“That came about very naturally, as did everything in those days. When the man and the woman were put in Eden, they were told that everything should be kept decently and in order. Now in those days, the English tongue had not reached the perfection it has to-day under the clarifying influences of the spelling reform. There was no Trench to tell us the use of the words and no popular novelists to bone the dictionary as a chef does a bird. Eve’s education had been sadly neglected. She didn’t know just what kind of order was meant and there was no ‘Complete Housekeeper’ which could be consulted and no ‘Answers to Correspondents’ column in a newspaper to aid her. So she sat down and folded her hands.
“There is an aphorism that Satan finds ‘mischief still for idle hands to do,’ and so when he saw that Eve left the dishes unwashed and her hair uncombed, he said, ‘Presto, change!’ and was turned into a snake.
“Now it came to pass that the woman listened to the voice of the charmer. Satan told of her grace and beauty, which Adam took as a matter of course after the first day and ceased to comment thereon, whereat the woman’s heart grew troubled.
“If you wish to know wherein you have failed to provide for the wife of your bosom, you will find your neighbors well informed on the subject. Adam might have learned much from the snake, for Eve poured her woe into sympathetic ears—if snakes have ears. She wanted to know what was the best kind of order.
“‘Apple-pie order,’ advised Satan promptly. Then being a lawyer, he peeled off an apple-ate laugh.
“Eve related how her husband had tired of her and had taken to sleeping night and day in the hope that Darwin might take the hint and find use for another of his ribs—Adam had not yet been put wise to the fact that he was minus a tail and thought that he could populate a harem by dispensing with his ribs.
“The next day the serpent made another social call on Mistress Eve, who tearfully besought a recipe for winning back her husband’s alienated affections. Satan pondered a moment; then he said:
“‘You can’t please Adam, your husband, unless you give him apple pie—the kind his mother used to make.’ Satan chuckled at the joke; he thought it so good that he vowed it should be retold in every age as a memorial of the fall.
“‘Give Adam some sass and then you can have everything in apple-pie order,’ hissed the snake.
“‘You order the apples and I’ll make the pies.’