"'Stand fast, root! bear well, top!
Pray God send us a good howling crop--
Every twig, apples big;
Every bough, apples enow.'

"All then shouted in chorus, while one of the party played on a cow's
horn, and the trees were well rapped with the sticks which they carried.
This ceremony is thought to have been a relic of some heathen sacrifice,
and it is quite absurd enough to be that."

"What is 'a howling crop,' Miss Harson?" asked Clara. "That name sounds
so queer!"

"I don't know what it can be," replied her governess, "unless it refers
to the strange expression sometimes used, 'howling with delight.' We
hear more commonly of 'howling with pain,' but 'a howling crop' must be
one that makes the owner scream, as well as dance for joy."

"Why, _I_ scream only when I'm frightened," said Edith, who began to
think that there were much sillier people in the world than herself.

"At garter-snakes," added Malcolm, giving his sister a sly pinch; but
Edith did not mind his pinches, because he always took good care not
to hurt her.

Miss Harson said that the best way was not to scream at all, as it was
both a silly and a troublesome habit, and the sooner her charges broke
themselves of it the better she should like it. Clara and Edith both
promised to try--just as they had promised before, when the ants were so
troublesome; but they were nine months older now, and seemed to be
getting a little ashamed of the habit.

"Are apples mentioned anywhere in the Bible?" asked Miss Harson,
presently.

Clara and Malcolm were busy thinking, but nothing came of it, until
their governess said,

"Turn to the book of Proverbs, Clara, and find the twenty-fifth chapter
and the eleventh verse."

Clara read very carefully:

"'A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.' But
what does it mean?" she asked.

"It probably means 'framed in silver' or 'in silver frames[11],'" was
the reply; "and then it is easy to understand how important our words
are, and that 'fitly-spoken' ones are as valuable and lasting as golden
apples framed in silver. The apple tree is mentioned in Joel, where it
is said that 'all the trees of the field are withered[12],' and both
apple trees and apples are mentioned in several places of the Old
Testament. But, to tell the whole truth, scholars are not agreed as to
whether the Hebrew word denotes the apple or some other fruit that grew
in the land of Israel."

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