yard with a kiss; for the deacon hez been sort o' purrin' round Miss
Hepsy for goin' on two years. Then, aft'r a while, when Mary an' Helen
bring in the cookies, nut-cakes, cider, an' apples, Mother says: 'I
don't b'lieve we're goin' to hev enough apples to go round; Ezry, I
guess I'll have to get you to go down-cellar for some more.' Then I
says: 'All right, Mother, I'll go, providin' some one'll go along an'
hold the candle.' An' when I say this I look right at Laura and she
blushes. Then Helen, jest for meanness, says: 'Ezry, I s'pose you ain't
willin' to have your fav'rite sister go down-cellar with you an' catch
her death o' cold?' But Mary, who hez been showin' Hiram Peabody the
phot'graph album for more 'n an hour, comes to the rescue an' makes
Laura take the candle, and she shows Laura how to hold it so it won't go
out.

"The cellar is warm an' dark. There are cobwebs all between the rafters
an' everywhere else except on the shelves where Mother keeps the butter
an' eggs an' other things that would freeze in the butt'ry upstairs. The
apples are in bar'ls up against the wall, near the potater-bin. How fresh
an' sweet they smell! Laura thinks she sees a mouse, an' she trembles an'
wants to jump up on the pork-bar'l, but I tell her that there sha'n't no
mouse hurt her while I'm round; and I mean it, too, for the sight of Laura
a-tremblin' makes me as strong as one of Father's steers. 'What kind of
apples do you like best, Ezry?' asks Laura,--'russets or greenin's or
crow-eggs or bell-flowers or Baldwins or pippins?' 'I like the Baldwins
best,' says I, ''coz they've got red cheeks jest like yours.' 'Why, Ezry
Thompson! how you talk!' says Laura. 'You oughter be ashamed of yourself!'
But when I get the dish filled up with apples there ain't a Baldwin in all
the lot that can compare with the bright red of Laura's cheeks. An' Laura
knows it, too, an' she sees the mouse ag'in, an' screams, and then the
candle goes out, and we are in a dreadful stew. But I, bein' almost a man,