Comfort Me with Apples 199 



ber Eating, Wine of New England, the Apple of the 

 Dell in the Wood, the Apple of the Hollow in the 

 Pasture, the Railroad Apple, the Cellar-hole Apple, 

 the Frozen-thawed, and many more; these he loved 

 for their fruit ; to them let me add the Playhouse 

 Apple trees, loved solely for their ingeniously 

 twisted branches, an Apple tree of the garden, 

 often overhanging the flower borders. I recall 

 their glorious whiteness in the spring, but I cannot 

 remember that they bore any fruit save a group of 

 serious little girls. I know there were no Apples 

 on the Playhouse Apple trees in my garden, nor on 

 the one in Nelly Gilbert's or Ella Partridge's gar- 

 den. There is no play place for girls like an old 

 Apple tree. The main limbs leave the trunk at ex- 

 actly the right height for children to reach, and every 

 branch and twig seems to grow and turn only to form 

 delightful perches for children to climb among and 

 cling to. Some Apple trees in our town had a 

 copy of an Elizabethan garden furnishing; their 

 branches enclosed tree platforms about twelve feet 

 from the ground, reached by a narrow ladder or 

 flight of steps. These were built by generous 

 parents for their children's playhouses, but their 

 approach of ladder was too unhazardous, their 

 railings too safety-assuring, to prove anything but 

 conventional and uninteresting. The natural Apple 

 tree offered infinite variety, and a slight sense of 

 daring to the climber. Its possibility of accident 

 was fulfilled ; untold number of broken arms and 

 ribs — juvenile — were resultant from fills from 

 Apple trees. 



