Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
If I were a boy, I am not sure but I would rather drive the oxen than have a birthday. The proudest day of my life was one day when I rode on the neap of the cart, and drove the oxen, all alone, with a load of apples to the cider-mill. I was so little that it was a wonder that I did n't fall off, and get under the broad wheels.
After that father was afraid for we children to do it." Back of the building I saw thousands of little apple-trees, growing from the pomace which was shoveled out there year after year. The loft, over the part where the cider-mill was, was the corn-house. I went up over the wide plank stairs and looked around. Traces of snapping-corn and of white-pudding corn were hanging over a pole at one end.
The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples lie under the orchard trees, in the mild, autumnal sunshine; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by a circumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice.
It is recognized that these hot summers produce what are known as vintage years for cider, just as, on the Continent, they produce vintage wines. Jarge, of whom I have written, was the presiding genius in the cider-mill, and his duties began as soon as hop-picking was over.
The cider-making of New England is far more picturesque; the great heap of golden or rosy apples under the trees, and the cider-mill worked by a circumgyratory horse, and all agush with sweet juice.
The chase leads past fields of tasseled Indian corn, with yellowing thickly swathed ears, leaning heavily from the stalk; past wheat-lands, the crops harvested and the crab-grass having its day at last; past "woods-lots" and their black shadows, and out again into the September sunshine; past rickety little homes, not unlike Hollis's own, with tow-headed children, exactly like his, standing with wide eyes, looking at the rush and hurry of the pursuit sometimes in the ill-kept yards a wood-fire is burning under the boiling sorghum kettle, or beneath the branches of the orchard near at hand a cider-mill is crushing the juice out of the red and yellow, ripe and luscious apples.
Peter spent a couple of hours walking about with John, and took an intelligent interest in all that had been done, from the roof and chimney-pots of the house, to the new cider-mill and stable fittings; but though he was civil and amiable, he expressed no particular gratitude nor admiration on his return to the hall, where his mother eagerly awaited him.
Once in a while the lower half of a cider-mill, the back side of a barn-yard shed, or something of that sort, is made of them; but the people in these parts seem to think it would be folly to use them for anything more dignified. I suppose, because they are too simple and natural, just as the Almighty made them.
Cousin Ann was up in the top of a tree, a basket hung over her shoulder half full of striped red Northern Spies; Uncle Henry was on a ladder against another tree, filling a bag with the beautiful, shining, yellow-green Pound Sweets, and Aunt Abigail was moving around, picking up the parti-colored windfalls and putting them into barrels ready to go to the cider-mill.
"September blow soft till the fruit's in the loft," is the prayer of all apple growers; it is pitiful to see, after a roaring gale, the ground strewn with beautiful fruit, bruised and broken, useless to keep, and only suitable for carting away to the all-devouring cider-mill, though, even for that purpose, the sweet Blenheim does not produce nearly so good a drink as sourer accredited cider varieties.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking