“Oh,” said Minerva. Minerva’s ignorance of common things was a never-ending marvel. “Who do you pay for these apples, Mis. Vernon,” she went on. “Why, nobody. They go with the house.” And then Minerva gave utterance to a wise remark. “Ain’t it queer, Mis. Vernon, that in the country, where you don’t have to pay for apples, every man has apple trees of his own, and in the city, where you do have to pay, nobody has any?” “Just what do you mean?” said Ethel, wishing (as she told me) to draw out Minerva’s thought. “Why, I mean poor people in the city has to pay for apples, an’ in the country people don’t have to pay for ’em, but it don’t do no good, because they have their own trees.” “Well, but if they didn’t have their own trees, they would have to pay for them,” said Ethel, puzzled. “Yas’m, but people in the city, if they had trees,—I mean poor people, then they wouldn’t have to pay for apples and they could use their money for somethin’ else, and people in the country has more money than poor people in the city, and they don’t have to spend it on apples, because they have ’em on their own trees.” “Oh, I see,” said Ethel. “You mean that it doesn’t seem fair that poor people in the city, who would appreciate apples on their own trees, if they had them, have to pay for apples, while in the country people who could afford to pay for apples don’t have to, but can go out and pick them.” “Yas’m,” said Minerva. “I guess that’s what I meant.” “Yes,” said Ethel. “That must have been just what you meant. There are a great many things that we can’t understand about those things, but you know that farmers sell their apples to the people in the city, and that’s one of the ways they make their money.” Minerva thought a minute. “Apples on the stands in the city sells for five cents, and I’ve seen rows of trees up here full of apples.” “They call them orchards,” said Ethel. “Why don’t they call them apples?” asked Minerva. “No, no, the rows of trees are called orchards, and if the farmers could sell the apples for five cents apiece they would make a great deal of money, but they sell them to other men, who sell them to others, and they sell them to the men who keep the apple stands. The farmers don’t get a cent apiece for them.” Minerva’s mind must have been in good working order that day, for she now said,