common crab apple makes my head reel. I learned afterward that this cider
had frozen, so that the alleged cider which we drank that night was the
clear, old-fashioned brandy, which of course would not freeze.

We should strive, however, to lead such lives that we will never be
ashamed to look a cider barrel square in the bung.

[Illustration]




Literary Freaks.

People who write for a livelihood get some queer propositions from those
who have crude ideas about the operation of the literary machine. There is
a prevailing idea among those who have never dabbled in literature very
much, that the divine afflatus works a good deal like a corn sheller. This
is erroneous.

To put a bushel of words into the hopper and have them come out a poem or
a sermon, is a more complicated process than it would seem to the casual
observer.

I can hardly be called literary, though I admit that my tastes lie in that
direction, and yet I have had some singular experiences in that line. For
instance, last year I received flattering overtures from three young men
who wanted me to write speeches for them to deliver on the Fourth of July.
They could do it themselves, but hadn't the time. If I would write the
speeches they would be willing to revise them. They seemed to think it