“Two of us are,” Peggy answered primly. “But all of us would like to come and watch you make it if we may.”
“You can help,” answered the man.
So with that delightful prospect ahead of them, they entered the rambling building, dim except where the sunlight found a crack between the dusty boards and streamed weakly in.
They followed the man up a winding stairway, that was like climbing to some quaint old attic. There was one place where they could look down and see the black, gold-specked water rushing away under the stairs. It gave Peggy a creepy feeling. The specks of gold were dots of light that fell into its darkness.
“It—makes an awful roaring noise—kind of subterranean sound,” murmured Katherine, but nobody heard her, because of the rush of the stream.
When they reached the loft above, they stood to one side waiting for the man to begin.
“The young ladies are going to make the cider,” he said.
“Oh,” cried Peggy, “that’s fine, but how do we begin?”
The man hauled over several large sacks of apples, lifted a round cover in the floor, bringing to view a kind of chute.
“Pour them apples down there,” he invited.