Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/195

 Ojie Smnnier. A Remmisccnce. 175

"Let me try," I said. "I never neighbors brought their apples, and

drew water with a windlass." ground them into cider. Samanthy

I had a much harder task than I told me how she used to clean the

supposed, but succeeded in swinging cider nuts with a shingle ; this was

the bucket onto the platform of the when she was small,

curb, and turned the water into She said : " A cousin of mine, living

Samanthy's pail. I never asked per- at Beech Ridge, got his arm caught

mission to draw another bucketful. while cleaning the pummy out, and

I noticed below the well a large ground it all up. After that father

mound, grass-grown, with an apple- was afraid for we children to do it."

tree growing on its very top. I won- Back of the building I saw thousands

dered how it came there, and one day of little apple-trees, growing from the

asked Mr. Wetherell. pomace which was shoveled out there

He said : " That 's where we threw year after year,

the rocks and gravel out of the well The loft, over the part v/here the

fifty years ago ; we never moved it, cider-mill was, was the corn-house. I

It grassed over, and that apple-tree went up over the wide plank stairs and

came up there ; it bears a striped looked around,

apple, crisp and sour." Traces of snapping-corn and of

I thought. What a freak of Nature ! white-pudding corn were hanging over and I wished that many more piles of a pole at one end. A large chest,

rubbish might be transformed into such filled with different kinds of beans,

a pretty spot as this. stood at one side. On the plates

Below the mound stood the old which supported the rafters, marks

hollow tree ; its trunk was low and made in this wise — rt4J — told of the

very large ; one side had rotted away, bushels of corn carried up there and

leaving it nearly hollow. Still there spread on the clean, white floor,

was trunk enough left for the sap to These marks had been made by

run up ; and every year it was loaded many hands, and I wondered where

with fruit. they were now. Some undoubtedly

Close by the path across the field were sleeping the to the road stood the Pang apple-tree.

rr-ii •, 1 T-i 1 " Sleep that knows not breaking :

This tree was named Pang because a m„,„ „f ,„ii^ „„, „ight of waking." dog by that name was sleeping his

last sleep beneath the tree. He was Others, perhaps, were making their

much beloved by the family. I mark somewhere else,

thought, What a pretty place to be " Independence Day," as Mr. Weth-

buried in ! and a living monument to erell called it, was observed in a very

mark his grave. From the stories I liberal manner on the farm. A lamb

heard of Pang, I know he must have was slaughtered, green peas were

been a fine dog, and I should have picked, and a plum-pudding made,

liked to have known him. Lemonade, made of sparkling spring

Just back of the house stood the water, was a common drink. Mr.

cider-house. At this season of the Wetherell told me how his father

year the wood for summer use was always kept the day. He brought out

stored there, but in autumn all the the large blue punchbowl and square

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