Robinson burst out laughing.  George chuckled.  “Oh!” said he, “there were a pair of them for wisdom, you may take your oath of that.  ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I must dig till I find the right one.’  The wife she loses heart at this; for there was eighty apple-trees, and a score of cherry-trees.  ‘Mind you don’t cut the roots,’ says she, and she heaves a sigh.  John he gives them bad language, root and branch.  ’What signifies cut or no cut; the old faggots—­they don’t bear me a bushel of fruit the whole lot.  They used to bear two sacks apiece in father’s time.  Drat ’em.’

“‘Well, John,’ says the old woman, smoothing him down; ’father used to give them a deal of attention.’—­’ ’Tain’t that! ‘tain’t that!’ says he quick and spiteful-like; ’they have got old like ourselves, and good for fire-wood.’  Out pickax and spade and digs three foot deep round one, and finding nothing but mould goes at another, makes a little mound all round him, too—­no guinea-pot.  Well, the village let him dig three or four quiet enough; but after that curiosity was awakened, and while John was digging, and that was all day, there was mostly seven or eight watching through the fence and passing jests.  After a bit a fashion came up of flinging a stone or two at John; then John he brought out his gun loaded with dust-shot along with his pick and spade, and the first stone came he fired sharp in that direction and then loaded again.  So they took that hint, and John dug on in peace—­till about the fourth Sunday—­and then the parson had a slap at him in church.  ’Folks were not to heap up to themselves treasures on earth,’ was all his discourse.”

“Well, but,” said Robinson, “this one was only heaping up mould.”

“So it seemed when he had dug the five-score holes, for no pot of gold didn’t come to light.  Then the neighbors called the orchard ‘Jacobs’ Folly;’ his name was Jacobs—­John Jacobs.  ‘Now then, wife,’ says he, ’suppose you and I look out for another village to live in, for their gibes are more than I can bear.’  Old woman begins to cry.  ’Been here so long—­brought me home here, John—­when we were first married, John—­and I was a comely lass, and you the smartest young man I ever saw, to my fancy any way; couldn’t sleep or eat my victuals in any house but this.’

“’Oh! couldn’t ye?  Well, then, we must stay; perhaps it will blow over.’ —­ ’Like everything else, John; but, dear John, do ye fill in those holes; the young folk come far and wide on Sundays to see them.’

“‘Wife, I haven’t the heart,’ says he.  ’You see, when I was digging for the treasure I was always a-going to find, it kept my heart up; but take out shovel and fill them in—­I’d as lieve dine off white of egg on a Sunday.’  So for six blessed months the heaps were out in the heat and frost till the end of February, and then when the weather broke the old man takes heart and fills them in, and the village soon forgot ‘Jacobs’ Folly’ because it was out of sight.  Comes April, and out burst the trees.  ‘Wife,’ says he, ’our bloom is richer than I have known it this many a year, it is richer than our neighbors’.’  Bloom dies, and then out come about a million little green things quite hard.”