men, brothers named James and Asa
Doane, strong, active young fellows; and since it was warm September
weather, the old Squire asked them to make a shake-down of hay for
themselves that night behind the orchard wall, near the old pound, and
to sleep there "with one eye open." If the rogues did not come for the
pears, we would take down the skunk fence early the next morning, and
set it again for them the following night.

Nothing suited Asa and Jim better than a lark of that sort. About eight
o'clock they ensconced themselves in the orchard, thirty or forty feet
from the old pound gateway. Addison also lay in wait with them. If the
rogues came and began to shake the trees, all three were to make a rush
for the gap, keep them in there, and shout for the old Squire to come
down from the house.

Addison's surmise that Alfred and his crony would begin operations that
very night proved a shrewd one. Shortly after eleven o'clock he heard a
noise at the entrance of the old pound. Asa and Jim were asleep. Addison
lay still, and a few minutes later heard the rogues put up their poles
with the hooks on them, and begin gently to shake the high limbs.

The sound of the pears dropping on the ground waked Asa and Jim, and at
a whispered word from Addison all three bounded over the orchard wall
and rushed to the gateway, shouting, "We've got ye! We've got ye now!
Surrender! Surrender and go to jail!"

Surprised though they were, Alfred and Harvey had no intention of
surrendering. Dropping their poles, they sprang for the pound wall. In a
moment they had scrambled to the top. Then they jumped for the ground on
the other side; but the yielding meshes of the skunk fence brought them
up short. It was too dark for them to see what the obstruction was, and
they bounced and jumped against the wire meshes like fish in a net.

"Cut it with your jackknife!" Harvey whispered to Alfred; and then both
boys got out their knives and sawed away at the meshes--with no success
whatever!

By that time Jim and Asa had entered the pound, and shouting with
laughter, each grabbed a boy by the ankle and hauled him down from the
wall. At about that time, too, the old Squire arrived on the scene,
bringing a rope and a new horsewhip. I myself had been sleeping soundly,
and was slow to wake. Even grandmother Ruth and the girls were ahead of
me, and when I rushed out, they were standing at the orchard gate,
listening in considerable excitement to the commot