By Melissa Mahoney.
The signs began about a mile away in each direction, squatting along the side of Daniel Shay’s Highway on spindly wire legs. They were a few shades lighter than a Red Delicious, with rounded white lettering that read something friendly on each one. In the summer, the signs offered Fresh bluberries!; in the fall, Pick your own apples! Cortland and MacIntosh!; in the winter, Homemade pies!; and all year round, Breakfast with a view!.
My twin sister Hillary and I had passed these little red outbursts for three years on our regular drive from home in Wilmington, MA to school in Amherst, MA, never bothering to stop. We were too tired, or late setting out, or late getting back. We were busy getting degrees so we could drive past those signs one last time without ever even really seeing them. We had too much to do, and no time for apple trees and local charm.
The road rose up to meet the Hamilton Orchard sign on the shoulder and then rapidly declined after. It hoisted us up to the place, encouraging us to stop at this one human gathering among the autumn stands of trees and the silent spread-out houses, as if knowing we might never come back.
“Hey Hill,” I said after we passed Cider donuts!. It was a Sunday, and for once we had set out early. “Want to stop in there?”
“What, the orchard?” she said. “Sure, we always pass it.”
I slowed the car as we climbed the rise, and took a right at the blinking yellow light across the street that had tried to flag us down so many times. The road dipped beneath us as we left the Massachusetts highway system’s care, and Hillary yelped and grabbed the fishbowl off the floor of the car. Prospero, her beta fish, had come home with us for the weekend, and was prone to spilling on the back roads.
The road continued to climb past secluded split-level homes on the left, and an aging cement-post fence on the right. Huge maples hung branches dripping topaz and rubies overhead, while dust rising off the road gave a golden sparkle to the afternoon air—an intimacy of color unimaginable from the highway. Solemn pines and hemlocks gathered behind the vibrant groves, as if knowing the deciduous were the autumn’s stars, and that their time would come come winter. With our windows up, the only sound was the slow grind of asphalt to gravel, and the quiet slosh of Prospero’s bowl.
At the top of the rise, I turned left into the orchard’s unpaved parking lot. The wheels heaved down with a sigh, happy to be touching earth after the burn of the pavement.
A dog about the size of a large pumpkin stood in the middle of the lane. He didn’t budge as we approached. He stared from beneath a mop of shaggy black and white fur.
“Dog, move!” I yelled into the windshield. Two motorcyclists grinned into their leather gloves as I inched the car around the dog and into a parking spot.
“Whaddare you doing, puppy?” Hill asked the air in a baby voice. The dog couldn’t hear us, but Hill tried anyway. She has always been obsessed with dogs, but since our family is mostly allergic, she’d had to make due with fish.
Hillary put Prospero back on the floor of the passenger seat and we stepped out into the crisp autumn air. The parking lot and the Apple Shack, the orchard’s shop, were perched on a ridge that allowed for incredible views: the orchard fell away in rows before our feet and tumbled into the round, autumn-hued heaps of the Berkshires in the distance. The clouds had gathered quickly, chilling the air so rapidly that an apple-scented mist played around the ankles of those among the trees. Visitors lounged on picnic tables outside the Shack, sipping hot cider while their bushel bags slouched on the benches next to them.
The Apple Shack had a rustic exterior with two doors: one labeled “IN” and one labeled “OUT” in white-and-red above the door frames. Tiered rows of orange pumpkins sat stark against the dark-grain wood siding, as if apple-picking were a spectator sport, and they had come to cheer on the pickers from the bleachers.
We entered the Shack through the “IN”-door, its aged spring giggling as the door swung open and then shut behind us with a happy snap. Visitors meandered through the small shop, taking in the warmth and the smells. The air itself seemed to have been mulled from cider spices, as our noses filled with cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and brown sugar.
