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There was a man who left his wife and little children to fight against King George. He could think of but one thing to protect them against vagrant soldiers of either side, and that was to carve upon certain boards (which he nailed to the trees here and there along the boundaries of his farm):

BEWARR OF THE BOOLE DOGGES

When I was a child one of these signs still remained–at the left, just beyond Pelham Bridge. And people used to laugh and point at the great trees and say that because of the sign the British had never dared to trespass and cut down the timber. Now the man had never owned a Boole Dogge, nor had any of his descendants. I doubt if there was ever one on the premises, unless latterly, perhaps, there has been a French bulldog or so let out of a passing automobile to enjoy a few moments of unconventional liberty. But the bluff had always held good. As my mother used to say: “I know–but then there may be a bulldog now.” And that farm was always out of bounds. I relate this for two reasons–to show how stable and conservative a neighborhood was ours, and because on that very farm, and chosen for the very reason which I have related, stood the hollow oak which is to play its majestic part in this modest narrative.

The apple orchards of the Boole Dogge Farm ran southerly to a hickory wood, the hickory wood to an oak wood, the oak wood to thick scrub of all sorts, the scrub to the sedge, and the sedge to the salt mud at low tide, and at high to the bassy waters themselves of inmost Pelham Bay. On the right was the long, black trestle of the Harlem River Branch Railroad, on the left the long-curved ironwork of Pelham Bridge. And the farm, promontoried with its woods and thick cover between these boundaries and more woods to the north, was an overgrown, run-down, desolate, lonely, deserted old place. Had it not been for the old sign that said “Bewarr,” it must have been a great playground for children–for their picnics, and their hide-and-seeks, and their games at Indians. But the ferocious animals imagined by the old Revolutionary were as efficacious against trespassers as a cordon of police. And I remember to this day, I can feel still, the very-thrill of that wild surmise with which I followed Mary and my sister over the stone wall and into those forbidden and forbidding acres for the first time. But that comes later.

It was my sister who told me that Mary was engaged to be married. But I had noticed for some days how the neighbors went out of their way to accost her upon our walks; to banter her kindly, to shake hands with her, to wag their heads and look chin-chucks even if they gave none. Her face wore a beautiful mantling red for hours at a time. And instead of being made more sedate by her responsible and settling prospects she shed the half of her years, which were not many, and became the most delightful romp, a furious runner of races, swiftest of pursuers at tag, most subtle and sudden of hiders and poppers out, and full to the arch, scarlet brim of loud, clear laughter.

It was late spring now, lilacs in all the dooryards, all the houses being cleaned inside out, and they were to be married in the fall. They had picked the little house on the outskirts of Skinnertown not far from the Tory oak, in which they were to live. And often we made it the end of an excursion, and played at games devised by Mary to improve the appearance of the little yard. We gathered up in emulation old, broken china and bottles, and made them into a heap at the back; we cleared the yard of brush and dead wood, and pulled up weeds by the hundred-weight, and set out a wild rose or two and more valuable, if less lovely, plants that people gave Mary out of real gardens.