128 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
burden of apples. So I start on my last round 
of observation and delight through this world 
of an apple orchard in full fruit. I would linger 
but cannot. Have I not lingered a while, happy, 
resting, through an Indian-summer apple-orchard 
day, with God always everywhere and kindly 
friends and their hospitality sweet and wide as 
the sky, and should I not be content? I am 
content but not through. I never would be 
through with this adventure in leisure. The 
winter would come and lock the door and bid 
me go about my business; and out and up and 
down and along I walked with blithe step and 
blither heart for my last look of this world of 
an apple orchard in full fruit. I hear a tree toad 
singing its same old lonesome song, and the 
cricket unknowing that its chir soon will be 
hushed by the freezing fingers of winter put across 
its lip, and I see the chickens moving sedately 
toward the roost, and the cattle slowly feeding 
nearer to the gate of the farmer’s house where 
they shall lie down for their dreams and the 
night; and I throw kisses to the apple trees near 
and far and give God my thanks for the heart’s 
delight in a day of such heartsease as will loiter 
along the dusty road of my heart while eternal 
life leads me through eventful years; and I wander 
toward the blue wood smoke in the chimney 
where the lady of the hill notices me as I appear 
and says that her culinary adventure of the 
supper is near triumph, and I see the coming of 
