From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 50-51.
APPLES
No other leafy plant to me
Seems friendly as an apple tree.
A homely, freckled, big-eared kid,
How often would I doff my lid
And stretch myself within the shade
Some pasture natural fruit had made.
With grateful tongue I sing the praise
Of apples in those good old days.
With summer wind the leaves were rippled,
By summer suns the fruits were stippled.
When I saw one that suited me,
I threw a stick or shook the tree,
But every year the first to redden
Were those some lively worm had fed in,
Had crawled about and made a bed in.
How carefully I chewed ’round one way
Until I almost reached his runway,
And then, reversing, chewed on back,
Clear to the border of his track.
I know at pressing time in fall,
We drink sweet cider, worms and all,
But other times I hate like sin
To bite in where a worm has been.
[51]
Yea, I am wrought up even more
To find the worm still in the bore,
And most particularly blue
Whene’er I bite him square in two.
Yet often now in city streets,
Amid the dust and noise and heats,
A vision rises in my soul,
I see cool, shaded pastures roll,
And fain would check my hurrying pace,
Chase off some cow and take her place,
To doze on grass that tree shade dapples
And eat a lot of wormy apples.