A few feet at his left, and close beside the stone wall dividing the orchard from the public road, grew his mother's pear-tree, laden with ripe, rich fruit.
Tommy had opened his book, and with half-closed eyes and uplifted pencil was measuring the height of the currant bushes, when, to his surprise, a head suddenly appeared above the wall, at the very spot shaded by the pear-tree.
"A head suddenly appeared above the wall."
The stranger cast a quick, cautious glance about the premises, showing that his errand was no friendly one, then threw back his head and gazed greedily at the luscious pears that grew above him. As he stood thus, with the morning light falling brightly across his visage, Tommy saw that his features were strongly marked and prominent, his face seamed by deep and vicious lines.
The boy, accustomed to study the form and appearance of things, quickly comprehended the stranger's long nose, low brow, pointed chin, and hollow cheeks.
The man looked furtively about for the second time and sprang to the top of the wall. Quite unconscious that a spectator was eagerly watching from the covered structure near by, the intruder ascended boldly into the pear-tree and proceeded to fill his pockets and hat with the juicy fruit.
Never a sound came from the summer-house, but before the rogue had completed his stolen harvest, Tommy's cunning pencil had drawn the robber's portrait, with the narrowed eyes, leering lips, unkempt hair, and rakish hat, exactly as they had impressed him at the moment when the vagabond stood gazing aloft at the fruit overhead. Tommy finished the sketch with a few hasty strokes, then closed his book and burst suddenly from the summer-house, shouting "Wow, wow!" at the top of his voice.
Down leaped the man to the earth, and scaling the wall at a bound, he fled, dropping many of the pears as he ran.