“Let’s go and get the bitter apples,”
said Cecily hastily, seeing that Felix, Felicity and
Dan were on the verge of a quarrel more bitter than
the apples.
We went to the seedling tree and got an apple apiece.
The game was that every one must take a bite in turn,
chew it up, and swallow it, without making a face.
Peter again distinguished himself. He, and
he alone, passed the ordeal, munching those dreadful
mouthfuls without so much as a change of expression
on his countenance, while the facial contortions the
rest of us went through baffled description.
In every subsequent trial it was the same.
Peter never made a face, and no one else could help
making them. It sent him up fifty per cent in
Felicity’s estimation.
“Peter is a real smart boy,” she said
to me. “It’s such a pity he is a
hired boy.”
But, if we could not pass the ordeal, we got any amount
of fun out of it, at least. Evening after evening
the orchard re-echoed to our peals of laughter.
“Bless the children,” said Uncle Alec,
as he carried the milk pails across the yard.
“Nothing can quench their spirits for long.”
I could never understand why Felix took Peter’s
success in the Ordeal of Bitter Apples so much to
heart. He had not felt very keenly over the
matter of the sermons, and certainly the mere fact
that Peter could eat sour apples without making faces
did not cast any reflection on the honour or ability
of the other competitors. But to Felix everything
suddenly became flat, stale, and unprofitable, because
Peter continued to hold the championship of bitter
apples. It haunted his waking hours and obsessed
his nights. I heard him talking in his sleep
about it. If anything could have made him thin
the way he worried over this matter would have done
it.
For myself, I cared not a groat. I had wished
to be successful in the sermon contest, and felt sore
whenever I thought of my failure. But I had
no burning desire to eat sour apples without grimacing,
and I did not sympathize over and above with my brother.
When, however, he took to praying about it, I realized
how deeply he felt on the subject, and hoped he would
be successful.
Felix prayed earnestly that he might be enabled to
eat a bitter apple without making a face. And
when he had prayed three nights after this manner,
he contrived to eat a bitter apple without a grimace
until he came to the last bite, which proved too much
for him. But Felix was vastly encouraged.
“Another prayer or two, and I’ll be able
to eat a whole one,” he said jubilantly.
But this devoutly desired consummation did not come
to pass. In spite of prayers and heroic attempts,
Felix could never get beyond that last bite.
Not even faith and works in combination could avail.
For a time he could not understand this. But
he thought the mystery was solved when Cecily came
to him one day and told him that Peter was praying
against him.
