doin’ with mah cat?" he asked his neighbor.
     "Yore cat?" Mr. Zinnel said. "That there’s mah cat."
     "Ah don’t think so."
     "Surely you are mistaken. That cat belongs to me."
     "That cat shows up at mah house each morning for a little warm milk," Mr. Dalstedt said. "That makes it mah cat."
     "Well, it looks like mah cat prefers mah house. Now git."
     "Ah ain’t leavin’ till I get mah cat back."
     Well, this went on for a long time until the two neighbors were ready to throw a few punches. The only thing that kept a fight from breaking out was when the cat ran off into the woods.
     Mr. Dalstedt went back home, muttering to himself, "I’ll fix him."
     And Mr. Zinnel paced back and forth on his front porch, vowing, "He won’t get away with that."
     A few days later, a man looking for work came down the road and stopped at Mr. Dalstedt’s house. He said he was a carpenter.
     "Well, yes," the old man said. "Ah do have some work for you. You see that neighbor over there? Well, Ah can’t even stand to look at him anymore. He stole my cat. I want you to build a fence between us so he gets the message loud and clear. Ah don’t like him!"
     The carpenter started working just as Mr. Dalstedt left for town to get some supplies. As he was leaving, the carpenter called after him, "There’s not a lot of wood here for your fence!"
     "Well, all right," Mr. Dalstedt said. "Just do the best you can."
     For the rest of the day, Mr. Zinnel watched the carpenter work. He had no idea what the man was building. Late in the afternoon, it was clear that the carpenter was building a bridge over the creek. A bridge? Suddenly Mr. Zinnel felt extremely foolish. His neighbor was building a bridge and . . . and . . . well, as soon as Mr. Dalstedt came home, Mr. Zinnel rushed across the bridge with his outstretched hand in front of him.
     "Mr. Dalstedt, ah want to shake your hand. You’ve got a lot of nerve building a bridge between us after what happened with that fool cat. So ah guess I’ll admit ah was wrong. That cat is free to go where it wants. And thanks for askin’ this fella to build this here bridge."
     "Well," Mr. Dalstedt said, "ah, mean, it weren’t nothin’, you see. An’ I guess I was wrong, too."
     After Mr. Zinnel had gone home, Mr. Dalstedt turned to the carpenter and said, "Ah’ve got some other work around here, if you’d care to do it, young fella."
     The carpenter smiled and said, "Thanks anyway, but my work here is done."
     "Well, I don’t suppose we’ll be great friends, me and Mr. Zinnel, but we’ll try to be good neighbors. You’ve done a good deed here with this bridge. Heck, its just a little creek running through here but we really did need a bridge instead of a fence. Ah’d like to pay you—"
     "No," the man said, "that’s not necessary. You might not be the best of friends but finding peace with your neighbor is an important thing."
     And the two neighbors worked very hard at keeping the peace between them. The bridge was a reminder of that peace.

The End