afterward, until they
died.

We had a young neighbor, Alfred Batchelder, who was fond of foraging by
night for plums, grapes, and pears in the orchards of his neighbors. His
own family did not raise fruit; they thought it too much trouble to
cultivate the trees. But Alfred openly boasted of having the best fruit
that the neighborhood afforded. One of Alfred's cronies in these
nocturnal raids was a boy, named Harvey Yeatton, who lived at the
village, six or seven miles away; almost every year he came to visit
Alfred for a week or more in September.

It was a good-natured community. To early apples, indeed, the rogues
were welcome; but garden pears, plums, and grapes were more highly
prized, for in Maine it requires some little care to raise them. At the
farm of our nearest neighbors, the Edwardses, there were five greengage
trees that bore delicious plums. For three summers in succession Alfred
and Harvey stole nearly every plum on those trees--at least, there was
little doubt that it was they who took them.

They also took the old Squire's pears in the walled pen. Twice Addison
and I tracked them home the next morning in the dewy grass, across the
fields. Time and again, too, they took our Bartlett pears and plums.
Addison wanted the old Squire to send the sheriff after them and put a
stop to their raids, but he only laughed. "Oh, I suppose those boys love
pears and plums," he said, forbearingly. But we of the younger
generation were indignant.

One day, when the old Squire and I were driving to the village, we met
Alfred; the old gentleman stopped, and said to him:

"My son, hadn't you better leave me just a few of those pears in the old
pound this year?"

"I never touched a pear there!" Alfred shouted. "You can't prove I did,
and you'd better not accuse me."

The old Squire only laughed, and drove on.

A few nights afterward both pear-trees were robbed and nearly stripped
of fruit. We found several broken twigs on the top branches, and guessed
that Alfred had used a long pole with a hook at the end with which to
shake down the fruit. After what had passed on the road this action
looked so much like defiance that the old Squire was nettled. He did
nothing about it at the time, however.

Another year passed. Then at table one night Ellen remarked that Harvey
Yeatton had come to visit Alfred again. "Alfred brought him up from the
village this afternoon," she said. "I saw them drive by together."

"Now the p