THE APPLE 129 



writing. It has a " tang and smack " like the fruit 

 it celebrates, and is dashed and streaked with color 

 in the same manner. It has the hue and perfume 

 of the crab, and the richness and raciness of the 

 pippin. But Thoreau loved other apples than the 

 wild sorts, and was obliged to confess that his favor- 

 ites could not be eaten indoors. Late in ISTovem- 

 ber he found a blue-pearmain tree growing within 

 the edge of a swamp, almost as good as wild. " You 

 would not suppose," he says, "that there was any 

 fruit left there on the first survey, but you must look 

 according to system. Those which lie exposed are 

 quite brown and rotten now, or perchance a few still 

 show one blooming cheek here and there amid the 

 wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced eyes I 

 explore amid the bare alders, and the huckleberry 

 bushes, and the withered sedge, and in the crevices 

 of the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under 

 the fallen and decaying ferns which, with apple and 

 alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know 

 that they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long 

 since, and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself, 

 — a proper kind of packing. Prom these lurking 

 places, anywhere within the circumference of the 

 tree, I draw forth the fruit all wet and glossy, 

 maybe nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out by 

 crickets, and perhaps with a leaf or two cemented 

 to it (as Curzon an old manuscript from a monas- 

 tery's mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on 

 it, and at least as ripe and well kept, if not better 

 than those in barrels, more crisp and lively than 



