By eight the apple tree is already polite about gravity. The moose have been issued tiny baskets for their muzzles. Each snout greets the branch first, nods to the nearest bench, and only then takes a single fallen apple.
We asked at the kiosk. "I nearly offered to pick one from the tree," said the woman who sells cider still warm from the pan. "Then a muzzle nodded at the bench, and the basket waited as if the apple had to arrive of its own accord."
The park keeper left a card by the trunk: if the bench has not nodded, please do not lift the fruit. The next morning a neighbor came back with the same paper cup and waited through the greeting, the nod, and the one small apple. She said the cider tasted kinder, though it was the same cider.