All smile so kind to us; and oh, how good dat
warm, nice food taste, we so hongry!"
He remembered every detail of his stay. The red apples that we had given
him seemed to have impressed him especially; neither of the boys had
ever eaten an apple before.
"Whole big basketful you fetch up from de cellar and say tak all you
want," he ran on, still laughing. "Naver any apple taste like dose, so
beeg, so red!"
As we sat and talked he told us of his present business and how he had
tried the then novel experiment of shipping small lots of New England
apples to Italy. There had been doubt whether the apples would bear the
voyage and arrive in sound condition, but he had no trouble when the
fruit was carefully selected and well put up. That led him to inquire
about our apple crop and to explain that that was perhaps one of the
reasons--not the only one--for his visit.
"I know you raise good apples," he said. "I like to buy them."
We told him how many we had, and he asked what price we expected to get.
We answered that the local dealers had already fixed the price that fall
at two dollars a barrel.
"I will pay you two dollars and a half," Emilio said without a moment's
hesitation.
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