OLD COLONY BERRY PASTURES 169 



far better than the clerk who is writing about 

 them, and for anything that appears, bid fair 

 to be hale and hearty at the next century- 

 mark. 



One is a pear tree ; none of your modern, 

 high-bred, superfine, French-named dwarfs, 

 rather shrubs than trees, twenty of which may 

 grow, without crowding, in a scanty back 

 garden, but a burly, black-barked, stubby- 

 branched, round-topped giant. It looks to- 

 day exactly as it did when my boyish legs 

 first took me by it. In these many years it 

 has borne thousands of bushels of pears, all 

 of which must have served some use, I sup- 

 pose, in the grand economy of things, though 

 I have no idea what. No man, woman, or 

 child, I am reasonably sure, ever had the 

 hardihood to eat one. And still the tree 

 holds up its head and wears a brave, un- 

 ashamed, undiscourageable look. Long may 

 it stand in its corner, a relic and remem- 

 brancer of Puritanic times. 



The other is an apple tree, one of those 

 beneficent creations, good Samaritans among 

 fruit trees, that bear a toothsome, early-ripen- 

 ing crop, and spill a generous portion of it 



