ON THE DARK OF THE MOON In a little walled inclosure near the roadside at the old Squire's stood two very large pear-trees that at a distance looked like Lombardy poplars; they had straight, upright branches and were fully fifty feet tall.

One was called the Eastern Belle and the other the Indian Queen.
They had come as little shoots from grandmother Ruth's people in Connecticut when she and the old Squire were first married.

Grandmother always spoke of them as "Joe's pear-trees"; Joseph was the old Squire's given name.

Some joke connected with their early married life was in her mind when she spoke thus, for she always laughed roguishly when she said "Joe's pears," but she would never explain the joke to us young folks.
She insisted that those were the old Squire's pears, and told us not to pick them.
In the orchard behind the house were numerous other pear-trees.

There were no restrictions on those or on the early apples or plums; but every year grandmother half jokingly told us not to go to those two trees in the walled inclosure, and she never went there herself.
I must confess, however, that we young folks knew pretty well how those pears tasted.