OLD HOMESTEAD 



big fire-place of the old kitchen. Paring, coring and quartering 

 the apples was evening work, and many an evening was made to 

 last until late bedtime before the job was done; but it paid, for it 

 furnished a most delicious food that was freely used at all meals 

 and between meals until the next June. The sauce was allowed 

 to freeze up through the winter, which kept it fresh and sweet. 

 I have never had anything in the lunch line which, to my taste, 

 equaled cider apple-sauce and the long, white nutcakes, made 

 tender, light and delicate, without sugar, which went with it. 



To use the large amount of apples which were put into the 

 cellar each fall, we were obliged to feed a great many of them to 

 the calves and fowls. The geese were especially fond of hashed 

 apple. 



Later on, the lower orchard was grafted by a party of itiner- 

 ant fakirs who set grafts by the hundred. They were turned 

 loose in the orchard and grafted every limb they could reach 

 or climb to. For a time it was a question whether they had not 

 entirely ruined it, but it ''survived the operation," and some of 

 the grafts turned out pretty well. 



I always think of these orchards and the bountiful supply of 

 apples therefrom with very pleasant feelings, for it takes me 

 back to the time when, with pockets all stuffed with the very 

 best the cellar afforded, I could buy my way into the affections 

 of the best girls in the school and bribe the ugliest boys to let 

 me off easy. 



Late in the fall came the butchering. To me this was an un- 

 pleasant experience. To see the animals we had cared for, 

 waited on and associated with, brought out from their pens or 

 stalls and cruelly murdered, was a sight I could hardly stand. 

 The plunging of the bloody butcher-knife into the heart of a 

 favorite pig, or the cutting of the throat of the clever calf, was 



91 



