The pinnock has a
thick skin with a spongy lining, a bruise in it becomes like a piece of
cork. The tallow apple has an unctuous feel, as its name suggests.
It sheds water like a duck. What apple is that with a fat curved stem
that blends so prettily with its own flesh,--the wine-apple? Some
varieties impress me as masculine,--weather-stained, freckled, lasting
and rugged; others are indeed lady apples, fair, delicate, shining,
mild-flavored, white-meated, like the egg-drop and the lady-finger.
The practiced hand knows each kind by the touch. Do you remember the
apple hole in the garden or back of the house, Ben Bolt? In the fall
after the bins in the cellar had been well stocked, we excavated a
circular pit in the warm, mellow earth, and covering the bottom with
clean rye straw, emptied in basketful after basketful of hardy choice
varieties, till there was a tent-shaped mound several feet high of
shining variegated fruit. Then wrapping it about with a thick layer of
long rye straw, and tucking it up snug and warm, the mound was covered,
with a thin coating of earth, a flat stone on the top holding down the
straw.
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