208 Old Time Gardens 



1758 an account of the settlement of Delaware, 

 said : — 



" Apple pie is used throughout the whole year, and when 

 fresh Apples are no longer to be had, dried ones are used. 

 It is the evening meal of children. House pie, in country 

 places, is made of Apples neither peeled nor freed from their 

 cores, and its crust is not broken if a wagon wheel goes 

 over it." 



I always had an undue estimation of Apple pie 

 in my childhood, from an accidental cause : we were 

 requested by the conscientious teacher in our Sunday- 

 school to "take out'" each week without fail from 

 the "Select Library' of the school a "Sabbath- 

 school Library Book." The colorless, albeit pious, 

 contents of the books classed under that title 

 are well known to those of my generation ; even 

 such a child of the Puritans as I was could not 

 read them. There were two anchors in that sea of 

 despair, — but feeble holds would they seem to-day, 

 — the first volumes of Queechy and The Wide, Wide 

 World. With the disingenuousness of childhood I 

 satisfied the rules of the school and my own con- 

 science by carrying home these two books, and no 

 others, on alternate Sundays for certainly two years. 

 The only wonder in the matter was that the trans- 

 action escaped my Mother's eye for so long a time. 

 I read only isolated scenes ; of these the favorite 

 was the one wherein Fleda carries to the woods for 

 the hungry visitor, who was of the English nobility, 

 several large and toothsome sections of green Apple 

 pie and cheese. The prominence given to that Ap- 



