THE RED COW 



In order to celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the 

 popular fashion, one would need to keep books and 

 strike a balance of good and evil. Let me try this 

 plan. First, there is the orchard. The frost killed 

 most of the blossoms ; there was a plague of green 

 aphids in the spring; over half of the apples we 

 have are scabby and deformed. Wow! If I were 

 depending on that orchard for my happiness Thanks- 

 giving Day would be a day of gloom. But let us 

 look at the other side of the ledger. We have sold 

 our apples for a topnotch price ; we are getting 

 more for our thirds than people used to get for their 

 firsts ; we even have a chance to sell our culls at a 

 good price to a vinegar factory ; the indications are 

 that after all the orchard will yield a larger cash 

 return than in any year of its existence, except last 

 year, when we had a bumper crop of clean fruit 

 and got top prices. Looking at things in that way 

 I guess I can squeeze out a little thankfulness for 

 the 20th after all. Then there is the young orchard. 

 First let me grumble. The young trees came late 

 in the spring; they were all dried out, and wise 

 people said they would not grow; I was so late 

 getting them planted and getting the ground thor- 

 oughly cultivated, that I did not get the corn planted 



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