ys were almost as
sweet as honey; at least, I thought so then.

Then there were the "Noyes Apple" and the "Hobbs Apple." The Noyes was a
deep-red, pleasant-sour apple, which ripened in the latter part of
August; the Hobbs was striped red and green, flattened in shape, but of
a fine, spicy flavor.

The "sops-in-wines," as, I believe, the fruit men term them, but which
we called "wine-saps," were a pleasant-flavored apple, scarcely sweet,
yet hardly sour. A little later came the "Porters" and "Sweet
Greenings," also the "Nodheads" and the "Minute Apples," the
"Georgianas" and the "Gravensteins," and so on until the winter apples,
the principal product of the orchard, were reached.

We began eating those early apples by the first of August, in spite of
all the terrible stories of colic which Gram told, in order to dissuade
us from making ourselves ill. As the Pippins and August Sweets began to
get mellow and palatable, we rivalled each other in the haste with which
we tumbled out of doors early in the morning, so as to capture, each for
himself or herself, the apples which had dropped from the trees
overnight. Every one of us soon had a private hoard in which to secrete
those apples which we did not eat at the time. There were numerous
contests in rapid dressing and in reckless racing down-stairs and out
into the orchard.

Little Wealthy, on account of her youth, was, to some degree, exempted
from this ruthless looting. We all knew where her hoard was, but spared
it for a long time. She believed that she had placed it in a wonderfully
secret place, and because none of us seemed to discover it, she boasted
so much that Ellen and I plundered it one morning, before she was awake,
to give her a wholesome lesson in humility.

A little later, just before the breakfast hour, Wealthy stole out to her
preserve--to find it empty. I never saw a child more mortified. She felt
so badly that she could scarcely eat breakfast, and her lip kept
quivering. The others laughed at her, and soon she left the table, and
no doubt shed tears in secret over her loss.

After breakfast Ellen and I sought her out, and offered to give back the
apples that we had taken. The child was too proud, however, to obtain
them in such a way, and refused to touch one of them.

No such clemency as had been shown to Wealthy was practised by any
one toward the others; no quarter was given or taken in the matter of
robbing hoards. For a month this looting wen