252 An American Fruit-Farm 



he suddenly drew up "Castor" and ''Pollux*' and 

 pointing with his whip-stock to this section and to 

 that laid out the battle of Marathon, and said that 

 the dumpy Italian pnme tree was ''old Socrates 

 running away." 



I once ventured to ask him where were Welling- 

 ton and Napoleon, but he had no trees so modem, 

 nothing later than Julius Caesar. 



These peculiarities of Neville, which I may 

 call his "classic shades," would have isolated him 

 from the community had he really lived apart from 

 it, but his look was forward, however backward his 

 search for pet names to his trees. He never em- 

 phasized himself — only his peaches and his grapes, 

 his cherries and his prunes. As some fond parents 

 thrust their children into the public eye on all 

 occasions, Neville planted his trees and marketed 

 his fruit. Had he not been a childless man perhaps 

 he might have cared less for his vegetable friends. 

 "They never quarrel," he said of his Concord 

 grapes, one morning to me. 



It was the morning after that notorious day 

 when the local council had "sold out" to the 

 trolley company and had given them a lease, 

 running ninety-nine years, to extend their double 

 tracks through the village over the main road. 

 Part of Neville's fruit-farm lay within the village. 

 He had advocated a lease for not more than twenty- 

 five years, with restrictions favoring the village; 

 that the company should pave the street, keep it in 

 order at all times; stop its cars at designated points; 



