The carding-machine is gone, and has given place to a rustic cider-press. A temporary undershot-wheel has been rigged beneath the floor, and a rude trough, patched up with sods, conducts the water from the stream.
It is the same old cider-press we all remember, and with the same accessories. Here are casks of all sizes waiting to be filled, and the piles of party-colored apples spilled upon the floor from the farmers’ wagons that every now and then back up to the open door. There is the same rustic harangue on leading agricultural topics, among which we hear a variety of opinions about that imaginary “line storm.”
“Seems to gi’n the slip this year,” remarks one old long-limbed settler with a slope-roofed straw hat, “’n’ I don’t know zactly what to make on’t; but I ain’t so sartin nuther”—he now takes a wise observation of a small patch of blue sky through the trees overhead. “I cal’late we’ll git a leetle tetch on’t yit.”
“Likenuff, likenuff,” responds another, with a squeaky voice; “the ar’s gittin’ ruther dampish, ’n’ my woman hez got the rheumatiz ag’in. She kin alluz tell when we’re goin’ to git a spell o’ weather; it’s sure to fetch her all along her spine. But I lay most store on them ar pesky tree-tuds. I heern um singin’ like all possessed ez I wuz comin’ through the woods yender; ’n’ it’s a sartin sign o’ rain when them ar critters gits agoin’, you kin depend on’t.”
And now we hear all about the pumpkin and the corn crop, the potato yield, and the regular list of other subjects so dear to the rural heart.
In a corner by themselves we see the pile of “vinegar nubbins”—a tanned and soft variety of apple—in all stages of variegation. The “hopper” receives the shovelfuls of fruit for the crushing “smasher,” which again supplies the straw-laid press. We hear the creaking turn of the lever screw, the yielding of the timbers, and a fresh burst of the trickling beverage flowing from the surrounding trough into the great wooden tub below. Here, too, is the swarm of eager urchins, with heads together, like a troop of flies around a grain of sugar. Ah! what unalloyed bliss is reflected from their countenances as they absorb the amber nectar through the intermediate straw—that golden link that I have missed for many a year!
Outside upon the logs the refuse “pumice-cheese” has brought together all the yellow-jackets and late butterflies of the neighborhood—butterflies so tipsy that you can pick them up between your fingers. I never went so far with the yellow-jackets, for they have a hotter temper, and don’t like to be fooled with. Black hornets, too, are here, and they find a feast spread at their very door; for overhead, upon the beech, they have hung their paper house, like a gray balloon caught among the branches.
Now we hear a chatter and a scratching on the roof, where a pair of lively squirrels hold a game of tag; and ascending the rickety stairs into the loft above, we find the floor strewn with hickory-nuts, with neat round holes cut through on either side, and numberless shaggy butternuts, too, with daylight let into their recesses also. The boards and beams are covered with cobweb trimmings, laden with wool-dust; and as we approach a pile of rusty iron near the murky window, we hear a scraping of sharp claws, the dropping of a nut between the rafters, and now a wild scampering on the roof overhead. Before we have fairly recovered from our surprise, we notice a sudden darkening of a hole in the shingles close by, where, still and motionless, two inquisitive black eyes look down at us. We have intruded upon private property, for this is the home of the squirrels. No one can dispute their title, for these little squatters have occupied the premises and held the fort for nearly twenty years.
They, too, have found forage close at hand, from the nut-grove upon the hill-side yonder—a yellow bank of foliage of clustered hickories and beeches, and rounded domes of chestnuts—a grove whose every rock and bush is my old-time friend; where there are “sermons in stones,” and every tree speaks volumes.