Lay of Dried-Apple Pie
Sunning themselves on the southern porch,
Where the warm fall rays from the towering torch
Of the great sun flash in the glowing noons,
The drying apples, in long festoons,
Drink the breath of the crisp fall days,
Borrow the blush of the warming rays;
Storing their sweetness, their rich bouquet,
Against that savage and wintry day
When the housewife’s fingers shall by and by Mould them into dried-apple pie.
There they mellow and there they brown,
Homely enough to a man from town,
Merely strings of some shrunken fruit,
Swung in the sun. And yet they’re mute
Memory-ticklers to those who know
The ways of the farm in the long-ago:
—The kitchen table, the heaping store
Of round, red apples upon the floor.
The purr of the parer, the mellow snip
As the busy knives thro’ the apples slip.
The merry chatter of boys and girls,
The rosy clutter of paring curls,
As hurrying knives and fingers fly
O ’er the luscious fruit for dried-apple pie.
I’m idly thinking it sure must be
That the rollicking sport of the apple-bee,
—The sweetness of smiles, the touch of the white
Hands flashing there in the candle-light,—
Must all in a mystic way be blent
In one grand flavor;—that such was lent
To those mellowing strings, those festoons dun
Swinging there in the late fall sun.
For lo, as I look I seem to see
A dream of the past, a fantasy,
—A laughing, black-eyed roguish girl
Whirling a writhing paring curl;
Chanting the words of the old mock spell
That all we children knew so well:
“Three times round and down you go!
Now who is the one that loves me so?”
Merely a fancy, a passing gleam
Of the old, old days;—a sudden dream
Beguiled by some prank of a blurring eye
And the tricking song of a big, blue fly;
—Merely a fancy, and yet, ah me,
How often I’ve wondered where she can be.
There they mellow and there they brown,
Homely objects to folks from town;
Only some apples hung to dry
And doomed to be finally tombed in a pie.
Only Held His Own
Now there’s Hezekiall Adams—nicest man you ever saw!
Never had a row with no one; never once got into law;
Always worked like thunderation, but to save his blessed life,
Never seemed to get forehanded—and I’ve laid it to his wife,
For she always kept him meechin’; calls him down with sour tone,
Till the critter hasn’t gumption for to say his soul’s his own.
T’other day
Happened to ride along his way;
Heseki’,
Like a gingham rag hung out to dry,
Peak-ed and pale,
Lopped on the gate ’cross the upper rail.
“Howdy!” says I,
“Blamed if I know,” says Heseki’.
“Don’t feel sick,
But marm’s kept my back on a big hot brick
Till I can’t tell
Whuther I’m ailin’ or whuther I’m well.”
“Think,” says I,
“It’s too early to hoe when the ground’s so dry?”
Says he, “’Bout all
I’m sartin’ of is, I shall dig come fall.”
Says I, “Things look
Like we farmers can fatten the pocket-book.”
“Mebbe,” says he,
“But inarm vows there ain’t much she can see.”
“Ye can’t jest crawl,”
Says I, “but there’s money for folks with sprawl.”
Old Hezekiah shifted legs and give a lonesome groan;
“I begun with these two hands,” said he,
“And I’ve only held my own.”
He has always worked like blazes, but, has always seemed to fail;
—Made his grabs at prancin’ Fortune, but has caught the critter’s tail;
Never jumped and gripped the bridle—wouldn’t darst to on his life;
Always acts too blasted meechin’—and I’ve laid it to his wife.