WAYFARERS 279 



Two Apples may be called wayfarers hereabout. 

 The common Apple has escaped so freely from 

 orchards, to grow, ungrafted, under the protection of 

 old walls that it has become quite a tree of the high- 

 ways. Though the fruit is bitter, the flowers grow in 

 great profusion, and are pinker than those on grafted 

 trees. The more slender tree of the truly Wild 

 American Crab Apple is a decided landscape flower 

 of roadside tangles and light wood edges. The 

 blossoms of this Crab are deep pink, the buds be- 

 ing often tipped with carmine. The exquisite per- 

 fume has a distinctly wild quality, a fragrance that 

 is shared by the small yellow apple itself, though 

 the fabled Dead Sea fruit could not have been more 

 disappointing than the taste of this Wild Crab. I 

 have known even Nell, after whinnying to call my 

 attention to a shower of the apples lying like yel- 

 low leaves inside a fence out of her reach, to drop 

 the half -chewed fruit with an impatient puckering 

 of the lips and a shake of the head that plainly said 

 in horse talk, "How could you play such a stone - 

 for-bread trick upon your aged friend?" 



To May and June also belong the Dog- 

 woods, Viburnums, and both the Red- and Black- 

 berried Elders. In these months, to travel the road 

 from the Lilac House past Tree -bridge to the 



