THE APPLE 123 



in the midst of his discourse, pulled out two boun- 

 cing apples with it that went rolling across the pul- 

 pit 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 mouth. Then, would 

 a minister be apt to grow tiresome with two big 

 apples in his coat-tail pockets ? Would he not nat- 

 urally hasten along to "lastly" and the big apples? 

 If they were the dominie apples, and it was April 

 or May, 'he certainly would. 



How 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 occa- 

 sionally see a large dilapidated tree with the rusty 

 iron bolt yet visible. Poor, sour fruit, too, but 

 sweet in those early pioneer days. My grandfa- 

 ther, 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 horse- 

 back. He frequently started from home by two or 

 three o'clock in the morning, and at one time both 

 himself and his horse were much frightened by the 

 screaming of panthers in a narrow pass in the moun- 

 tains through which the road led. 



Emerson, I believe, has spoken of the apple as 

 the social fruit of New England. Indeed, what a 

 promoter or abettor of social intercourse among our 

 rural population the apple has been, the company 



