150 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



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. Perhaps as a 

 business investment, such work might pay the 

 wages of a day laborer, but it was unworthy 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 pro- 

 found discontent and a wild desire to get back 

 to the city at any cost. I was assured that for 

 any man above the rustic lout, the country and 

 all its occupations would be intolerable 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 for granted by 

 these good friends of mine that this is so self- 

 evident as to require no argument. The man 

 who wants to earn bread and butter for his 

 family must work in the city. Yet all these 

 years, I have retained a sneaking fondness for 

 the belief that years of work in an apple orchard 

 might not result disastrously for me or mine. 



