Page:Letters of Life.djvu/403

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GOOD-BYE.
391

ment for my first injustice; but look you, how they have been repaid! Loads of the best fruitage their various capacities could command have been showered at our feet.

From the time that the early saccharines robe themselves in gold, to the frosty nights when the rough russet puts on its brown overcoat, and asks admission to the garner, is no stay or hindrance to their revenue. The last year more than fifty barrels have been produced. How to dispose of them, over and above all culinary expenditure, has been a study. Besides gifts to neighbors, and weekly baskets to pensioners, and Christmas barrels to the State Prison and two hundred inmates of the Reform School, I sent many bushels to a cider-mill, from whence they emerged a sparkling liquid, which, eventually assuming the more pungent form of vinegar, made itself useful in a variety of ways. As I am not ashamed of being a practical woman, let me mention that its exhalations, when poured on burning coals, diffuse a pleasant, healthful odor, if the house in rainy weather has not been fully ventilated, and that it is considered a powerful disinfecting agent in hospitals.

My commerce in apples has led to a unique kind of philanthropy. From the time of their first taking an orbicular shape, and when it might be supposed their hardness and acidity would repulse all, save elephantine tusks and ostrich stomachs, they were the prey of roam-