Stories for the Young | Page 7

would you believe it? Giles and his boys marked both onions and
apples for their own. Indeed, a man who stole so many rabbits from the
warren, was likely enough to steal onions for sauce. One day when the
widow was abroad on a little business, Giles and his boys made a clear
riddance of the onion-bed; and when they had pulled up every single
onion, they then turned a couple of pigs into the garden, who, allured
by the smell, tore up the bed in such a manner, that the widow, when
she came home, had not the least doubt but the pigs had been the
thieves. To confirm this opinion, they took care to leave the little hatch

half open at one end of the garden, and to break down a bit of a fence at
the other end.
I wonder how any body can find in his heart not to pity and respect
poor old widows. There is something so forlorn and helpless in their
condition, that methinks it is a call on every body, men, women, and
children, to do them all the kind services that fall in their way. Surely,
their having no one to take their part, is an additional reason for
kind-hearted people not to hurt and oppress them. But it was this very
reason which led Giles to do this woman an injury. With what a
touching simplicity it is recorded in Scripture, of the youth whom our
blessed Saviour raised from the dead, that he was the only son of his
mother, and she was a widow.
It happened, unluckily for poor widow Brown, that her cottage stood
quite alone. On several mornings together--for roguery gets up much
earlier than industry--Giles and his boys stole regularly into her orchard,
followed by their jackasses. She was so deaf that she could not hear the
asses, if they had brayed ever so loud, and to this Giles trusted; for he
was very cautious in his rogueries, since he could not otherwise have
contrived so long to keep out of prison; for though he was almost
always suspected, he had seldom been taken up, and never convicted.
The boys used to fill their bags, load their asses, and then march off;
and if, in their way to the town where the apples were to be sold, they
chanced to pass by one of their neighbors who might be likely to
suspect them, they then all at once began to scream out, "Buy my coal?
buy my sand?"
Besides the trees in her orchard, poor widow Brown had in her small
garden one apple-tree particularly fine; it was a redstreak, so tempting
and so lovely that Giles' family had watched it with longing eyes, till at
last they resolved on a plan for carrying off all this fine fruit in their
bags. But it was a nice point to manage. The tree stood directly under
her chamber window, so that there was some danger that she might spy
them at the work. They therefore determined to wait till the next
Sunday morning, when they knew she would not fail to be at church.
Sunday came; it was a lone house, as I said before, and most of the

parish were safe at church. In a trice the tree was cleared, the bags were
filled, the asses were whipped, the thieves were off, the coast was clear,
and all was safe and quiet by the time the sermon was over.
Unluckily, however, it happened, that this tree was so beautiful, and the
fruit so fine, that the people, as they used to pass to and from church,
were very apt to stop and admire widow Brown's redstreaks; and some
of the farmers rather envied her, that in that scarce season, when they
hardly expected to make a pie out of a large orchard, she was likely to
make a cask of cider from a single tree. I am afraid, indeed, if I must
speak out, she herself rather set her heart too much upon this fruit, and
had felt as much pride in her tree as gratitude to a good Providence for
it; but this failing of hers was no excuse for Giles. The covetousness of
this thief had for once got the better of his caution; the tree was too
completely stripped, though the youngest boy Dick did beg hard that
his father would leave the poor old woman enough for a few dumplings;
and when Giles ordered Dick in his turn to shake the tree, the boy did it
so gently that hardly any apples fell, for which he got a good stroke of
the stick with which the old man was beating down the apples.
The neighbors, on their return from church, stopped as usual;