158 "Dead Trees Love the Fire" 



the necessary money in empty barrels and 

 freight charges. The work, I did myself, be- 

 ginning before breakfast and stopping when it 

 grew too dark to tell a good apple from a bad 

 one. Then I went back to routine work at my 

 own profession. But in after years the memory 

 of that apple picking became a delight. I 

 often spoke of it to friends, only to be told 

 that no one but the laziest of men would think 

 of wasting months in an apple orchard. Per- 

 haps as a business investment such work might 

 pay the wages of a day laborer, but it was un- 

 worthy of a man who could earn ten or twenty 

 dollars a day by writing newspaper articles or 

 trading in lead pipe or leather. Moreover, I 

 was assured that had I kept on for a few 

 months longer at such work, it would have filled 

 me with profound discontent and a wild desire 

 to get back to the city at any cost. I was as- 

 sured that for any man above the rustic lout, 

 the country and all its occupations would be in- 

 tolerable except as a recreation for a few weeks 

 of the year, unless there was plenty of money 

 wherewith to live a life of absolute idleness and 

 watch others work. It has always been taken 



