A Story of a Walnut - Page 2

he thought his plan the best, and to protect the young plants he
made a little fence of odd sticks and bits of old wire and hoop iron.
But the sheep would get in, so he made a new ditch; and then something
else, until in the course of years the three-quarters of an acre had
been appropriated. That was the whole history, and the pilfering had
gone no further only because someone in authority had discovered and
put a stop to it. Still, one could see that (in spite of the powers) a
strip a few inches in breadth was being added annually to the estate.

I was so much interested in all this that from time to time I began to
pause beside his gate to converse with him. By degrees the timid,
suspicious expression wore away, and his eyes looked only wistful, and
he spoke of his aches and pains as if it did him good to tell them to
another.

I then left the village, but visited it from time to time, usually at
intervals of some months, always to find him by his gate, on his own
property, which he won for himself in the middle of the village, and
from which he watched his neighbours moving about their cottages, going
and coming, and was not of them. Then a whole year went by, and when I
found him at the old gate in the old attitude, with the old wistful
look in the eyes, he seemed glad to see me, and we talked of many
things. We talked, that is, of the weather, with reference to the
crops, and his rheumatism. What else in the world was there to talk of?
He read no paper and heard no news and was of no politics; and if it
can be said that he had a philosophy of life it was a low-down one,
about on a level with that of a solitary old dog-badger who lives in an
earth he has excavated for himself with infinite pains in a strong
stubborn soil--his home and refuge in a hostile world.

Finally, casting about in my mind for some new subject of conversation--
for I was reluctant to leave him soon after so long an absence--it
occurred to me that we had not said anything about his one walnut tree.
Of all the other trees and the fruit he had gathered from them he had
already spoken. "By-the-way," I said, "did your walnut tree yield well
this year?"

"Yes, very well," he returned; then he checked himself and said,
"Pretty well, but I did not get much for them." And after a little
hesitation he added, "That reminds me of something I had forgotten.
Something I have been keeping for you--a little present."

He began to feel in the capacious pockets of his big outside waistcoat,
but found nothing. "I must give it up," he said; "I must have mislaid
it."

He seemed a little relieved, and at the same time a little
disappointed; and by-and-by,