Comfort Me with Apples 209 
pie pie in that book and in my two years of reading 
idealized it. On a glorious day last October I drove 
to New Canaan, the town which was the prototype 
of Queechy. Hungry as ever in childhood from 
the clear autumnal air and the long drive from 
Lenox, we asked for luncheon at what was reported 
to be a village hostelry. The exact counterpart 
of Miss Cynthia Gall responded rather sourly that 
she wasn’t u boarding or baiting” that year. Hum- 
ble entreaties for provender of any kind elicited 
from her for each of us a slice of cheese and a large 
and truly noble section of Apple pie, the very pie 
of Fleda’s tale, which we ate with a bewildered sense 
as of a previous existence. This was intensified as 
we strolled to the brook under the Queechy Sugar 
Maples, and gathered there the great-grandchildren 
of Fleda’s Watercresses, and heard the sound of 
Hugh’s sawmills. 
Six hundred years ago English gentlewomen and 
goodwives were cooking Apples just as we cook them 
now — they even had Apple pie. A delightful rec- 
ipe of the fourteenth century was for cc Appeluns for 
a Lorde, in opyntide.” Opyntide was springtime ; 
this was, therefore, a spring dish fit for a lord. 
Apple-moy and Apple-mos, Apple Tansy, and 
Pommys-morle were delightful dishes and very rich 
food as well. The word pomatum has now no asso- 
ciation with pomunij but originally pomatum was 
made partly of Apples. In an old “ Dialog between 
Soarness and Chirurgi,” written by one Dr. Bulleyne 
in the days of Queen Elizabeth, is found this ques- 
tion and its answer : — 
