Cider Day at Ashford

Medium — logic-grid deduction puzzle

Two cousins and a neighbours' kid each worked one row of apple trees on the last cider day of the year, and you match each helper to a row, a number of buckets, a hat and a lunch.

On a cold, bright morning in late November 1978, the Ashford orchard in Vermont was pressing its last cider of the year. Nora and Eli were cousins who had grown up on the farm. Josie, the neighbours' kid, was helping for the first time and was the only helper from outside the family. Each of the three took one row of apple trees along the orchard road: the near row by the cider barn, the middle row, or the far row at the end. All day, in warm hats and with a packed lunch each, they carried bucket after bucket of fallen apples to the press. At supper Grandpa asked each helper for a next-door count: the buckets emptied in the rows right beside the helper's own row. For the middle row, that meant the near and far rows put together. The near and far rows had only the middle row beside them, so their count was just the middle row's buckets.

Clues

1. Only one of the cousins, Nora and Eli, emptied 24 buckets.
2. The helper who brought doughnuts for lunch emptied 39 buckets.
3. Between Eli and the helper who brought the cornbread, one emptied 24 buckets and the other emptied 29.
4. Whoever wore the earflap cap had a next-door count of 39 buckets.
5. Only one of these was true: Nora emptied 39 buckets, or the helper in the bobble hat emptied 29.
6. Josie did not wear the plaid cap.
7. Grandpa wrote down a next-door count of 39 buckets for the helper in the bobble hat.
8. No one in the near row wore the earflap cap.

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