Out on the hen-house roof are drying what, when the soap-box wagon
was first built, promised barrels and barrels of nuts to be brought
up with the pitcher of cider for our comforting in the long winter
evenings, but what turns out, when the shucks are off, to be a
poor, pitiful half-peck, daily depleted by the urgent necessity of
finding out if they are dry enough yet. Folks are picking apples,
and Koontz's cider-mill is in full operation. (Do you know any
place where a fellow can get some nice long straws?) Out in the
fields are champagne-colored pyramids, each with a pale-gold heap
of corn beside it, and the good black earth is dotted with orange
blobs that promise pumpkin-pies for Thanksgiving Day. No. Let me
look again. Those aren't pie-pumpkins; those are cow-pumpkins, and
if you want to see something kind of pitiful, I'll show you Abe
Bethard chopping up one of those yellow globes -with what, do you
suppose? With the cavalry saber his daddy used at Gettysburg.
The harvest is past, the summer is ended. As a result of all the
good feeding and the outdoor air we have had for three or four
months past, the strawberry shortcakes, and cherry-pies, and
green peas, and new potatoes, and string beans, and roasting-ears,
and all such garden-stuff, and the fresh eggs, broken into the
skillet before Speckle gets done cackling, and the cockerels we
pick off the roost Saturday evenings (you see, we're thinning 'em
out; no sense in keeping all of 'em over winter) - as a result, I
say, of all this good eating, and the outdoor life, and the
necessity of stirring around a little lively these days we feel
pretty good.
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