The Gold Ridge apple. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

 THE FIRESIDE FRUIT 



When the apple decided to enter the school, it did not 

 tell the master that it is one of Nature's oldest fruit chil- 

 dren, and that the lessons it had learned would be hard 

 to forget, or that the habits it had formed would be hard 

 to break; but we are sure that he knew this, for it was one 

 of the first friends of his childhood. 



On his father's New England farm the frosts of spring 

 often blighted the early blooming plum, pear, and peach; 



but the buds on the apple trees kept their cloaks folded 



164 



