A Red Apple

A Red Apple

by Edward A. Rand

It was a beautiful apple. It looked as if it had been dipped in the sunrise. And a tree full of red apples — what a sight! So Amy Davis thought when she went to visit her grandparents. Alas the tree was not in their garden, but stood plump and ruddy on Squire Drake’s grounds.

How then did Amy get the apple? Listen:

“There Amy,” said her grandmother just before noon of the day she came, “it’s a nice red apple. Our neighbour, old Squire Drake, brought it in this morning, to show what kind of fruit the tree was growing. He was here before you came. I saved it for you.”

“You are ever so kind, but grandma, hadn’t you better keep it please?”

“No. I saved it for you dear. You will not get another. I would like to see Squire Drake give a basket of apples right out for once, but he does not throw his apples around.”

Squire Drake throw his apples around! The idea! He did not do any throwing especially in his neighbours lap, but laid every apple carefully away in a big barrel. Then he filled another barrel, all for himself.

Amy went out into the garden, holding very carefully in her hand this fine lump of ruby red sunshine.

There were two or three apple trees in her grandmother’s garden. Amy filled her apron with Rhode Island Greening. But they were hard winter apples. There was not one eatable apple among them. And Squire Drake’s red apple looked too pretty to eat. She stood and gazed over the fence at the bright tree, bearing a hundred of just such red apples.

Then she walked along, and was about to put her teeth into the red apple — when what was it she saw?

There is another couple of paragraphs to this story. I don’t want to give away the complete story, but I think it’s great and I would like to read it to children. I like apples and I like the message in this wonderful old story.