Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/241

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE PARADISE SPECIAL
225

until the last of the suburban movies had been left behind—their attention focused itself on the question of apple trees. Even so experienced a Country Weeker as Mickey (this was his fifth visit to the Farm) was vague on this point. To a city youngster almost every tree seems to be an apple tree. And everything that looks in the least reddish is a strawberry. Unripe blackberries along the hedges were hailed with tumult and shouting as strawberries. Every cow with horns was regarded a little fearfully as a bull. And a cow in the unfamiliar posture of lying down on top of a hill was pointed out (from a distance) as a "statue."

After we passed Daylesford and Green Tree and the blue hills along the Schuylkill came into view, the cry, "Look at that scenery!" became incessant. Any view containing hills is known as "scenery" to the Country Weekers. When the scenery began eleven-year-old Charley Franklin could contain himself no longer. He began to tear off the clean shirt and new shoes in which his mother had sent him from home, and, digging in his bundle, hauled out a blouse and tattered pair of sneakers that satisfied his idea of fitness for the great adventure. He proudly showed me his small bathing suit, carefully wrapped up in a Sunday comic supplement. His paper bag of cookies had long since been devoured, and the question of how soon another meal would come his way was beginning to worry him. Then we turned off the high road, past a signpost saying Paradise Farm, and