 The Two Apples by James Edmund Dunning. When the morning of the sixteenth day broke out from the gray battlements of the Easterd, only two live men remained on the raft, which more than two weeks before had left the splittered sides of the Barkantine. Besides, there was one dead man, and his body counted three out of the dozen who had clung to the raft until ten starved to death because they could not live on red apples and brine. Zardak roused as much as a man can when every morning he wakens less and less, until some day he does not waken at all. James lay staring at the sun, as at a stranger's face. Turn out, James, said Zardak, when he had worked some life back into his thickening tongue, till we put him over. They rolled the body into the sea with no words or ceremonials to mark the end, except that James, when some part of the splash stung his face, struck off the drops with trembling, horrified hands. Two apples left, said Zardak, not in any tentative sounding of possibilities, but with finality forced home by a fact so plain and near as to render evasion needless. One for today, said James, the other one for tomorrow. The last one for tomorrow, returned Zardak, bold as ever. Let us wait as long as we can before breakfast. The raft drifted many hours, following the sun around the fatal empty bowl. James broke that vast silence. Zardak, I must eat something. My head is, you know, my head. So does mine, said Zardak, cut the first apple in two. It takes so little to satisfy, when one is starving, and that little goes so very fast. When Zardak put his furry teeth into half the apple, it was as if he had not tasted such, since he left Cape Cod a dozen years before. His mind, strained with a long, unrealized hope, forgot the timbers on which his bent muscles clung, and went back to an orchard he had known, where such apples always grew. The cool air from the shadows underneath the tree-rows seemed interlaid with waves of heat, and the lovely odors of the sunlit seaside farm. That long slope from the meadowland, up, up, and up beneath the slant, uncertain fence, to where the white topsides of the houses were vividly set off in green. Till Zardak came to himself and understood that the smell was only the damp breath of the Atlantic, and the heat, the plunging agony that flowed from his own tense heart. The first apple was gone. The two men's eyes conversed in brief. Then Zardak said, I'm going to sleep again, if it is sleep. Anyway, I'm tired. Can you stay up a while? It's my trick, Consented Jeans. Neither spoke of the approaching end, but when they sat staring at each other, a time, four madmen's minds move with but a mock agility. Zardak said, Put the second apple under the tin cup in the middle of the raft, and keep it there. When the apple was safe, Zardak held out his right hand. Until I awake, James, he said. It is safe there, was the answer. And Zardak laid down on the soggy timbers, satisfied with faith in the honour of his starving mate. To James, who watched, the sea looked as never in his life before. For years he had enslaved it, as a tough, Mount Desert Fisher boy, he had bound it to his childish will. And in many later years afloat, had thrown back its innumerable challenges, with all contempt, until the last time. In sailor's lives, birth and the marriage-day bow down to the last time. It always comes, when fortune or the years have made them blindly bold. His courage fled before the onslaught of these terrible seas, which, high above the level of his blurring eyes, swept up in the torturous parade, as if death maddened his victims by passing his grand divisions in review. Besides, the pain of hunger so outgrew all reason. It cut through the man's thin body, like the blade of a great and sudden sorrow in one's heart, through and through, ever returning, never going. A greater sea than the others rolled underneath the raft, and shook the loose boards so that the tin dipper rolled on its inverted rim, and then fell, tinkling back again. James crawled to where he could lift the dipper and see beneath. The second apple lay secure, its plump sides a shocking contrast to the terrors of the raft. James looked hard. A cruel pain shot from his throat to his heels in a tearing red-hot spinal. The first apple had so cooled his mouth. Water began to run off James' chin. If he could only run his fingers down those rounding sides, maybe they would catch some of the orchard's smell. James clapped the dipper down with a sudden muscular fury, and kicked Zardoc into sense with such vigor that he fell exhausted from the effort. I was so lonesome I thought I might go off, he explained, adding, Zardoc, what's your family? Five and the wife, God help them, said Zardoc, not dramatically either, but just dully, as if it was what his mind had grown to know very much better than anything else. Have you? No, said James. Years ago I called on a pretty girl over at Sumsville, but nothing came of it. Just as well now, said Zardoc coldly, adding half in dream, I recollect them Sumsville girls was pretty. Elizabeth came from there. Who, said James? Elizabeth, the wife. Why, she was your sister, James. So she was, I forgot. Many madmen speak in the past tense at the stage where they seem to look back on their proper selves. The sun neared the west. Lie down again, said James. I'll watch. Any sail that time before? No, sails, Zardoc. Wind dropped near night and James lay on the raft with eyes that glowed back the red reflection of the setting sun. As it moved toward the liquid line of sea its brilliance fell into the smoldering of the cloud through which its sides shone with the softened, satin polish of the second apple as James last saw it. The thought struck him in the middle of his heart, which began leaping as when, at nineteen, a girl's smooth fingers lingered on his own. He hungered for the sight of the second apple as for nothing else in the whole world before. He wished the raft might roll so violently as to throw off the dipper and then, before he realized, his own foot had kicked it into the ocean and the apple smiled before him, securely laid between two great planks at the bottom of the raft. Zardoc slept. James was alone with the second apple. He looked at it between caked lids and let his eyes rove over and over its rare beauties. For the first time since he was born, his whole being, the knotted body whose abundant energies had been quite absorbed by the arduous doing of his roving life, and the big heart of him where the rich red of the blood was pent and packed with never a bit of outlet for relief. Thrilled with the keen, delicious mystery of desire, his meager lips cracked like a snakeskin, repeated in monotone as if to hold his conscience under some mesmeric charm. I must! I must! The mere thought of the cold