Windfalls 181 



Perhaps my own taste has changed, but 

 apples nowadays seem to me insipid, and I 

 would rather munch the sour, stunted yield 

 of this old orchard, and indulge in a day- 

 dream, than eat the choicest of the polished 

 prize fruit exhibited at the county fair. 



It has sometimes, but very seldom, hap- 

 pened that the summer's sun warms the pro- 

 jecting cheek of some stray apple until it 

 acquires the richness of old-time prosperous 

 days, and when such rare specimens come to 

 hand there come with them visions of other 

 years when insipid fruit was the exception, 

 not the rule. The last winter pearmain 

 that I tasted was one of these. Grandpa's 

 strange dumpling and his look of astonish- 

 ment became as vivid as on the day of the 

 occurrence of the incident. Auntie was busy 

 making dumplings for dinner, and when her 

 back was turned I slipped my painted rubber 

 ball it was decorated with a grinning face in 

 gaudy colors into a mass of dough, and it 

 was duly put in its net-work bag and placed 

 with other dumplings in the pot, and auntie 

 was none the wiser. It was not to be dis- 

 tinguished from the others when it came 

 upon the table, and how I wondered who 



