XIV 
WHEN THE WORLD IS AN APPLE 
ORCHARD IN FULL BLOOM 
HEN the farmer is a poet anything 
beautiful may happen and that with- 
out trouble. Landing at Fort Dodge, 
Towa, to dedicate a noble church with a chime of 
bells of rare melody, set by a widowed heart in 
memory of her husband who had been a public man, 
whose voice had had an orchestral music in it and 
had spoken through years for all right things, mine 
adversary who met me at the station said, in 
a sly way, that if I could spare a few minutes, 
he would motor me to an apple orchard of one 
hundred eighty-six acres. My reply, in equal 
courtesy, was that though my time was of great 
value, I being a man of affairs, I thought I could 
take a very few minutes off to go to the orchard 
in bloom. These diplomatic preliminaries having 
gotten on satisfactorily to both participants 
therein, we took a rush for the orchard. He 
said it was in bloom. He told the truth. We 
rushed through the beautiful city: we spied the 
happy children with laps full, arms full, hearts 
full of wild flowers, fresh plucked from the dear 
woodland ways. We cruised along a stream, 
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