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THE APPLE ORCHARD
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    The next morning, he was going to town again and he looked straight at me as he said, ‘are you sure that you know how to trim apple trees?’
   I told him that I could trim them. He told me that the women folks would show me what to do, then he drove away. His wife gave me an axe and a long saw, telling me to trim up the trees. She showed me where the orchard was and I started out for my work. It was a good sized orchard with about seventy trees. I wondered if the boss thought that I could do the job in one day.
   On account of my failure the day before to hang the gate, I wanted to redeem myself so I set about with axe and saw and by six o’clock, every tree in the orchard lay flat on the ground and my hands were blistered. But I felt that they could not kick on that job, although it would take two days more, at least, to trim those trees up.
   The boss was late again for supper and did not get home until after dark. I was anxious for him to see the big day’s work I had done but the orchard could not be seen from the house where we sat at the evening meal. This meal proved to be my last one in that house.
   The master asked me if I had finished trimming the trees in the orchard. I gazed at him and then at his wife and I just sat there without speaking. His wife, noticing my confusion came to my rescue by stating that there was a lot of work in doing that job of pruning on those trees and to do it properly would take a couple of days.
   Oh my God, when she said pruning, it all came to me how dumb I was! How I got through that meal, I never can tell. I knew that I must get out of the house and that, awfully quick. If the boss should happen to see his orchard now, he might kill me ara I deserved it.
    I got to my room as fast as I could, grabbed my bundle and sneaked down and was off before anyone saw me. The last thing that I remember of seeing in the moonlight, after I rounded the knoll was that orchard of apple trees all laying horizontally.” The horsemen took another drink and McIntyre took the decanter down cellar to refill it again. Anthony waited for the return of his employer, before he went on with his story.
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xTHE HODAG
BY LAKE SHORE KEARNEYx
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