50 Old Days on the Farm 



city life, has just sucli a '* memory" tree as mine 

 — one with the branches hanging down till they 

 dipped in the blooming clover and the trunk just 

 as twisted as an apple-tree can grow. Never was 

 any colic from apples off that old tree — ^leastwise 

 none of us boys ever had it, as I remember, and 

 we often ate till we just couldn't swallow another 

 mouthful. 



*'PIEATES" IN THE APPLE-TREE 



On holidays and Saturdays when a bunch of us 

 hungry young scamps would get together we'd 

 play at "pirate" and *' frigate" up among the 

 limbs of that fine old tree and pour hot volleys 

 into the crews of our opposing ships. After the 

 buccaneering pirates had been pelted, so they had 

 to seek shelter behind the old rail fence, we'd 

 divide the booty and, believe me, it was no make- 

 believe pieces of eight from a pretended pirate 

 chest. Every apple-tree sailor would have his 

 little blouse full of round shot — golden treasure — 

 in the form of big, mellow harvest apples, gath- 

 ered up from the clover below the towering top- 

 masts of those apple-tree ships. 



LOOKING BACKWAED 



A country boy who leaves his home to seek 

 fortune in town or city, quite naturally casts many 

 a loving, lingering look behind, and, when he 



