The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-08-13

By BOB BURDErrE.

life. did it to appease the train-boy,
who had turned himself loose on me at
Council Bluffs, and was going to make
me buy something before we got to st.
Joseph pronounced SinJo, accent heavy
ON the Jo) or lick me- He wanted me
TO buy all of Prof. Mathews books ex-
cept the gospel, and nine of T.. p. Roe's.
novels. and Taylor's World on
Wheels" and Between the Gates, and
seven or eight of Pinkertons fearful
and wonderful detective stories, and
whole library of French novels with
very fashy titles and disappointingly
tame reading and some California
pears and Siberian oranges. and some
Alaska figs and Senegambian grapes,
some candy packages with beautiful
prize and SO bill in every package
except the one he sold me, and some
ivory ornaments made OF ivory that
grows on trees, and some fresh-roasted
peanuts which he assured me were
Geo. Washlngton's favorite fruit, that
would purify the blood, make the hair
curl. whiten the teeth, make the COM
plexion clear, and promote longevity,
and some English walnut meats, vint-
age of 1888, railway guide of last july
and some apples.
reflected. / did not think l ought
to buy al these things, because L have
family to support, and j am not SO
wealthy as L am said to be by the So
Letting committees of poverty stricken
churches and tottering colleges. But
felt as perhaps you have felt. a thou
sand times, dear nearer, that L have to
buy something of that boy, or lie down
on the floor OF the car and die.
So / bought apples. selected APP
pies because they are palatable, nu-
tritious, and cheap. | asked him how
he sold his apples. With exceeding
scorn he said "twoforacent" (Which by
Interpretation is, two for a cent?. L
had just missed lecture engagement
by railroading into q snow drift the
night before, and consequently had
just enough money left to buy one in
job lot.
/ bit it with great difficulty and little
JOY, sing hey, the leathery fungus that it
was. 1 handed it back to the boy and
told him to keep it; he might want to
kill dog with it some day. The boy,
with the native independence of his
class, said that didn't know good
apple when 1 got one. He opined, in
deed, and very opinely too, in loud
tone of expression, for the benefit of
the whole car, that when had any or
chard fruit at home 1 RECALLED myself
like prince on dried apples.
/ did not smite the boy or upbraid
him with hard and singing words.
More indeed in sorrow than in anger,
told him L did not know what good
apple was, and moreover, if he would
bring me one now my entire bank ac-
count, with all the Entertainments, pro-
tests, and overdrafts thereunto apper-
tanning, should be his. The only good
apples in the world, lineal descendants
OF the golden stock of Hesperides, used
to grow, twenty-five or thirty years ago,
on an old farm three or four miles out
of Peoria, ILL.,, on the Mount Holly
road. l told the boy they were not al
ways fair apple to look upon in their
early youth. when loved them best.
They were hard on one side and green
on the other. They were gnar'y all the
way round and sour all the way through.
There was more heart-ache and sorrow,
and deep-seated, gnawing remorse and
heartfelt sorrow, and honest penitence
in one of those apples, after you had
eaten peck of them in the same after
noon, then there is now in @ whole
green watermelon.
Nevertheless / used to go into that
orchard at a m. eat apples till III 80,
and then feel hungry for big dinner.
And told the boy if he would bring
me one of those apples now, with the
same taste and flavor that it had quar-
ter of century gone by, with the same
old smell of the clover and apple bios
som lingering about it; the same old
idle breeze that kissed my boyish
cheeks in the long, delightful, truant
summer afternoons; with the whistle Of
bob-white over In the stubble-field
beyond the COW pasture; with the MUIR
muir of the brook that went singing
over the pebbles at the foot of the or
chard hill with the nurmur of the bees
humming and buzzing about the sweet
red-clover tops; bring them to me even
with the old aforementioned and pecu-
liarly pungent flavor of the buggy whip
which frequently seasoned those apples
because no boy could always get over
the fence in time-I told him / would
gladly, gladly, gladly give him $50 for
Just one apple.
But the boy looked at me with a
nameless fear, and backed off down the
aisle of the car, and touched the con-
ductor on the elbow and said:
Bill! Say, Bill Who has charge
of the lunatic on the wood-box? ?"
All, dearly beloved, there is no lunacy
about It, We know now, and some day
the bow will know. that apples are NOT
80 good to-day as they were twenty-five
years ago. Nothing is so good to us,
in fact. The apples are tough and fla
vorless; the grass is wiry and thin
where it used to be living ve'vet under
our feet; the days are not SO long; the
nights have grown colder: the stars
shine less brightly and there are not SO
many of them; 1 counted them the
other night and there are half dozen
missing; the cows don't come home so
early; the dogs are crosser: Christmas
! doesn't come so close apart as it used
TO- Everything changes except the