It was decided to begin with Apple-sauce.
“How happy,” exclaimed Mr. Peterkin, “that this should come first of all! A child might be brought up on apple-sauce till he had mastered the first letter of the alphabet, and could go on to the more involved subjects hidden in bread, butter, baked beans, etc.”
Agamemnon thought his father hardly knew how much was hidden in the apple. There was all the story of William Tell and the Swiss independence. The little boys were wild to act William Tell, but Mrs. Peterkin was afraid of the arrows. Mrs.
Peterkin proposed they should begin by eating the apple-sauce, then discussing it, first botanically, next historically; or perhaps first historically, beginning with Adam and Eve, and the first apple.
Mrs. Peterkin feared the coffee would be getting cold, and the griddles were waiting. For herself, she declared she felt more at home on the marmalade, because the quinces came from grandfather’s, and she had seen them planted; she remembered all about it, and now the bush came up to the sitting-room window.
She seemed to have heard him tell that the town of Quincy, where the granite came from, was named from them, and she never quite recollected why, except they were so hard, as hard as stone, and it took you almost the whole day to stew them, and then you might as well set them on again.
Mr. Peterkin was glad to be reminded of the old place at grandfather’s. In order to know thoroughly about apples, they ought to understand the making of cider.
Now, they might some time drive up to grandfather’s, scarcely twelve miles away, and see the cider made. Why, indeed, should not the family go this very day up to grandfather’s, and continue the education of the breakfast?
“Why not indeed?” exclaimed the little boys. A day at grandfather’s would give them the whole process of the apple, from the orchard to the cider-mill. In this way they could widen the field of study, even to follow in time the cup of coffee to Java.
It was suggested, too, that at grandfather’s they might study the processes of maple-syrup as involved in the griddle-cakes.