Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard by Eleanor Farjeon (top 10 novels to read .TXT) 📗

else in the world. Then Martin looked at the sun and said, "You've barely time to get tidy for supper." So the milkmaids ran off to smooth their hair and their kerchiefs and do up ribbons and buttons or whatever else was necessary. And came fresh and rosy to their meal, of which not one of them could touch a morsel, she declared.

"Dear, dear, dear!" said Martin anxiously. "What's the matter with you all?"

But they really didn't know. They just weren't hungry. So please wouldn't he tell them a story?

"This will never do," said Martin. "I shall have you ill on my hands. An apple apiece, or no story to-night."

At this dreadful threat Joan plucked the nearest apple she could find, which was luckily a Cox's Pippin.

"Must I eat it all, Martin?" she asked. (And Joscelyn looked at her quickly with that doubtful look which had been growing on her all day.)

"All but the skin," said Martin kindly. And taking the apple from her he peeled it cleverly from bud to stem, and handed her back nothing but the peel. And she twirled the peel three times round her head, and dropped it in the grass behind her.

"What is it? what is it?" cried the milkmaids, crowding.

"It's a C," said Martin. And he gave Joan her apple, and she ate it.

Then Joyce came to Martin with a Beauty of Bath, and he peeled it as he had Joan's, and withheld the fruit until she had performed her rite. And her letter was M. Jennifer brought a Worcester Pearmain, and threw a T. And Jessica chose a Curlytail and made a perfect O. And Jane, who preferred a Russet, threw her own initial, and Martin said seriously, "You're to be an old maid, Jane." (And Joscelyn looked at him.) And Jane replied, "I don't see that at all. There are lots of lots of J's, Martin." (And Joscelyn looked at her.) Then Martin turned inquiringly to Joscelyn, and she said, "I don't want one." "No stories then," said Martin as firm as Nurse at bedtime. And she shook her shoulders impatiently. But he himself picked her a King of Pippins, the biggest and reddest in the orchard, and peeled it like the rest and gave her the peel. And very crossly she jerked it thrice round her head, so that it broke into three bits, and they fell on the grass in the shape of an agitated H. And Martin gave her also her Pippin.

"But what about your own supper?" said little Joan.

And Martin, glancing from one to another, gathered a Cox, a Beauty, a Pearmain, a Curlytail, a Russet, and a King of Pippins; and he peeled and ate them one after another, and then, one after another, whirled the parings. And every one of the parings was a J.

Then, while Martin stood looking down at the six J's among the clover-grass, and the milkmaids looked anywhere else and said nothing: little Joan slipped away and came back with the smallest, prettiest, and rosiest Lady Apple in Gillman's Orchard, and said softly, "This one's for you."

So Martin pared it slenderly, and the peel lay in his hand like a ribbon of rose-red silk shot with gold; and he coiled it lightly three times round his head and dropped it over his left shoulder. And as suddenly as bubbles sucked into the heart of a little whirlpool, the milkmaids ran to get a look at the letter. But Martin looked first, and when the ring of girls stood round about him he put his foot quickly on the apple-peel and rubbed it into the grass. And without even tasting it he tossed his little Lady Apple right over the wicket, and beyond the duckpond, and, for all the girls could see, to Adversane.

Then Jane and Jessica and Jennifer and Joyce and little Joan, as by a single instinct, each climbed to a bough of the center apple-tree, and left the swing empty. And Martin sat on his own bough and waited for Joscelyn. And very slowly she came and sat on the swing and said without looking at him:

"We're all ready now."

"All?" said Martin. And he fixed his eyes on the Well-House, where it made no difference.

"Most of us, anyhow," said Joscelyn; "and whoever isn't ready is--nearly ready."

"Yet most is not all, and nearly is not quite," said Martin, "and would you be satisfied if I could only tell you most of my story, and was obliged to break off when it was nearly done? Alas, with me it must be the whole or nothing, and I cannot make a beginning unless I can see the end."

"All beginnings must have endings," said Joscelyn, "so begin at once, and the end will follow of itself."

"Yet suppose it were some other end than I set out for?" said Martin. "There's no telling with these endings that go of themselves. We mean one thing, but they mistake our meaning and show us another. Like the simple maid who was sent to fetch her lady's slippers and her lady's smock, and brought the wrong ones."

"She must have been some ignorant maid from a town," said Jane, "if she did not know lady-smocks and lady's-slippers when she saw them."

"It was either her mistake or her lady's," said Martin carelessly. "You shall judge which." And he tuned his lute and, still looking at the Well-House, sang:

The Lady sat in a flood of tears All of her sweet eyes' shedding. "To-morrow, to-morrow the paths of sorrow Are the paths that I'll be treading." So she sent her lass for her slippers of black, But the careless lass came running back With slippers as bright As fairy gold Or noonday light, That were heeled and soled To dance in at a wedding.

The Lady sat in a storm of sighs Raised by her own heart-searching. "To-morrow must I in the churchyard lie Because love is an urchin." So she sent her lass for her sable frock, But the silly lass