“Oh, does he? Why?”
“We-ell—” Sam squinted thoughtfully across the diamond—“I dare say we—that is, former generations of Maple Ridgers—have worried him some. By turning your head slightly, Mr. Borden, you will observe that up the slope there, behind South, there are trees. In the Fall those trees bear apples, very, very enticing apples, eh, fellows?”
“Rather!”
“Yum, yum!”
“The best ever, Sammy.”
“Quite so; and you ought to know, Joseph,” Williams grinned. “Well, Jack, to err is human, and every fall we err; I might say we fall. I’m told that we used to err more than we do now. One year, so history hath it, about sixty fellows descended on that orchard between morning school and dinner time and just about—er—depopulated it of apples. Nowadays the old codger keeps a dog, a large, ferocious and extremely suspicious dog; his name is Rowdy, and he is well named. Rowdy spends all his waking moments—and I am convinced that he never, never really sleeps—in prowling around looking for Maple Ridge legs. Gathering Farmer Finkler’s apples is no longer the pleasant, casual recreation it used to be. If your soul cries for apples now you put on all your old clothes, bundle up your legs in leg-guards, arm yourself with a baseball bat and say your prayers as you creep silently over the wall.” Sam shook his head regretfully. “No, erring isn’t what it used to be. You have to work for your apples these days!”
“They’re good, though, when you get them,” sighed Chesty with a reminiscent smile.
“Yes, but ever since Tyler Wicks spent almost two hours up a tree with Rowdy underneath begging him to come down and be eaten my appetite for apples isn’t what it used to was.” Sam frowned. “Personally, I think it’s a mighty mean trick to let a dog hang around an apple orchard. It—it indicates a lack of confidence in the—er—the integrity of your neighbors.”
“Very small, I call it,” Joe Williams agreed laughingly.
“It seems too bad, though, he won’t let the school have the use of that piece of land,” said Jack Borden, turning to look at the clear, level stretch of meadow beyond the wall. “It would surely make a dandy field, wouldn’t it?”