A vast collection of apple-themed oven mitts engulfed the right wall and the partition to the bakery. A young employee in the corner made apple cider donuts, sending the dough skittering into boiling oil and then coaxing the baked donut onto a conveyor belt that deposited it in a large bowl. Containers of finished donuts lined the back wall, sorted by how the donuts were garnished: cinnamon sugar, white sugar, or simply plain. Waist-high tables supported baskets of apple tarts, whoopie pies—chocolate, red velvet, and pumpkin—and mounds of fudge.
Further along the back wall, coolers chilled down fresh cider by the pint, quart, and gallon. Repurposed bookshelves held homemade candy, boxes of mulling spices, and local soaps along with a few children’s books scattered across the tops.
There was something invariably human here, something comforting in seeing my donut dusted with sugar before my eyes, or an apple tart sliding from oven, to box, to bakery counter. Except for the calorie count, there was nothing significant about that table full of deserts; yet as we gathered up donuts, whoopie pies, and mulling spices, time slowed to the leisurely shuffle of feet on worn floorboards and chilled fingers finding warmth in hot cider. I felt a kind of joy bubbling up from a place I’d forgotten about among life’s hustle, a place that loved autumn, and honest work, and small moments.
We meandered to the very back of the Shack, where an addition had been put on. One large step separated the two parts of the building, as the addition had been built at a slightly higher level. A wood-burning stove hummed merrily in the corner, giving heat to the elderly locals and families lining four picnic tables along the wall. The addition served as a kind of cafeteria, with a large window that displayed an expansive view of the orchard and the mountains beyond. To the left, griddles lined the walls behind a counter filled with sausages and pancakes, with a bored cook pacing in between.
“Breakfast served ‘til 3pm,” Hill said, holding up a menu full of eggs, meats, carbs, and 1970s fonts.
“‘Breakfast with a view!’ We found it,” I laughed. “Do you want to get something?”
“Nah,” she said, glancing at her watch over an armful of goods. “I’ve got donuts and a whoopie pie.”
We drifted back through the crowd to the shop’s “OUT”-door, the large letters loudly reminding us we had finished the loop and there was nothing left to explore. Pre-picked bushels of Cortlands and MacIntoshes sat expectantly on wooden crates near the register, which only accepted cash.
“Three and three and three and four, thats thirteen dollars please,” the woman at the register said, counting up our purchases. Hill and I fumbled through our wallets, divvying up the cost by who had the most small bills to contribute. We have a tendency to not carry cash, and it always makes us a little flustered when its required.
Together we exited through the “OUT”-door and took up a picnic table overlooking the orchard. Hillary peeled the Cellophane from her red velvet whoopie pie, and I went for a cinnamon sugar cider donut. The sugar gave a satisfying crunch with each bite before melting and mixing with the Cortland flavors on my tongue. I could taste the cider syrup that had been swirled in the yellow batter and fried to dense, cakey perfection.
The clouds had thickened during our time in the shop, muting the foliage that dotted the far hills and giving the air an extra crispness that nipped my fingers. As I cleared my throat, thoughts of the homework left undone, the emails left unsent began to seep into my mind, quieting the joy I had felt before.
The small scruffy dog from the parking lot wandered over, enticed by our purchases but ignoring our outstretched hands, our “Hi, puppy!” and “Who’s a good boy?”. It snuffled beneath our table, totally uninterested in our affection but avidly seeking our scraps. A slight breeze blew the aroma of baking apple tarts down the hill and into the trees, leaving behind the smell of wet leaves and the deepening chill.
“Want to get going?” I said at last, licking my fingers for sugary crumbs and warmth.
“Yeah,” Hill said. “I don’t want Prospy to get too cold.”
We got back in the car and drove out of the parking lot, following the crumbling road back to Route 202, Daniel Shay’s Highway. The thrum of the tires slowly but surely lulled whatever had awakened in my spirit back to that forgotten place, a place of time like molasses and pastries like piles of leaves, of simple pleasures and gravity that rounds mountains, a place with a sign like a Red Delicious and patient stand of pumpkins. As we pulled into the parking lot at UMass, the smell of cider lingered until we opened the doors. Cold air rushed in, and with it came the numbing chill of our regularly scheduled lives.