122 WINTER SUNSHINE 



them; when your neighbor has apples and you 

 have none, and you make no nocturnal visits to his 

 orchard; when your lunch-basket is without them, 

 and you can pass a winter's night by the fireside 

 with no thought of the fruit at your elbow, then 

 be assured you are no longer a boy, either in heart 

 or in years. 



The genuine apple-eater comforts himself with an 

 apple in their season, as others with a pipe or cigar. 

 When he has nothing else to do, or is bored, he eats 

 an apple. While he is waiting for the train he 

 eats an apple, sometimes several of them. When 

 he takes a walk he arms himself with apples. His 

 traveling bag is full of apples. He offers an apple 

 to his companion, and takes one himself. They are 

 his chief solace when on the road. He sows their 

 seed all along the route. He tosses the core from 

 the car window and from the top of the stage-coach. 

 He would, in time, make the land one vast orchard. 

 He dispenses with a knife. He prefers that his 

 teeth shall have the first taste. Then he knows the 

 best flavor is immediately beneath the skin, and that 

 in a pared apple this is lost. If you will stew the 

 apple, he says, instead of baking it, by all means 

 leave the skin on. It improves the color and vastly 

 heightens the flavor of the dish. 



The apple is a masculine fruit; hence women are 

 poor apple-eaters. It belongs to the open air, and 

 requires an open-air taste and relish. 



I instantly sympathized with that clergyman I 

 read of, who, on pulling out his pocket-handkerchief 



