La-ter on, when the hay was all gath-ered, the wheat be-gan to rip-en, and the men were bu-sy cut-ting it and gath-er-ing it in-to sheaves. The birds act-ed as if they thought it was cut for them on-ly, for they came in such swarms that it looked as if they would eat it all and leave none for the farm-er.
Some-times his aunt would ask him to take their lunch-eon to the men at work in the fields, for dur-ing hay-ing and har-vest when the work is heav-i-est the men al-ways have a lunch at ten in the morn-ing.
Now on one day when Jo-ey took his bas-ket and left the house for the fields, he got him-self in-to trou-ble, and this was the way. Close by his un-cle's house on the main street lived a gen-tle-man who had a fine gar-den. All a-round it was a high fence and a no-tice was post-ed up, "Tres-pas-sers will be pros-e-cu-ted." That no-tice was be-cause the school house was not far a-way, and the boys some-times helped them-selves to the old gen-tle-man's ap-ples.
Jo-ey had to pass di-rect-ly by the gar-den wall, and it so hap-pened that his bas-ket was heav-y and he set it down to rest.
What took place you can see in the pic-ture on the next page bet-ter than I can tell you. Jo-ey got the ap-ples but a bad fall, and when he went to get up he found that he could not stand and that one an-kle hurt him se-vere-ly.
How long he would have staid there I can not tell, had not the men in the field grown hun-gry and sent one of their num-ber to see what had be-come of their lunch.
The mes-sen-ger found Jo-ey, and picked him up and car-ried him home. Then, com-ing back, he took the bas-ket and all the ap-ples that lay a-bout, and went back to the field and the men ate them all for lunch-eon.
And so Jo-ey not on-ly got no ap-ples but had to lie in bed for a week be-fore his an-kle got well e-nough for him to run a-bout a-gain.