Indian Spring 



Beyond the golf links, on a hillside where 

 scattered birches and scrub pines were 

 growing, I came upon a stunted wild apple- 

 tree, the ground under which was thickly 

 strewn with frozen and thawed apples. Im- 

 mediately there occurred to me Thoreau's 

 enthusiastic praise of the spicy cider of 

 thawed wild apples. Gathering my hands 

 full of the russet fruit, I sat down upon a 

 rock to taste this primitive nectar (as Tho- 

 reau recommends) "in the wind." It was 

 indeed delicious not so tart and bitter as 

 the juice of the wild apple in its sound state, 

 but distinctly sweetened and ameliorated by 

 the frost; a kind of spicy wild wine, inno- 

 cent as water, refreshing to the palate, and 

 wholesome and medicinal to the entire body. 

 I gathered more and more of the wild 

 apples, and sucked their cool nectar until my 

 thirst was slaked. It was a real discovery, 

 this new winter drink, and I would heartily 

 pass on Thoreau's recommendation of it to 

 other ramblers. 



I ate my noonday lunch by a spring in 

 the Blue Hills Reservation, and then kept 

 on across that vast park toward the Ob- 

 servatory, standing up like a huge excres- 



