That is all I need tell you about myself . Mr. Carroll had asked me to photograph his place for him when the apple orchards were in bloom . He has a picturesque old-fashioned country house behind a lawn of the most delightful old trees and flanked on each side by the orchards . So I went one June afternoon , with all my accoutrements , prepared to `` take '' the Carroll establishment in my best style . Mr. Carroll was away but was expected home soon , so we waited for him , as all the family wished to be photographed under the big maple at the front door . I prowled around among the shrubbery at the lower end of the lawn and , after a great deal of squinting from various angles , I at last fixed upon the spot from which I thought the best view of the house might be obtained . Then Gertie and Lilian Carroll and I got into the hammocks and swung at our leisure , enjoying the cool breeze sweeping through the maples . Ned Brooke was hanging around as usual , watching us furtively . Ned was one of the hopeful members of a family that lived in a tumble-down shanty just across the road from the Carrolls . They were wretchedly poor , and old Brooke , as he was called , and Ned were employed a good deal by Mr. Carroll -- more out of charity than anything else , I fancy . The Brookes had a rather shady reputation . They were notoriously lazy , and it was suspected that their line of distinction between their own and their neighbours ' goods was not very clearly drawn . Many people censured Mr. Carroll for encouraging them at all , but he was too kind-hearted to let them suffer actual want and , as a consequence , one or the other of them was always dodging about his place . Ned was a lank , tow-headed youth of about fourteen , with shifty , twinkling eyes that could never look you straight in the face . His appearance was anything but prepossessing , and I always felt , when I looked at him , that if anyone wanted to do a piece of shady work by proxy , Ned Brooke would be the very lad for the business . Mr. Carroll came at last , and we all went down to meet him at the gate . Ned Brooke also came shuffling along to take the horse , and Mr. Carroll tossed the reins to him and at the same time handed a pocketbook to his wife . `` Just as well to be careful where you put that , '' he said laughingly . `` There 's a sum in it not to be picked up on every gooseberry bush . Gilman Harris paid me this morning for that bit of woodland I sold him last fall -- five hundred dollars .
I promised XXXXX you and the girls should have it to get a new piano , so there it is for you . ''
So across as at behind for in into of that