But Alfred openly boasted of having the best fruit that the neighborhood afforded.

One of Alfred's cronies in these nocturnal raids was a boy, named Harvey Yeatton, who lived at the village, six or seven miles away; almost every year he came to visit Alfred for a week or more in September.
It was a good-natured community.

To early apples, indeed, the rogues were welcome; but garden pears, plums, and grapes were more highly prized, for in Maine it requires some little care to raise them.

At the farm of our nearest neighbors, the Edwardses, there were five greengage trees that bore delicious plums.

For three summers in succession Alfred and Harvey stole nearly every plum on those trees--at least, there was little doubt that it was they who took them.
They also took the old Squire's pears in the walled pen.