Wild Apples, Henry David Thoreau [best beach reads TXT] 📗

some for the benefit of those who live where English is not

spoken,—for they are likely to have a world-wide reputation.

 

There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (Malus sylvatica); the Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods

(sylvestrivallis), also in Hollows in Pastures (campestrivallis);

the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-Hole (Malus cellaris); the

Meadow-Apple; the Partridge-Apple; the Truant’s Apple (Cessatoris),

which no boy will ever go by without knocking off some, however late

it may be; the Saunterer’s Apple,—you must lose yourself before you

can find the way to that; the Beauty of the Air (Decks Aeris);

December-Eating; the Frozen-Thawed (gelato-soluta), good only in

that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the same with the Musketa-quidensis; the Assabet Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New

England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple (Malus viridis);—this

has many synonyms; in an imperfect state, it is the Cholera

morbifera aut dysenterifera, puerulis dilectissima; [Footnote:The

apple that brings the disease of cholera and of dysen-tery, the

fruit that small boys like best.]—the Apple which Atalanta stopped

to pick up; the Hedge-Apple (Malus Sepium); the Slug-Apple

(limacea); the Railroad-Apple, which perhaps came from a core thrown

out of the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in our Youth; our

Particular Apple, not to be found in any catalogue,—Pedestrium

Solatium; [Footnote: The tramp’s comfort.] also the Apple where

hangs the Forgotten Scythe; Iduna’s Apples, and the Apples which

Loki found in the Wood; [Footnote See p. 172 (Proof readers note:

paragraph 25)] and a great many more I have on my list, too numerous

to mention,—all of them good. As Bodaeus exclaims, referring to the

cultivated kinds, and adapting Virgil to his case, so I, adapting

Bodaeus,—

 

“Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths,

An iron voice, could I describe all the forms

And reckon up all the names of these wild apples.”

 

THE LAST GLEANING.

 

By the middle of November the wild apples have lost some of their

brilliancy, and have chiefly fallen. A great part are decayed on the

ground, and the sound ones are more palatable than before. The note

of the chickadee sounds now more distinct, as you wander amid the

old trees, and the autumnal dandelion is half-closed and tearful.

But still, if you are a skilful gleaner, you may get many a pocket-full even of grafted fruit, long after apples are supposed to be

gone out-of-doors. I know a Blue-Pearmain tree, growing within the

edge of a swamp, almost as good as wild. You would not suppose that

there was any fruit left there, on the first survey, but you must

look according to system. Those which lie exposed are quite brown

and rotten now, or perchance a few still show one blooming cheek

here and there amid the wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced

eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the huckleberry-bushes and

the withered sedge, and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full

of leaves, and pry under the fallen and decaying ferns, which, with

apple and alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know that

they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since and covered up by

the leaves of the tree itself,—a proper kind of packing. From these

lurking-places, anywhere within the circumference of the tree, I

draw forth the fruit, all wet and glossy, maybe nibbled by rabbits

and hollowed out by crickets and perhaps with a leaf or two cemented

to it (as Curzon [Footnote: Robert Curzon was a traveller who

searched for old manuscripts in the monasteries of the Levant. See

his book, Ancient Monasteries of the East.] an old manuscript from a

monastery’s mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on it, and

at least as ripe and well kept, if not better than those in barrels,

more crisp and lively than they. If these resources fail to yield

anything, I have learned to look between the bases of the suckers

which spring thickly from some horizontal limb, for now and then one

lodges there, or in the very midst of an alder-clump, where they are

covered by leaves, safe from cows which may have smelled them out.

If I am sharp-set, for I do not refuse the Blue-Pearmain, I fill my

pockets on each side; and as I retrace my steps in the frosty eve,

being perhaps four or five miles from home, I eat one first from

this side, and then from that, to keep my balance.

 

I learn from Topsell’s Gesner, whose authority appears to be

Albertus, that the following is the way in which the hedgehog

collects and carries home his apples. He says: “His meat is apples,

worms, or grapes: when he findeth apples or grapes on the earth, he

rolleth himself upon them, until he have filled all his prickles,

and then carrieth them home to his den, never bearing above one in

his mouth; and if it fortune that one of them fall off by the way,

he likewise shaketh off all the residue, and walloweth upon them

afresh, until they be all settled upon his back again. So, forth he

goeth, making a noise like a cart-wheel; and if he have any young

ones in his nest, they pull off his load wherewithal he is loaded,

eating thereof what they please, and laying up the residue for the

time to come.”

 

THE “FROZEN-THAWED” APPLE.

 

Toward the end of November, though some of the sound ones are yet

more mellow and perhaps more edible, they have generally, like the

leaves, lost their beauty, and are beginning to freeze. It is

finger-cold, and prudent farmers get in their barrelled apples, and

bring you the apples and cider which they have engaged; for it is

time to put them into the cellar. Perhaps a few on the ground show

their red cheeks above the early snow, and occasionally some even

preserve their color and soundness under the snow throughout the

winter. But generally at the beginning of the winter they freeze

hard, and soon, though undecayed, acquire the color of a baked

apple.

 

Before the end of December, generally, they experience their first

thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite

unpalatable to the civilized taste, such at least as were frozen

while sound, let a warmer sun come to thaw them, for they are

extremely sensitive to its rays, are found to be filled with a rich,

sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I know of, and with

which I am better acquainted than with wine. All apples are good in

this state, and your jaws are the cider-press. Others, which have

more substance, are a sweet and luscious food,—in my opinion of

more worth than the pine-apples which are imported from the West

Indies. Those which lately even I tasted only to repent of it,—for

I am semi-civilized,—which the farmer willingly left on the tree, I

am now glad to find have the property of hanging on like the leaves

of the young oaks. It is a way to keep cider sweet without boiling.

Let the frost come to freeze them first, solid as stones, and then

the rain or a warm winter day to thaw them, and they will seem to

have borrowed a flavor from heaven through the medium of the air in

which they hang. Or perchance you find, when you get home, that

those which rattled in your pocket have thawed, and the ice is

turned to cider. But after the third or fourth freezing and thawing

they will not be found so good.

 

What are the imported half-ripe fruits of the torrid South to this

fruit matured by the cold of the frigid North? These are those

crabbed apples with which I cheated my companion, and kept a smooth

face that I might tempt him to eat. Now we both greedily fill our

pockets with them,—bending to drink the cup and save our lappets

from the overflowing juice,—and grow more social with their wine.

Was there one that hung so high and sheltered by the tangled

branches that our sticks could not dislodge it?

 

It is a fruit never carried to market, that I am aware of,—quite

distinct from the apple of the markets, as from dried apple and

cider,—and it is not every winter that produces it in perfection.

 

“Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye in-habitants of the

land! Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your

fathers? …

 

“That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and

that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten; and that

which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.

 

“Awake, ye drunkards, and weep! and howl, all ye drinkers of wine,

because of the new wine! for it is cut off from your mouth.

 

“For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number,

whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek-teeth of

a great lion.

 

“He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree; he hath made

it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made

white… .

 

“Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen! howl, O ye vine-dressers! …

 

“The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the

pomegranate-tree, the palm tree also, and the apple-tree, even all

the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away

from the sons of men.” [Footnote: Joel, chapter i., verses 1-12.]

 

End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Wild Apples

by Henry David Thoreau