the month. They were big and
handsome, oval, with the richest crimson cheeks, but nothing like so
sweet as the white ones. So sugar, or honey, was added scantly, at the
end of the boiling down. If it had been put in earlier, it would have
added to the danger of burning.

A six-gallon crock of peach butter was no mean household asset--indeed
it ranked next to the crock of blackberry jam. It was good as a sauce,
or lightly sweetened, to spread on crust. As a filling for roly-polys it
had but one superior--namely dried peaches properly stewed.

Proper stewing meant washing a quart of dry fruit in two waters, soaking
overnight, then putting over the fire in the soaking water, covering
with a plate to hold the fruit down, and simmering at the least five
hours, filling up the kettle from time to time, and adding after the
fruit was soft a pound of sugar. Then at the very last spices to taste
went in. If the fruit were to be eaten along with meat, as a relish, a
cupful of vinegar was added after the sugar. This made it a near
approach to the finest sweet pickle. But as Mammy said often: "Dried
peaches wus good ernough fer anybody--dest by dee sefs, dry so."

Apple drying commonly came a little before peach. Horse apples, the best
and plentiest, ripened in the beginning of August. They were kiln-dried,
or scaffold-dried, and much less tedious than peaches since they were
sliced thin. When they got very mellow, drying ceased--commonly
everybody had plenty by that time--and the making of apple butter began.
It differed little from peach butter in the making, though mightily in
taste--being of a less piquant flavor. Cider, newly run was essential to
any sort of butter--hence the beating was done before breakfast. Cider
mills were not--but cider troughs abounded. They were dug from huge
poplar logs, squared outside with the broad axe, and adzed within to a
smooth finish. Apples well washed, were beaten in them with round headed
wooden pestles, and pressed in slat presses, the pomace laid on clean
straw, after the manner of cider pressing in English orchards. The first
runnings, somewhat muddy, were best for boiling down, but the clear last
runnings drank divinely--especially after keeping until there was just
the trace of sparkle to them.

Winter cider was commonly allowed to get hard. So was that meant for
distilling--apple brandy was only second to peach. But a barrel or keg,
would be kept sweet for women, children, and minist