THE APPLE. 137 



there is the texture and polish. Some apples are 

 coarse-grained and some are fine ; some are thin 

 skinned and some are thick. One variety is quick 

 and vigorous beneath the touch ; another gentle and 

 yielding. The pinnock has a thick skin with a 

 spongy lining, a bruise in it becomes like a piece of 

 cork. The tallow apple has an unctuous feel as its 

 name suggests. It sheds water like a duck. What 

 apple is that with a fat curved stem that blends so 

 prettily with its own flesh, the wine-apple ? Some 

 varieties impress me as masculine, weather-stained, 

 freckled, lasting and rugged ; others are indeed lady 

 apples, fair, delicate, shining, mild-flavored, white- 

 meated, like the egg-drop and lady-finger. The prac- 

 ticed hand knows each kind by the touch. 



Do you remember the apple hole in the garden or 

 back of the house, Ben Bolt ? In the fall after the 

 bins in the cellar had been well stocked, we excavated 

 a circular pit in the warm mellow earth and covering 

 the bottom with clean rye straw, emptied in basketful 

 after basketful of hardy choice varieties, till there was 

 a tent-shaped mound several feet high of shining 

 variegated fruit. Then wrapping it about with a thick 

 layer of long rye straw, and tucking it up snug and 

 warm, the mound was covered with a thin coating of 

 ^arth, a flat stone on the top holding down the straw 

 As winter set in another coating of earth was put upon 

 it, with perhaps an overcoat of coarse dry stable ma- 

 nure, and the precious pile was left in silence and 

 darkness till spring. No marmot hibernating under 



