282 In Touch with Nature. 



greater prominence than its position among forest 

 trees calls for, notwithstanding Gray says it some- 

 times reaches a height of seventy feet. Along the 

 hill-side, in the meadows, and skirting the several 

 huge upland sink-holes are quite a number of 

 persimmon-trees, and when rambling about my 

 one-time country home in summer, I probably 

 quite overlook them. They are not a feature of 

 that season. Every tree about them has been 

 long in leaf, and they are lost in the crowd. But 

 pass this way in the golden days of frosty October. 

 Look through the red-leaved branches or over 

 the brown fields, and spy out at last a tree with 

 branches bare as midwinter of foliage, but laden 

 with golden fruit. It is something to be remem- 

 bered : a goodly sight, one that rids autumn of 

 the charge of emptiness, of being a season of 

 decay and desolation. Doubtless, if this royal- 

 looking fruit competed with strawberries in June, 

 or later with the good things of August, it would 

 lack a champion ; but coming upon the scene after 

 all other fruits have been gathered, it has found 

 many to speak for it, even if never loud in their 

 praises. On the yet green and growing grass I 



