by Amy Walton

Amy Walton (1845-1925) was the author who wrote Our Frank (1886), The Hawthorns (1886), Susan (1888), A Pair of Clogs (1888), White Lilac; or, The Queen of the May (1889), The Kitchen Cat and Other Tales (1890), Penelope and the Others (1893), Black, White, and Gray (1894), Thistle and Rose (1895), and Only Twice (1896). 'Quite close to the nursery window at Easney Vicarage there grew a very old pear-tree. It was so old that the ivy had had time to hug its trunk with strong rough arms, and even to stretch them out nearly to the top, and hang dark green wreaths on every bough. Some day, the children had been told, this would choke the life out of the tree and kill it; that would be a pity, but there seemed no danger of it yet, for every spring the pear-tree still showed its head crowned with white blossoms, and every summer the pears grew yellow and juicy, and fell with a soft 'splosh! ' on the gravel path beneath.