124 



THE APPLE. 



I instantly sympathized with that clergyman I read 

 of, who on pulling out his pocket-handkerchief in the 

 midst of his discourse, pulled out two bouncing apples 

 with it that went rolling across the pulpit floor and 

 down the pulpit stairs. These apples were, no doubt? 

 to be eaten after the sermon on his way home, or to 

 his next appointment. They would take the taste of 

 it out of his mouth. Then, would a minister be apt to 

 grow tiresome with two big apples in his coat-tail 

 pockets? Would he not naturally hasten along to 

 " lastly," and the big apples ? If they were the dominie 

 apples, and it was April or May, he certainly would. 



How the early settlers prized the apple ! When 

 their trees broke down or were split asunder by the 

 storms, the neighbors turned out, the divided tree was 

 put together again and fastened with iron bolts. In 

 some of the oldest orchards one may still occasionally 

 see a large dilapidated tree with the rusty iron bolt yet 

 visible. Poor, sour fruit, too, but sweet in those early 

 pioneer days. My grandfather, who was one of these 

 heroes of the stump, used every fall to make a journey 

 of forty miles for a few apples, which he brought home 

 in a bag on horseback. He frequently started from 

 home by two or three o'clock in the morning, and at 

 one time both himself and horse was much frightened 

 by the screaming of panthers in a narrow pass in the 

 mountains through which the road led. 



Emerson, I believe, has spoken of the apple as the 

 social fruit of New England. Indeed what a promoter 



