"I don't know, but I'll walk out and see."
"It's ould Mrs. Gammon herself!" sounded Con's excited whisper. "Go for the gap, me boys, and don't spill your cherries over. Go, now!"
They were all only too ready to obey. Away they skurried, with long leaps, like frightened rabbits, through the orchard grass to the break in the wall. But they did not go beyond it. Up rose the Deacon on the other side, as cool—so Jerry Barker afterward said—as a frozen cucumber.
"Good-evening, boys," said he. He took off his hat as he spoke, and by the light of the moon the boys could see that he was making a desperate effort to keep his face straight. "Now I'm— Hold on there! Stop!"
For Con and Ike Harris had started to run. They stopped, however. There was nothing else to do when the Deacon spoke in that way, and they knew it.
"Let's see," said the Deacon, reaching toward Ned Rogers's basket, which was forthwith handed over to him with great alacrity—"let's see how many you've got."
He examined every boy's load in turn carefully and in silence, and all the while the boys looked into each other's faces without speaking. Oh! if the moon would but go under a cloud!
When the Deacon had finished his inspection, he spoke again, kindly, and with a pleasant smile:
"Now, boys, I'm much obliged to ye. I've laid out to go to town with a load o' truck to-morrow, an' I was wonderin' how I'd get my cherries picked. I'm reely obliged to ye, and I'll be more so if ye'll carry 'em to the house for me."
Not a boy felt like disobeying. Not one but silently picked up his burden of cherries and marched along before the Deacon to the house and into the porch.