118 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
not have eaten at all. To be accurate though 
not felicitous, that cook was a lassie. I can say 
that and must. What a breakfast we had, and 
grace after as well as before meat! 
Then for the day. No one could hold me from 
the orchard. Truly I was in the orchard, never- 
theless was orchard bound. °Twas a spacious 
place and it was calling me by name and I could 
hear the apple pickers coming up the road on the 
winding hill and down from the mountaintop, 
voices of men and women sounding far in the 
damp morning air as though they were near. 
They spoke no secrets though intending so to do. 
These were they who would charge for picking 
apples though they should have paid for the 
chance. Apple-picking is to be classed as play 
and never as work. But some people are un- 
deniably queer. These apple pickers were. Miles 
of apple trees waited their coming. October was 
speeding on toward Christmas. There must be 
no unneedful delay in picking these apples— 
miles of them, and thousands of bushels of them. 
The apples themselves knew it was high time 
for them to cease their badinage with the dusks 
and dawns upon the apple-tree branches and come 
to the spacious cellars with food and perfume 
and apple dumplings and laughter of many 
children. An apple is willing servant of human 
life. It is no misanthrope. Why should it be, 
having a whole spring and summer through 
had all the winds and birds and stars trysting 
