THE APPLE. 141 



ing apples with it that went rolling across the pulpit 

 floor and down the pulpit stairs. These apples were, 

 no doubt, to be eaten after the sermon on his way 

 home, or to his next appointment. They would take 

 the taste of it out of his month. Then, would a 

 minister be apt to grow tiresome with two big apples 

 in his coat-tail pockets ? Would he not naturally 

 hasten along to " lastly," and the big apples ? If they 

 were the dominie apples, and it was April or May, 

 he certainly would. 



/TIow the early settlers prized the apple ! When 

 their trees broke down or were split asunder by the 

 storms, the neighbors turned out, the divided tree was 

 put together again and fastened with iron bolts. In 

 some of the oldest orchards one may still occasionally 

 see a large dilapidated tree with the rusty iron bolt 

 yet visible. Poor, sour fruit, too, but sweet in those 

 early pioneer days. My grandfather, who was one 

 of these heroes of the stump, used every fall to make 

 a journey of forty miles for a few apples, which he 

 brought home in a bag on horseback. He frequently 

 started from home by two or three o'clock in the 

 morning, and at one time both himself and horse 

 were much frightened by the screaming of panthers 

 in a narrow pass in the mountains through which the 

 road led. 



\yEmerson, I believe, has spoken of the apple as the 

 social fruit of New England. Indeed, what a pro- 

 laoter or abettor of social intercourse among our rural 

 population the apple has been, the company grow 



