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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