116 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
the ‘mist like a brook song as saying, “Fear not, 
I am here.” I wandered early through the fog 
toward the mountain, passed apple trees, and 
great apple trees spoke to me like a sentinel 
saying, “Who goes there? Give the counter- 
sign.” I halted, saluted and gave the countersign. 
“When the world is an apple orchard in full 
fruit.” “Pass on,” the apple sentinel said. 
The house of my friends, my good hosts and 
owners of the apple orchard in full fruit, was 
fitting the neighborhood. It made me recall the 
Scripture description so woodsy and out-of-doorsy, 
“a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.” The lodge 
was set on a hillcrest. It was a summer habita- 
tion only. No plaster clung to the walls. The 
boards smelled of pine. The bedrooms were 
against the shingles and opened on many sides 
to the Indian summer sky. I was only hoping 
that the fogs might change from mist to rain, 
and straightly charged my friends that should 
they hear rain falling in the night, they should 
awaken me on the moment, for I must not miss 
the patter and pother of the rain on the roof 
where I could touch the shingles with my hands. 
My sleeping chamber opened onto the sky. 
And thus on the mountaintop I seemed to be 
sleeping on the air. Seeing below and above, I 
saw in the night nothing else sleepily and drowsily 
but sky misting around me from the chamber 
of my cozy dreaming. 
And now that the day had waked on the 
