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Morton persisted in talking about Clara Hague. She spoke of their childhood, of the old homestead, of the nutting, the apple-picking, the cider-making, and the hundred other occupations and amusements of their young life. She had a vivid power of description, and a charming simplicity in her choice of words, that entertained even me; but I could see Mr. Redfield was troubled.
It is the year's carnival ere the dull Lenten days of leafless valleys and penitential mists come. The time of apple-picking had come around once more and we worked joyously. Uncle Blair picked apples with us, and between him and the Story Girl it was an October never to be forgotten.
As soon as the silo had been filled, the apple-picking was started. They had been in a quandary to know just how to get this crop harvested, as the trees were exceptionally full of well-developed apples. Tony finally solved the problem by saying he could send to Pittsburgh and get three or four Italian boys who would be willing to work for a dollar or two a day, so they were engaged.
How they ever grew up alive in that whirlpool of boys was a mystery to their grandma and aunts, but they flourished like dandelions in spring, and their rough nurses loved and served them well. There were a great many holidays at Plumfield, and one of the most delightful was the yearly apple-picking. For then the Marches, Laurences, Brookes and Bhaers turned out in full force and made a day of it.
Never quite the same from day to day: Now weeding, now hay, now roots, now hedging; now corn, with sowing, reaping, threshing, stacking, thatching; the care of beasts, and their companionship; sheep-dipping, shearing, wood-gathering, apple-picking, cider-making; fashioning and tarring gates; whitewashing walls; carting; trenching never, never two days quite the same! Monotony!
I had been at the garden about a week when Old Brownsmith began talking about picking some of his pippins to send to market. "I hear they are making a good price," he said, "and I shall try a few sieves to-morrow morning, Grant." "Yes, sir," I said, for the sound of apple-picking was pleasant.
Potato-digging, apple-picking, thrashing, the gathering of innumerable seeds, must be done before winter; and yet to-day is like a despatch from December to announce that snow and ice and wind are to be just as cold this winter as they were the last. And I have had a long vacation, too.
Shock ran by us with a rush, mounted his ladder, and I hurried up mine, to go on picking as well, while, panting and hot, smarting with blows and anger, I wondered what Old Brownsmith would say to me for what I had done. He only went along the path, however, with his cats, as he saw that Ike was there, and the apple-picking went on till he was out of sight.
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