118 WINTER SUNSHINE 



nortli, you are so frank and honest, so sturdy and 

 appetizing. You are stocky and homely like the 

 northern races. Your quality is Saxon. Surely 

 the fiery and impetuous south is not akin to thee. 

 Not spices or olives, or the sumptuous liquid fruits, 

 but the grass, the snow, the grains, the coolness, is 

 akin to thee. I think if I could subsist on you, 

 or the like of you, I should never have an intem- 

 perate or ignoble thought, never be feverish or 

 despondent. So far as I could absorb or transmute 

 your quality, I should be cheerful, continent, equi- 

 table, sweet-blooded, long-lived, and should shed 

 warmth and contentment around. 



Is there any other fruit that has so much facial 

 expression as the apple 1 What boy does not more 

 than half believe they can see with that single eye 

 of theirs 1 Do they not look and nod to him from 

 the bough? The swaar has one look, the rambo 

 another, the spy another. The youth recognizes 

 the seek-no-further, buried beneath a dozen other 

 varieties, the moment he catches a glance of its eye, 

 or the bonny-cheeked Newtown pippin, or the gentle 

 but sharp-nosed gillyflower. He goes to the great 

 bin in the cellar, and sinks his shafts here and there 

 in the garnered wealth of the orchards, mining for 

 his favorites, sometimes coming plump upon them, 

 sometimes catching a glimpse of them to the right 

 or left, or uncovering them as keystones in an arch 

 made up of many varieties. 



In the dark he can usually tell them by the sense 

 of touch. There is not only the size and shape, 



