the cherry-tree should be visited, even if
they allowed the cherries to remain unmolested. Without further
discussion they proceeded to execute their purpose, and lost no time in
finding the famous tree. John's glowing description of the crop had
caused their mouths to water long before they came in sight of them.

"John is hoaxing us," said Nat, smiling, before they were half way
there. "I don't believe as good cherries as he tells about ever grow
wild."

"Wait and see," responded John. "If you won't believe _me_, I guess you
will your eyes. Wild or not wild, I hardly think you will keep your
hands off, when you have a peak at them."

"I tell you what it is, Nat," said Frank, "if it should turn out that
the cherries are tame, you might not get off so easy as Harry and Tom
did for disturbing the exhibition."

"I shouldn't deserve to," answered Nat.

The conversation kept up briskly as the boys crossed the fields and
scaled the walls and fences. At length they came in sight of the tree,
standing apart from any garden, nursery, or orchard, a full half mile
from the nearest house.

"There it is," said John, pointing to it. "If that is not a wild
cherry-tree, then _no_ tree is wild."

"I should think it would be as wild as the beasts, so far from any
house," added Frank.

They were surprised, on approaching the tree, to find it loaded with
cherries of so nice a quality. They were much larger than the common
wild cherries, a sort of "mazards," similar to the kind that is
cultivated in gardens.

"That is not a wild-cherry tree, I know," said Charlie. "It may have
come up here, but the owner of this land would never fail to gather such
cherries as these. They would sell for ninepence a quart in the village
as quick as any cherries."

"I think so too," said Nat; "and if we strip the tree, the first thing
we shall know, the constable will have us up for stealing."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed John. "You are more scared than hurt. I don't mean
that these cherries are not like some that grow in gardens; but the tree
came up here of itself--nobody ever set it out--and so it is wild; and
why are not the cherries common property as much as that smaller kind
which people get over there by the river?"

This last argument of John was more convincing. All the boys knew that
anybody gathered the common wild cherries from trees that grew much
nearer dwelling-houses than this, so that there was some force in John's
last suggestion.