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
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.
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