s pear-trees"; Joseph was the old Squire's
given name. Some joke connected with their early married life was in her
mind when she spoke thus, for she always laughed roguishly when she said
"Joe's pears," but she would never explain the joke to us young folks.
She insisted that those were the old Squire's pears, and told us not to
pick them.

In the orchard behind the house were numerous other pear-trees. There
were no restrictions on those or on the early apples or plums; but every
year grandmother half jokingly told us not to go to those two trees in
the walled inclosure, and she never went there herself.

I must confess, however, that we young folks knew pretty well how those
pears tasted. The Eastern Belle bore a large, long pear that turned
yellow when ripe and had a fine rosy cheek on one side. The Indian Queen
was a thick-bodied pear with specks under the skin, a deep-sunk nose and
a long stem. It had a tendency to crack on one side; but it ripened at
about the same time as the Belle, and its flavor was even finer.

The little walled pen that inclosed the two pear-trees had a history of
its own. The town had built it as a "pound" for stray animals in 1822,
shortly after the neighborhood was settled. The walls were six or seven
feet high, and on one side was a gateway. The inclosure was only twenty
feet wide by thirty feet long. It had not been used long as a pound, for
a pound that was larger and more centrally situated became necessary
soon after it was built. When those two little pear-trees came from
Connecticut the old Squire set them out inside this walled pen; he
thought they would be protected by the high pound wall. A curious
circumstance about those pear-trees was that they did not begin bearing
when they were nine or ten years old, as pear-trees usually do. Year
after year passed, until they had stood there twenty-seven years, with
never blossom or fruit appearing on them.

The old Squire tried various methods of making the trees bear. At the
suggestion of neighbors he drove rusty nails into the trunks, and buried
bags of pear seeds at the foot of them, and he fertilized the inclosure
richly. But all to no purpose. Finally grandmother advised the old
Squire to spread the leached ashes from her leach tub--after she had
made soap and hulled corn in the spring--on the ground inside the pen.
The old Squire did so, and the next spring both trees blossomed. They
bore bountifully that summer and every season