APPLE ORCHARD IN FULL FRUIT 123 
and their bent arms apple-crowded making a 
tent on all sides of me, and the dim blue of the 
sky shining in lattices through the tree branches, 
and now and then an apple falling with a bump 
as to say, “If you won’t pick me, I will pick 
myself for you!” There, with the lassitude of 
the day and the lassitude of my spirit and the 
languor of a happy and contented heart, I would 
rest and refute all invitations to hurry and get 
busy and do something. Were not the apples 
resting a little themselves, and should not I, 
their lover, in consonance with their moods, 
rest too? What a fine argument that is for a 
lazy man to solace himself with. 
I wended my way to the rim of the orchard 
where the forest grew and lay down under their 
shadow where the leaves were thick with recent 
falling and where as I lay other leaves wan- 
dered carelessly and unhastingly down and fell 
on me like a caress. Can there be any luxury 
sweeter than to lie in fall woods amongst falling 
leaves and see them eddy at every chance breath 
of the wind that wanders down the mountain- 
side, and then, when the wind passes, note 
seldom leaves falling, not because they must but 
because they would. The Indian-summer haze, 
the perfume of the leaves, the resting my head 
on a cushion of multi-colored leaves, the letting 
my lazy eyes wander outward and upward and 
outward and downward where I could see the 
blaze of autumn bonfires in the glorious con- 
