u want to, you rack it off again an' bottle it an'--well, gee
whiz, how tight you c'n get on it if you ain't got sense enough to let
it alone. But I ain't thinkin' about what I'm goin' to do, 'cause I
ain't to do anything but make applebutter out of my orchard,--an' maybe
a little cider-vinegar fer home consumption. What's worryin' me is what
to do about all these other people around here. If they all take to
makin' cider this fall,--or even sooner,--an' if they bottle or cask it
proper,--we'll have enough hard cider in this township to give the whole
state of New York the delirium trimmins."

"I don't see that you can do anything, Anderson," said Squires, leaning
back in his chair and puffing at his pipe. "You can't keep people from
making cider, you know. And you can't keep 'em from drinking it.
Besides, who's going to take the trouble to ascertain whether it
contains one-half of one percent alcohol? What interests me more than
anything else is the possibility of this township becoming 'wet' in
spite of itself,--an' to my certain knowledge, it has been up to now the
barrenest desert on God's green earth."

"People are so all-fired contrary," Anderson complained. "For the last
fifty years the citizens of this town and its suburbs have been so dead
set ag'inst liquor that if a man went up to Boggs City an' got a little
tipsy he had to run all the way home so's he'd be out of breath when he
got there. Nobody ever kept a bottle of whiskey in his house, 'cause
nobody wanted it an' it would only be in the way. But now look at 'em!
The minute the Government says they can't have it, they begin movin'
things around in their cellars so's to make room fer the barrels they're
going to put in. An' any day you want to drive out in the country you
c'n see farmers an' hired men treatin' the apple-trees as if they was
the tenderest plants a-growin'. I heard this mornin' that Henry
Wimpelmeyer is to put in a cider-press at his tanyard, an' old man
Smock's turnin' his grist mill into an apple-mill. An' everybody is
hoardin' apples, Harry. It beats the Dutch."

"It's up to you to frustrate their nefarious schemes, Mr. Hawkshaw. The
fair name of the Commonwealth must be preserved. I use the word
advisedly. It sounds a great deal better than 'pickled.' Now, do you
want me to begin a campaign in the _Banner_ against the indiscriminate
and mendacious hardening of apple-cider, or am I to leave the situation
entirely in your hands?"

Marsh