"Oh, any amount."
"Now see here, boys"—and Clem Goodrich lifted himself into a sitting posture and knit his brows thoughtfully as he spoke—"I think—isn't this—doesn't it seem a little bit like stealing? Don't you suppose he'd give us a few if we were to ask him? It looks to me—"
But right here Clem's mild voice was drowned in a roaring, boisterous chorus.
"It's not staling, me boy," said Con O'Brien, with the faintest brogue in the world; "it's only helping ourselves to a few cherries, that otherwise might spoil for want o' the picking, and so be wasted intirely. And if Deacon Gammon don't know it, he'll be none the wiser, for he's got piles and hapes more'n he can take care of. Ten to one he'll be obliged to us for helping him out a little—he isn't a bad old gintleman at heart, you know. And it's for the fun of it as well as the ating we take 'em, and that's the truth."
"So 'tis," echoed a good many of the boys.
As for Clem, he gazed into Con's serious face doubtfully, yet, it must be confessed, very willing to be convinced.
"I suppose you know best," said he—"you fellows that have lived here all your lives."
"Of course," laughed Jerry Parker. "Why, my father says he always plants an extra melon seed for us boys as well as for the bugs."
So they reasoned away their doubts and made their plans; and somehow, before the little party broke up, each boy had pretty nearly succeeded in persuading himself that he would be doing the Deacon a favor by helping him make away with a small portion of his fruit. All the same, Ned Rogers couldn't resist a little feeling of guilt, not unmingled with dread, when his father said at the tea table that evening: "I wonder what Deacon Gammon thought of that mow of early-cut timothy? He was up to look at it this afternoon."
Nobody could tell what the Deacon thought of the hay, for nobody had seen him. But Ned was thinking that he would give something to know just at what time in the afternoon the Deacon came to look at that haymow.