What boy hereafter would gather the sheep-noses, and watch the early
June's every day until their green turned suddenly into gold, and one
bite was enough to make you sit down under the tree and ask for
nothing better in life! He used to keep the chest in his room floored
with apples. They lay under his best clothes and perfumed them. His
nose knew the breath of a russet, and in a dark cellar he could smell
out the bell-flower bin. The real poor people of the earth must be
those who had no orchards; who could not clap a particular comrade of
a tree on the bark and look up to see it smiling back red and yellow
smiles; who could not walk down the slope and see apples lying in
ridges, or pairs, or dotting the grass everywhere. Robert was half-asleep,
dreaming of apples. He felt thirsty, and heard a humming like the
buzz of bees around the cider-press. He and aunt Corinne used to sit
down by the first tub of sweet cider, each with two straws apiece,
and watch their faces in the rosy juice while they drank Cider from
the barrels when snow was on the ground, poured out of a pitcher into
a glass, had not the ecstatic tang of cider through a straw. The Bees
came to the very edge of the tub, as if to dispute such hiving of
diluted honey; and more of them came, from hanging with bent bodies,
around the dripping press.
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