THE LOOM OF AUTUMN 205 



bling stream and, being idle all the 

 year, save for a month or two, vines 

 have crawled over it and mosses spread 

 their mimic forests on the roof. The 

 other portion, bare and new, serves as 

 post-office and the village store. The 

 stream leaps down and swings the 

 wheel around, the millstones crush, 

 and the apples spurt, then cake to 

 pumice between the layers of straw, 

 and bees swarm thick about the mass, 

 and no one hurries. The oxen chew 

 their cud, the men who grind the 

 apples move lazily, or sit and chew 

 straws, while the passer-by may help 

 himself at will to straw, or cloudy cider 

 from a battered cup. Some boys, with 

 chilled red legs and trousers high 

 rolled, are bobbing barrels in a pool 

 to rinse and swell them. 



An odour of fields, orchards, woods, 

 sweeps past, joined to the yeasty smell 



