"To-day, dad?" asked Adrian, anxiously.
"Not afore night, I guess," said the farmer, "but I kin smell snow," and he sniffed hard.
"Well, I'm glad you can't smell it until night," laughed Adrian. "Roger 'n' I are going after chestnuts to-day."
"Wa'al, I haint no objections," remarked Mr. Kimball, holding the pail of water where Ned, the horse, could reach it. "Guess a trip chestnuttin' 'll be good fer both on ye. I'm goin' t' kill hogs t'-morrow, snow er no snow."
"That'll be lots of fun," said Adrian to Roger. "Come on, let's eat, 'n' then we'll go."
The boys made a hurried breakfast and then, warmly clad, they started for the woods, carrying bags in which to gather the nuts. They had about two miles to walk, and when they reached the chestnut grove, Adrian saw he had not been wrong in his surmise that there would be a heavy fall. They found the ground covered with the burs, which had burst open, showing the shining brown nuts inside.
"Hurrah!" shouted Adrian. "Get to work! Here they are! Don't let the squirrels and chipmunks beat us."
Indeed, it was high time the boys started in, for there were scores of red and gray squirrels and the prettily striped chipmunks scampering about on the ground and in the trees, filling their pouch-like cheeks with the nuts, and then leaping and bounding away to their nests with the store of winter provender. The boys began to hustle, threshing the burs from the nuts, and then scooping the latter into the bags they had brought. It wasn't long before they had gathered several pecks, and they didn't have to cover much ground to get them either.
Adrian packed nearly a bushel into his sack before he was satisfied, but Roger was content to lug home a little more than two pecks, as he was hardly strong enough to bear the weight of more. They tramped slowly back, stopping frequently to rest. Emptying the nuts into baskets they went again to the woods for more, for as Adrian said, the squirrels would soon make short work of the harvest unless the boys were lively. On their second trip the hired man went with them, trundling' a wheelbarrow, and this time they brought away over three bushels, leaving as many more piled in a heap, the hired man going after them alone later.
"Got about seven bushels," announced Adrian, proudly, at the supper table. "Not bad, eh, pop?"