ld Squire
would whip the boys. It was never easy to induce him to whip even a
refractory horse or ox. Now he took the paper, read their names, then
folded it and put it into his pocket.

"I guess this will hold you straight, boys," he said. "Now you can go
home."

"What, ain't ye goin' to lick 'em?" Jim exclaimed.

"Not this time," said the old gentleman. "Untie them and let them go."

Jim and Asa were greatly disappointed. "Let me give 'em jest a few
licks," Jim begged, with a longing glance at the whip.

"Not this time," the old Squire replied. "If we catch them at this
again, I'll see about it. And, boys," he said to them, as Jim and Asa
very reluctantly untied the knots of their bonds, "any time you want a
pocketful of pears to eat just come and ask me. But mind, don't you
steal another pear or plum in this neighborhood!"

Addison opened the barn doors, and Alfred and Harvey took themselves off
without ceremony.

Apparently they kept their promise with us, for we heard of no further
losses of fruit in that neighborhood.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HALSTEAD'S GOBBLER

At that time a flock of twenty or thirty turkeys was usually raised at
the old farm every fall--fine, great glossy birds. Nearly every
farmhouse had its flock; and by October that entire upland county
resounded to the plaintive _Yeap-yeap, yop-yop-yop!_ and the noisy
_Gobble-gobble-gobble!_ of the stupid yet much-prized "national bird."
At present you may drive the whole length of our county and neither hear
nor see a turkey.

In their young days the old Squire and Judge Fessenden of Portland,
later in life Senator Fessenden, had been warm friends; and after the
old Squire chose farming for a vocation and went to live at the family
homestead, he was wont to send the judge a fine turkey for
Thanksgiving--purely as a token of friendship and remembrance. The judge
usually acknowledged the gift by sending in return an interesting book,
or other souvenir, sometimes a new five-dollar greenback--when he could
not think of an appropriate present.

The old Squire did not like to accept money from an old friend, and
after we young people went home to Maine to live he transferred to us
the privilege of sending Senator Fessenden a turkey for Thanksgiving,
and allowed us to have the return present.

By September we began to look the flock over and pick out the one that
bade fair to be the largest and handsomest in November. There was much
"hefting" an