114 PASTORAL DAYS. 



putty ondustrious lot o' thieves, I'm blest if ye ain't." But the deacon did 

 all the talking, for his manoeuvres were such as to render us speechless. 

 " Putty likely place teu cum a-nuttin', ain't it ?" Pause. " Putty nice 

 mess o' shell-barks ye got thar, I tell ye naow. — Quite a sight o' chest- 

 nuts in yoitru, ain't they ?" 



There was only one spoken side to this dialogue, but the pauses were 

 eloquent on both sides, and we boys kept up a deal of tall thinking as 

 we watched the deacon alternate his glib remarks by the gradual removal 

 of the bags to the foot of a neighboring tree. This done, he seated him- 

 self upon a rock beside them. 



" Thar /" he exclaimed, removing his tall hat and wiping his white- 

 fringed forehead with a red bandanna handkerchief. " I'm much oblcco-cd. 

 I've been a-watchin' on ye gittin' these 'ere nuts the hull arternoon. I 

 thort ez haow yeu might like to know on't." And then, as though a 

 happy thought had struck him, what should he do but deliberately spit 

 on his hands and grasp his gun. "Look <xah" — a pause, in which he 

 cocked both barrels — " yeu boys wuz paowerful anxyis teu git away from 

 trah a spell ago. Naow yeu kin git ez lively ez yeu pleze ; your chores 

 is clone fer to-day." And bang ! went one of the gun-barrels directly over 

 our heads. 



We got, and when once out of gun-range we paid the deacon a wealth 

 of those rare compliments for both eye and ear that always swell the 

 boys' vocabulary. 



" All right," he yelled back in answer, as he transported the bags 

 across the field. " Cum agin next year — cum agin. Alluz welcome ! 

 alluz welcome !" 



As I have already said, the deacon gathered all his nut harvest — 

 sometimes by a very novel method. 



Who does not remember some such episode of the old jolly clays ? 

 If it was not a Deacon Turnev, it was some one else. I am sure his 

 counterpart exists in every country town, and in the memory of every 

 boyhood experience. 



We remember, perhaps, the sweet hazel-nuts which we gathered in 

 their brown husks and spread to dry upon the garret floor, and how those 

 mischievous mice avenged the deacon's wrongs as they invaded our treas- 

 ured store, and transported it to the nooks and kinks among the rafters 

 and beneath the floor. Then there were those rambles after "fox-grapes," 

 and the " gunning " tramps, when wc stole with cautious step upon the 



