A SUMMER S PIPPIN 



insect they met on their journey, and he bored 

 through all wrappages to get at them. Those 

 apples had to be eaten the moment they were 

 plucked. They resented anything like delay. 

 They were so evanescent that when the mater 

 put a dishful of them on the hall table, it was 

 for the fleeting odour, and she warned us children 

 not to touch them because they were spoiling. 



That tree stood awkwardly in the roadway and 

 was more or less of an obstruction. It was scarred 

 by the hubs of passing vehicles, but &quot; the old 

 man &quot; could never find it in his heart to cut it 

 down. It was the most wayward, capricious fruit 

 tree I ever saw. It had spells when it pouted 

 in unblossomy poverty. But there were other 

 spells when the fulness and the overflow of Nature 

 laid hold of it. Then, like a beautiful wanton, it 

 made love to the children, the birds, and the bees 

 alike. No sooner had the robins arrived than it 

 began to array itself like a bride in odorous tulle 

 and became one great cloud of blossoms. It 

 banked the road up with a kind of fairy snow 

 and kept the brooms flying on the porch with a 

 teasing mischievousness. All the birds came and 

 flirted with it, even the wrens forgetting their 

 gamin habits and accepting it as a communal 

 music-stand. Thus it bore witness to us in our 

 thoughtless youth of the fleeting character of all 

 exquisite things. I never could quite divest 

 myself of the fancy that John Burroughs and 

 Thoreau had at some time sat under that tree 

 and munched, for did I not long afterward detect 



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