THE APPLE. 135 



my own flesh ; capable of being wounded, bleeding, 

 wasting away, or almost repairing damages ! 



How they resist the cold ! holding out almost as 

 long as the red cheeks of the boys do. A frost that 

 destroys the potatoes and other roots only makes the 

 apple more crisp and vigorous ; they peep out from 

 the chance November snows unscathed. When I see 

 the fruit vender on the street corner stamping his feet 

 and beating his hands to keep them warm and his 

 naked apples lying exposed to the blasts, I wonder 

 if they do not ache too to clap their hands and en- 

 liven their circulation. But they can stand it nearly 

 as long as the vender can. 



Noble common fruit, best friend of man and most 

 loved by him, following him like his dog or his cow, 

 wherever he goes. His homestead is not planted till 

 you are planted, your roots intertwine with his ; thriv- 

 ing best where he thrives best, loving the limestone 

 and the frost, the plow and the pruning-knife, you 

 are indeed suggestive of hardy, cheerful industry, and 

 a healthy life in the open air. Temperate, chaste 

 fruit ! you mean neither luxury nor sloth, neither 

 satiety nor indolence, neither enervating heats nor 

 the Frigid Zones. Uncloying fruit, fruit whose best 

 sauce is the open air, whose finest flavors only he 

 whose taste is sharpened by brisk work or walking 

 knows ; winter fruit, when the fire of life burns 

 brightest ; fruit always a' little hyperborean, leaning 

 toward the cold; bracing, sub-acid, active fruit. I 

 think you must come from the north, you are so frank 



