APPLE ORCHARD IN FULL BLOOM 103 
for has he not made this orchard? Incidentally, 
God helped him, though of what other poet is 
that not true? Poets make not themselves, else 
all professors of literature would be poets, whereas 
none of them are. They pull poetry to pieces 
and tell how had they written it, it would have 
been written, but forget to remark that in such 
case people had not read it. I read how many 
changes should have been made in Milton’s 
unapproachable music of “Paradise Lost,” and 
then regard gleefully the consideration that as 
Milton made the poem, so it stands. The crit- 
ical mutterings do not disturb the everlasting 
calm of that illustrious poem. 
Yes, this orchard-maker is poet when we allow 
the old Greek notion concerning poetry. I found 
the orchardist genial. He would go with us 
through his land of wonder, though we forbade 
him in the name of the value of his time. He 
felt conditioned to do as he pleased on his own 
premises and heeded not our prattlings, but went 
with us. It was like walking with Alfred 
Tennyson or him of the “Marshes of Glynn.” 
How he loved it all! To hear him talk of the 
growing of the orchard was like hearing 
Tennyson’s ocean voice read “Ulysses.” At 
least so I think. He knew the birthdays of the 
willows at the stream-head and of the pine trees 
on the shoulder of the hill that looked down 
on the winding river and the birthday of the 
vines which tangled over the hackberry trees, 
