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OVER the course of the forty-one years since the death of their father, Alice and Mary Osgood, joint proprietors of the locally known apple of that name, had lived a life which seemed, at least to others, unchanging. In some ways this was an accurate assessment. As twins and spinsters, they had but a single birthday to celebrate; by virtue of their isolation, they received few invitations. They still slept on the same straw-stuffed mattress they had slept on as children, woke each morning with the crowing of the rooster, winced at their cricks (neck, Mary; back, Alice), swung out of bed into the skirt and blouse and jacket laid out on a bedside chair, and went downstairs. They walked softly, a habit from their childhood, though there had been no one else, for years, to wake
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