Alabama, 19 15. 75 



AN OLD ORCHARD IN WINTER 



IT WAS years ago, and no one knows 

 Just who planted the orchard rows, 

 Bedded and firmed the tender feet 

 Of the Twenty Ounce and the Golden Sweet, 

 And the straggling clan whose branches meet 

 Over Pomona's little aisles. . . . 



A tumbledown wall and an old rail fence 



Guard the orchard with poor pretense ; 



And pilferers, footed and winged, come there 



Even in winter, when boughs are bare, 



And the nuthatch hunts for his meager share, 



Peering and pecking this way and that, 



First up, then down, like an acrobat. . 



Deer stroll in from the mountain pass . . . 

 Gratefully nosing the buried treat 

 Of fruit, frost-bitten, and brown, and sweet, 

 Brought to light by their trampling feet; 

 And up where weathering crabapples cling 

 The grosbeaks cavil and feast and sing. . . . 

 All winter long to the Golden Sweet 

 And the Twenty Ounce and the trees that meet, 

 Neglected and old, in this wild retreat 

 Come bird and beast in their need akin, 

 And make the old orchard their wayside inn. 

 — Florence Boyce Davis, in "The Scoop." 



