When Cider Tastes The Best

When autumn paints her ruddy glow upon each hill and dale,

And Jack Frost plays at hide and seek thro’ orchard, wood and vale,

Then comes the cider making time, the old horse walking round,

The apples crunching in the cogs, a mellifluous sound!

The press, with rye straw mingles with the pulp of red and gold,

The luscious cheeses dripping with a cadence yet untold;

And then the foaming tub of juice with boys and bees about,

An’ too, the straw with which we draw the mellow liquid out.

O then is when it tastes the best, a straw poked in the foam,

An’ we upon our bended knees to draw the cider home!

A golden goblet if you will, or cut glass and the rest,

But when we draw it thro’ a straw is when it tasted the best.

Then later when the cogs are stilled and all the cider’s made,

With twenty barrels in a row behind the old mill’s shade,

With twenty bung-holes waiting there to make a youngster smile,

I’d give a heap to take a straw and tarry there awhile.

I’d like to straddle every cask and sample every one,

And sozzle in that apple juice until the day was done;

And then I’d like to go to bed and dream that I were still

A-straddle of a cider cask down under Martin’s mill.

For that is when it tastes the best, a straw poked in the foam,

Humped over on a cider cask to draw that sweetness home.

A golden goblet if you will, or cut glass and the rest,

But when we draw it thro’ a straw is when it tasted the best.

Sept. 29, 1901