12 
INTRODUCTION 
"The same when I wrote about the 
apple. 1 had apples in my blood and 
bones. I had not ripened them in the 
haymow and bitten them under the desk 
and behind my slate so many times in 
school for nothing. Every apple tree 1 
ever shinned up and dreamed under of 
a long summer day, while a boy, helped 
me to write that paper. The whole life 
of the farm, and love of home, and of 
father and mother, and of my brothers 
and sisters, helped me to write it.” 
I hope the readers of these pages will 
go on to gain for themselves the fuller 
acquaintance with this great American 
that can be won only by reading many 
volumes. There is the Complete Works, 
published by Houghton Mifflin Company 
—though the author protests against a 
solemn title like that. 
"1 cannot bring myself to think of my 
books as 'works' ” he writes in the gen¬ 
eral introduction, "because so little work 
has gone to the making of them. It has 
all been play. . . . The writing of the 
book was only a second and finer enjoy¬ 
ment of my holiday in the fields or woods. 
