Four Girls of Forty Years Ago by Nina Rhoades

It was a glorious morning towards the end of June, and the four little Winslows were comfortably established under the big apple-tree. The Winslow Homestead was on the banks of the Hudson, and from where they sat, the children could watch the boats on the river, and even hear the sound of the paddles, as the big excursion steamers plied their busy way between New York and Albany. They could look across to the opposite shore, where the Palisades rose in forms like castles, from the very brink of the river. It was a beautiful view, and the children loved it, as their father had loved it before them. The place had been in the Winslow family for three generations, and old Dr. Winslow himself had climbed that very apple-tree when a boy, and brought down many a shower of half-ripe apples for his younger brothers and sisters. Dulcie and Daisy had never wearied of their father's stories of his boyhood at the old homestead on the Hudson, and the two weeks since the family had left the city had been very pleasant ones.

"I don't know why it is, but Grandma always seems rather nicer in summer than she does in winter," Molly had remarked only that morning. "She doesn't scold half so much, and she lets us do pretty nearly everything we want to."