112 PASTORAL DAYS. 



white nuts in their open shucks. They were all ready to drop, and when 

 the shaking once commenced, the nuts came clown like a shower of hail, 

 bounding from the rocks, rattling among the dry leaves, and keeping up a 

 clatter all around. We scrambled on all fours, and gathered them by 

 quarts and quarts. There was no need of poking over the leaves for 

 them, the ground was covered with them in plain sight. While busily 

 engaged, we noticed an ominous lull among the branches overhead. 



" 'Sst ! 'sst !" whispered Shoopegg up above ; " I see old Turney on his 

 white horse daown the road yender." 



"Coming this way?" also in a whisper, from below. 



" I clunno yit, but I jest guess you'd better be gittin' reddy to leg it, fer 

 he's hitchin' his old nag 't the side o' the road. Yis, sir, I bleeve he's 

 a-cummin'. Shoopegg, you'd better be gittin' aout o' this," and he com- 

 menced to drop hap-hazard from his lofty perch. In a moment, however, 

 he seemed to change his mind, and paused, once more upon the watch. 

 " Say, fellers," he again broke in, as we were preparing for a retreat, " he's 

 gone off to'rcl the cedars ; he ain't cummin' this way at all." So he again 

 ascended into the tree-top, and finished his shaking in peace, and we our 

 picking also. There was still another tree, with elegant large nuts, that 

 we had all concluded to " finish up on." It would not do to leave it. 

 They were the largest and thinnest-shelled nuts in town, and there were 

 over a bushel in sight on the branch tips. Shoopegg was up among them 

 in two minutes, and they were showered down in torrents as before. And 

 what splendid, perfect nuts they were ! We bagged them with eager 

 hands, picked the ground all clean, and, with jolly chuckles at our luck, 

 were just about thinking of starting for home with our well-rounded sacks, 

 when a change came over the spirit of our dreams. There was a sus- 

 picious noise in the shrubbery near by, and in a moment more we heard 

 our doom. 



" Jest yeu look rcah, yeu boys !" exclaimed a high-pitched voice from 

 the neighboring shrubbery, accompanied by the form of Deacon Turney, 

 approaching at a brisk pace, hardly thirty feet away. " Don't yeu think 

 yeu've got jest abaout cnitjf d them nuts ?" 



Of course a wild panic ensued, in which we made for the bags and 

 dear life ; but Turney was prepared and ready for the emergency, and, 

 raising" a huge old shot-gun, he levelled it, and yelled, " Don't any on ye 

 stir ner move, or by Christopher I'll blow the heels clean off n the hull 

 pile on ye. I'd shoot ye quicker' n ligktniri" 



