Comfort Me with Apples 205 
vice of drunkenness received it with fanatic zeal. 
It makes the heart of the Apple lover ache to read 
that in this spirit they cut down whole orchards of 
flourishing Apple trees, since they could conceive 
no adequate use for their apples save for cider. 
That any should have tried to exclude cider from 
the list of intoxicating beverages seems barefaced 
indeed to those who have tasted that most potent of 
all spirits — frozen cider. I once drank a small 
modicum of Jericho cider, as smooth as Benedictine 
and more persuasive, which made a raw day in April 
seem like sunny midsummer. I afterward learned 
j 
from the ingenuous Long Island farmer whose hospi- 
tality gave me this liqueur that it had been frozen 
seven times. Each time he had thrust a red-hot 
poker into the bung-hole of the barrel, melted all the 
watery ice and poured it out ; therefore the very 
essence of the cider was all that remained. 
It is interesting to note the folk customs of Old 
England which have lingered here, such as domestic 
love divinations. The poet Gay wrote: — 
“ I pare this Pippin round and round again. 
My shepherd’s name to flourish on the plain. 
I fling th’ unbroken paring o’er my head. 
Upon the grass a perfect L. is read.” 
I have seen New England schoolgirls, scores of 
times, thus toss an “ unbroken paring.” An ancient 
trial of my youth was done with Apple seeds ; these 
were named for various swains, then slightly wetted 
and stuck on the cheek or forehead, while we 
chanted : — 
