42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



Don't hit the jar of cucumbers 

 Standing on the broad stair! 

 They have not waked from their slumbers 

 Since they stood there. 



Yet they have lived in a constant jar! 



What remarkable sleepers they are! 



Turn to the left shun the wall 



One step more, that is all! 



Now we are safe on the ground 



I will show you around. 



Sixteen barrels of cider 



Ripening all in a row! 



Those delectable juices 



Flowed through the sinuous sluices 



Of sweet springs under the orchard, 



Climbed into fountains that chained them, 



Dripped into cups that retained them, 



And swelled till they dropped and we gained them, 



When they were gathered and tortured 



By passage from hopper to vat, 



And fell every apple crushed flat; 



In went the pulp by the scoop-ful, 



While the juice flowed by the stoop-ful, 



Filling the half of a puncheon 



While the men swallowed their luncheon. 



Pure grew the stream with the stress 



Of the lever and screw 



Till the last drops of the press 



Were as bright as the dew. 



There were the juices spilled; 



There were the barrels filled; 



Sixteen barrels of cider 



Ripening all in row! " 



In that same cellar of ours was cow-butter, 

 apple-butter and butter-milk; great jars of snow- 

 white lard, a jar of sausage packed in lard for 



