Kit of Greenacre Farm

upola room, with its six windows, commanded a panoramic view of the count

half-grown birches all over it, and now and then a little dwarf spruce tree or cluster of hazel bushes. But to the girls of Greenacres, that ten acre lot represented a treasure trove in the month of August when

apples or nuts, but this is going to be a regular jubilee harvest. Them bushes up there are hanging so full that you

cres had belonged to the Trowbridges. Several times when it had happened to be a good year for the huckleberry crop, raiders had swept down

ng' sign than they would to a woodchuck's tracks. The only thing to do is watch, and when you see 'em turn in through the bars off the main road, you come down and let me know, and tel

black-bodied wagon, drawn unmistakably by a livery horse, pull up at the pasture bars, and its driver calmly and shamelessly hitch there. He took out o

y. "He's going to fill them with our berries

ead every time she came near it with friendly overtures. Jean and Helen had gone up to Norwich with Mrs. Robbins for the day, and her father was out in the apple orchard with Philemon Weaver, sp

chards. Kit had started Shad after the trespasser, while she went back to telephone to Mr. Hicks. The very last

n twenty minutes. You folks ain't the only ones that's suffering this year from fruit thieves, and it's time we taught these high fli

ad been home, she knew perfectly well they would have been soft-hearted and lenient, but every berry on ev

iring and red faced, but filled with unholy gl

ips through a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he was bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tri

he midsummer sun beat down upon it pitiless

Shad? I'll bet a cookie it's

o meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as husky as

it. "I didn't want you

on when he was inclined to put up an argument. I'll stand guard over him until Han comes along, and t

the prisoner was safe in the corn-crib, she wondered somewhat uneasily just what her father would say when he found out what she had done to protect the berry patc

peaches. Her voice came with droning, old-

n read my

ons in t

arewell to

my weep

. Mr. Hicks would have to come from Gilead Green in this direction, and

s was still green, but scrambling along the ground were w

the season between haying and harvest time. Beside him sat Elvira, his youngest, drinking in every word with tense appreciation of the novelty. It was the first chance Mr. Hicks had had to make an arrest during his term of office, and as a special test and reward of diligence,

d beside him, smi

chuckled. "If there's a bug or a moth that can stand that

re, and gives an expert opinion," Mr. Robbins rejoined

ever did set any store at all by these here government chaps with their little satchels and tree

ost as Mr. Hicks' black and whit

y? Howdy, Philemon? Miss Kit here tells me you've b

red as she laid one hand

Dad," she added, hurriedly. "We girls have been keeping a watch on the berry patch, you know, and to-day it was my turn to stand guard up

ok his head wit

id. "I don't know anything about this, but we'll go ov

e porch while the others skirted around the garden ov

u've got so many ornaments out-of-doors. Ma says she can't even g

d stealthily and cautiously put back the wide wooden bars that held the door, then Mr. Hicks, fully on the defensive with a stout hickory cane held in re

ver at Miss Hornaby's when she wouldn't let Minnie and Myron go to school 'cause their shoes were all

them instantly clasped hands, while Shad, Mr. Hicks and Philemon stared with all their might. The next the girls knew, the whole party came strolling back leisurely, and Kit could se

with high sport boots. He was, as Mrs. Gorham expressed it later, "light complected" and tanned so deeply that his blond

fruit expert from Washingt

g with all her heart she might have silenced

ok huckleberr