before any apple is sold from the year's crop, one is taken from the lowest branch and left on the step of the parish house overnight. nobody guards it. by morning it is gone, taken — they say — by whoever needed it more than the orchard did. this is the whole of the rite, and it has been done in this corner of the country since at least the time of the long winter of 1714.
the day proper is the second sunday of september, when the first crate is opened in public. the orchard-keeper holds up one apple, cuts it in eight, and gives a piece to whoever happens to be standing nearest. the rest of the basket is for sharing slowly, through the afternoon, between strangers. the day ends with someone reading aloud the names of those who have died between this harvest and the last.
today the festival is small. perhaps thirty people. children run the apples to the porch the night before, arguing in low voices about which one is the right one. the cut apple is eaten standing, in the road, before anybody talks about anything else.
— field note: the apple left on the step was, this year, a small green one with a bruise on its cheek. it was gone by five.