Painted by the frosts, some a uniform clear bright yellow, or red,
or crimson, as if their spheres had regularly revolved, and enjoyed
the influence of the sun on all sides alike,--some with the faintest
pink blush imaginable,--some brindled with deep red streaks like a
cow, or with hundreds of fine blood-red rays running regularly from
the stem-dimple to the blossom-end, like meridional lines, on a
straw-colored ground,--some touched with a greenish rust, like a
fine lichen, here and there, with crimson blotches or eyes more or
less confluent and fiery when wet,--and others gnarly, and freckled
or peppered all over on the stem side with fine crimson spots on a
white ground, as if accidentally sprinkled from the brush of Him who
paints the autumn leaves. Others, again, are sometimes red inside,
perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,--
apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells
and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid
the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air,
or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and
faded in the house.





THE NAMING OF THEM.




It would be a pleasant pastime to find suitable names for the
hundred varieties which go to a single heap at the cider-mill. Would