“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.”

CHAPTER XXVII.  THE ORDEAL OF BITTER APPLES

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.