What beauties they seemed, and how, while those that grew in the shady
parts under the leaves, were of a delicate green, the ones I had picked
from out in the full sunshine were dark and ruddy and bronzed! How they
clustered together too, out here in the top of the tree, so thickly that
it seemed as if I should never get them all.
But by degrees I reached up and up where I could not take the basket,
and thrust the apples into my breast and pockets. One I had a
tremendous job to reach, after going a little lower to where my basket
hung to empty my pockets before climbing again. It was a splendid
fellow, the biggest yet, and growing right at the top of a twig.
It seemed dangerous to get up there, for it meant holding on by the
branch, and standing on the very top round of the ladder, and I
hesitated. Still I did not like to be beaten, and with the branch
bending I held on and went up and up, till I stood right at the top of
the ladder, and then cautiously raising my hand I was about to reach up
at and try to pick the apple, when something induced me to turn my head
and look in the direction of Shock's tree.
Sure enough he was watching me. I saw his face right up in the top; but
he turned it quickly, and there was a rustle and a crack as if he had
nearly fallen.
For a few moments this unsteadied me, and for the first time I began to
think that I was running great risks, and that I should fall. So
peculiar was the feeling that I clung tightly to the swaying bending
branch and shut my eyes.
The feeling went off as quickly as it came, for I set my teeth, and,
knowing that Shock was watching me, determined that he should not see I
was afraid.
The next moment I was reaching up cautiously, and by degrees got my hand
just under the apple, but could get no higher. My head was thrown back,
the branch bending towards me, and my feet on the top round, so that I
was leaning back far out of the perpendicular, and the more I tried to
get that pippin, and could not reach, the more bright and beautiful it
looked.
I forgot all about the danger, for Shock was watching me, and I would
have it; and as I strained up I at last was able to touch it with the
tips of my fingers, for my feet were pressing the branch one way, my
hands drawing it the other, till it came lower, lower, lower, my fingers
grasped the apple--more and more, and at last, when I felt that I could
bear the strain no longer, the stalk gave way, and the apple dropped
between the twig and my hand.