Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

THE OLD FARM 91
orchard was In plain view, and that was his point of lookout;
but on those warm days of fruitage the old man would fall
asleep in his armchair. Then was our time to feast, and we
would run out to the woodpile and through the weeds and
grass; creeping on hands and knees we would land in the peach
orchard and eat of those delicious and abundant peaches, being
careful to cast the telltale pits far away. When we had
eaten to satiety we would creep back to the house, and by that
time grandfather would have had a good sleep and be ready
for a tour of inspection in the orchard to see if we had been
there foraging, and then he would come back, satisfied that the
fruit was still safe, and take another nap. So the summer
days went on, and in turn he watched the grapes on the porch
and if he found skins upon the ground, he entered protest to
mother. To keep the peace we again used strategy, and skins
of those luscious grapes were seldom found by the old eyes
beneath our father's grapevine.
We regret this miserly instinct of the dear old man and that
we felt driven to use subterfuge, but we know now that this
instinct came as a birthright to the pioneers from a stony and
ungenerous soil, and even in the new land every cent was
saved to spend in improving the homestead. As a result of
this economy oirr ancestors always, no matter how hard the
times, had money in the house. When it was placed in the
big walnut chest to pay taxes it was not counted upon as money.
As an illustration of this I recall that once father saw the
money in the chest after he had heard his mother say they were
out of money, whereupon the honest son spoke to his mother
concerning the presence of the money in the chest; but she
assured him that was not money, for it was to pay the taxes.
Many fine trees grew upon our old Walnut Tree Farm.
One large sycamore tree stood just a little diagonally across
the highway from the walnut tree which gave the name to
our home. This noble tree was one of the last of its kind, and
had stood the shocks of many fierce storms. Its shapely top
and symmetrical body with many smooth, white arms reach-
ing out in all directions made indeed a pleasant sight to the
lover of forest trees. However, as it grew so near the road