The charter, it turned out, included a forgotten amendment: Any fence built upon a disputed boundary shall be dismantled, and the neighbors shall share a meal of bread and salt upon the line, and thereafter be friends.

Mr. Hopple’s shoulders fell. “Yes,” he whispered. “But it’s not jewelry. It’s the town’s original charter. I found it when digging post holes. I was going to return it… eventually.”

The courtroom was packed. Farmer Bunch brought his prize turnip for emotional support. The Widow Thistle knitted a scarf so long it coiled around three benches. And behind the rail, a stray dog with one ear sat licking its paw, looking wiser than anyone.

Mrs. Prunella Bramble, a retired taxidermist with a fondness for peacock feathers, claimed that her neighbor, Mr. Otis Hopple, had erected a fence that violated the town’s ancient boundary accord—specifically, a clause concerning “the path of the noonday shadow.” Mr. Hopple, a beekeeper whose bees had grown as irritable as he had, argued that the shadow clause was null and void because the oak tree that cast it had been struck by lightning in ’82.

The courtroom gasped. Mr. Hopple turned purple. “That’s a lie! I never been married!”