APPLE ORCHARD IN FULL FRUIT 121 
apple, I turned an apple somerset, I picked an 
apple. In accuracy I picked many apples, and 
what fun it was to pull a branch down and pluck 
it bare of redolent fruit! I could have made 
myself rich in a few days with my apple agility 
and strenuosity, but I did not. I did show of 
what apple metal I was made, and there the 
demonstration ended; I went on looking at the 
orchard, chatting with the trees, giving them 
and they me a “Howdydo,” to our mutual 
pleasure. 
The mist lifted a little but not altogether. A 
piece of torn mantle of fog would now and then 
trail across the orchard or flutter from the brow 
of a hill or mount the mountaintop and then 
return, not knowing whether it was coming or 
going. There was variety everywhere in this 
apple orchard, yet was every minute set to music 
—the low, sweet, haunting music of the fruit. 
The orchard situated on a mountainside had 
this delightful characteristic—that the miles of 
trees uphill or downhill or half-ravine hidden 
were all visible at one glance whether you stood 
above or below. In spring, when these apple 
trees were in blossom, it must have been heavenly, 
and now when these same apple trees were at 
fruit it was heavenly—all heavenly. You could 
see the trees afar off and almost count the apples 
hanging against the blue background of sky or 
the blurred glory of the background of the autumn- 
foliaged mountain as the apples hung like huge 
