"
I could not talk on this subject. "Go on, Pomona," I said, trying
to feel resigned to my shame, "and tell us about that poster on the
fence."
"I'll be to that almost right away," she said. "It was two or
three days after the dog-fight that I was down at the barn, and
happenin' to look over to Old John's, I saw that tree-man there.
He was a-showin' his book to John, and him and his wife and all the
young ones was a-standin' there, drinkin' down them big peaches and
pears as if they was all real. I know'd he'd come here ag'in, for
them fellers never gives you up; and I didn't know how to keep him
away, for I didn't want to let the dogs loose on a man what, after
all, didn't want to do no more harm than to talk the life out of
you. So I just happened to notice, as I came to the house, how
kind of desolate everything looked, and I thought perhaps I might
make it look worse, and he wouldn't care to deal here. So I
thought of puttin' up a poster like that, for nobody whose place
was a-goin' to be sold for taxes would be likely to want trees. So
I run in the house, and wrote it quick and put it up. And sure
enough, the man he come along soon, and when he looked at that
paper, and tried the gate, an' looked over the fence an' saw the
house all shut up an' not a livin' soul about,--for I had both the
dogs in the house with me,--he shook his head an' walked off, as
much as to say, 'If that man had fixed his place up proper with my
trees, he wouldn't 'a' come to this!' An' then, as I found the
poster worked so good, I thought it might keep other people from
comin' a-botherin' around, and so I left it up; but I was a-goin'
to be sure and take it down before you came.
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