BY BEN AND HIS BROTHER. 69 



talk about ; and neither you nor the squire, 

 clever as you think yourselves, will ever 

 make as good, going on as you do now plant- 

 ing so thin, and always hecking about in the 

 young plantations as you do, for all the 

 world as if you was hoeing turnips." I saw 

 I should soon lose my hare if I let them 

 hunt theirs, so I came to the point at once 

 by asking whose trees they called them that 

 they were sitting under. " Why ours, to be 

 sure," said Ben; " didn't we plant 'em a 

 pretty many years ago, when they was no 

 bigger than this here stick of mine? and 

 haven't we looked after 'em ever since, till 

 they are as they are?" "Well," said I, 

 "they're worth a trifle now to the wheel- 

 wright ; why don't you turn 'em into money ? 

 they'd buy you some victuals, and warm 

 clothes for your old bones." "Why there 

 you are again, always a-joking, Master Gre- 

 gory," said Ben. "Tho' we call 'em ours, 

 you know well enough they're the squire's ; 

 for tho' we got the saplings and planted 'em, 

 'tis the squire's land they grow on ; and 

 'twas in the old gentleman's time, too, we 

 used to fence 'em off, and so on, just when 

 they wanted a little looking after, up to the 



F 