heart of the fruit made his pulse spring as if whipped. Imagine the exquisite satisfaction which would follow his teeth as they sank slowly, slowly, sank further and further through those moistening walls until, at the very acne of delight, they met. Christ! He was on it in an instant, holding it with both hands and not lifting it, but just putting his face down and keeping it so in a passionate embrace. He would eat. If he died for it, he must. Lisbeth! It was Zardot dreaming. Lisbeth! Good old girl! Good girl! Bye-bye! Home at sundown! Good old good! Ah! The voice fell away in an idiotic sigh. James sprang to his feet and stood swaying with the raft, the image of his sister in his eyes. Off east where the grey shades grew he saw her walking on the sea, her long hair blown before like a cloud of jet-black flame, and her face all lovely. Lisbeth! James spread his arms, but she did not see him, for she looked at Zardot as he lay there at her brother's feet, and her eyes rained love which calmed the sea like oil. And then James saw himself, as if from far. Lisbeth! he cried, but she did not hear, so he held his two arms up toward the sky and whispered, God! God! God! Forgive James Harbit, the wicked sinner, and take him. His voice sank to a low, inhuman key, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. O God! and with arms still raised in suppliance for his great unselfish soul, he sprang out backward to the darkening sea. THE END OF THE TWO APPLES By James Edmund Dunning The burden of Uncle Bentley has always rested heavily on our town. Having not a shadow of business to attend to, he has made other people's business his own, and looked after it in season and out, especially out. If there is a thing that nobody wants done, to this Uncle Bentley applies his busy hand. One warm summer Sunday we were all at church. Our pastor had taken the passage on turning the other cheek, or one akin to it, for his text, and was preaching on peace and quiet and non-resistance. He soon had us in a devout mood, which must have been beautiful to see and encouraging to the good man. Of course Uncle Bentley was there, he always was, and forever in the front pew, with his neck craned up looking backward to see if there was anything that didn't need doing, which he could do. He always tinkered with the fires in the winter, and fussed with the windows in the summer, and did his worst with each. His strongest church-point was ushering. Not content to usher the strangers within our gates, he would usher all of us, and always thrust us into pews with just the people we didn't want to sit with. If you failed to follow him when he took you in tow, he would stop and look back reproachfully, describing mighty in-drawing curves with his arm, and if you pretended not to see him, he would give a low whistle to attract your attention, the arms working right along like a Holland windmill. On this particular warm summer Sunday, Uncle Bentley was in place wearing his long, full-skirted coat, a queer, dark, bottle-green, purplish blue. He had ushered to his own exceeding joy, and got two men in one pew, and given them a single hymn-book, who wouldn't, on a weekday, speak to each other. I ought to mention that we had long before made a verb of Uncle Bentley. To Uncle Bentley was to do the wrong thing. It was a regular verb, Uncle Bentley, Uncle Bentley'd, Uncle Bentley-ing. These two rampant enemies in the same pew had been Uncle Bentley'd. The minister was floating along smoothly on the subject of peace when Uncle Bentley was observed to throw up his head. He had heard a sound outside. It was really nothing but one of Deacon Plummer's young roosters crowing. The Deacon lived near, and the vocal offerings from his poultry were frequent, and had ceased to interest anyone, except Uncle Bentley. Then, in the pauses between the preacher's periods, we heard the flapping of wings, with sudden stoppings, and startings. Those unregenerated fowl, unable to understand the good man's words, were fighting. Even this didn't interest us. We were committed to peace. But Uncle Bentley shot up like a jack in the box, and cantered down the aisle. Of course, his notion was that the roosters were disturbing the services, and that it was his duty to go out and stop them. We heard vigorous shoo's, and take that's, and consarnya. And then Uncle Bentley came back, looking more important. And as he stopped up the aisle, he glanced around, and nodded his head, saying as clearly as words, There! Where would you be without me? Another defiant crow floated in at the window. The next moment the rushing and beating of wings began again, and down the aisle went Uncle Bentley. The long tails of that coat fairly floating like a cloud behind him. There was further uproar outside, and Uncle Bentley was back in his place, this time turning around and whispering hoarsely. I affixed him. But such was not the case, for twice more the very same thing was repeated. The last time Uncle Bentley came back he wore a calm, snug expression, as who would say, Now I have fixed him. We should have liked it better if the roosters had fixed Uncle Bentley. But nobody paid much attention except Deacon Plummer. The thought occurred to him that perhaps Uncle Bentley had killed the fowls. But he hadn't. However there was no more disturbance without, and after a time the sermon closed. There was some sort of special collection to be taken up. Of course Uncle Bentley always insisted on taking up all the collections. He hopped up on this occasion and seized the plate with more than usual vigor. His struggles with the roosters had evidently stimulated him. He soon made the rounds and approached the table in front of the pulpit to deposit his harvest. As he did so we saw to our horror that the long tails of the ridiculous coat were violently agitated. A sickening suspicion came over us. The next moment one of those belligerent young roosters thrust ahead out of either of those coattail pockets. One uttered a raucous crow and the other made a vicious dab. Uncle Bentley dropped the plate with a scattering of coins, seized a coat skirt in each hand and drew it forward. This dumped both fowls out on the floor where they went at it hammer and tongs. What happened after this is a blur in most of our memories. All that is certain is that there was an uproar in the congregation. Especially the younger portion. That the deacon began making unsuccessful dives for his poultry. That the organist struck up onward Christian soldiers. And that the minister waved us away without a benediction amid loud shouts of, Shoo! I swarn ya and draught the pesky critters from your Uncle Bentley. Did it serve to subdue Uncle Bentley? Not in the least. He survived to do worse things. The End of Uncle Bentley and the Roosters by Hayden Caruth