The Fruit-Farm and Old Age 333 



Annie lost her ring; there Bob caught the rabbit; 

 yonder is what is left of the old deer path; this is an 

 Indian spring; that row of apple trees I planted 

 the year the war opened, and this cherry tree by 

 the porch I sent home in a letter from near Fred- 

 ericksburg, before the battle. Mother planted it. 

 We never thought it woiild live. When I got out 

 of the hospital it perked up and began to grow. 

 We always called it "General Hooker," and a fine 

 tree it is, — when it bears. These grapes I raised 

 from the cuttings and I cut the posts and stakes 

 myself when we cleared the piece of timber east of 

 the grove. What? Why that is my Washington 

 peach. Colonel McLane gave it to me while he was 

 in Congress ; he brought it from Mt. Vernon. And 

 so the old man goes on from tree to tree, vine to 

 vine, over the whole farm, associating everything 

 with some tender memory. The whole farm is a 

 bundle of associations, — not yours, nor Annie's, nor 

 Robert's, but his. It is his world. There comes 

 a time when a man's thoughts return to the scenes 

 of his youth; the fruit-farm is the scenery of a long 

 life. 



I have known young people in the Valley who 

 furnished their house, when they started Hfe 

 together, with antique furniture — ^anything old 

 would do. Most of the equipment they purchased 

 at one blow in an antique shop in Salem that is 

 skillful in giving the hundred-year touch to the 

 product of the shop in the back-yard. The zeal for 

 association may become a passion; some people 



