I did not think that grass
and wild-flowers could have held so much wet. By the time that we had
crossed the orchard, and I was preparing to grip the grandly scored
trunk of the nearest walnut-tree with my chilly legs, the heavy peeling,
the hard cracking, and the tedious picking of a green walnut was as
little pleasurable a notion as I had in my brain.
All the same, I said (as firmly as my chattering teeth would allow) that
I was very glad we had come when we did, for that there certainly were
fewer walnuts on the tree than there had been the day before.
"She's been at them," said I, almost indignantly.
"Pickling," responded Jem with gloomy conciseness; and spurred by this
discovery to fresh enthusiasm for our exploit, we promptly planned
operations.
"I'll go up the tree," said I, "and beat, and you can pick them as they
fall."
Jem was, I fear, only too well accustomed to my arrogating the first
place in our joint undertakings, and after giving me "a leg up" to an
available bit of foothold, and handing up my stick, he waited patiently
below to gather what I beat down.
The walnuts were few and far between, to say nothing of leaves between,
which in walnut-trees are large.
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