Persimmons. 285 



and I might not like it now, but it was better than 

 the average ginger-cake, and possessed the rare 

 merit of novelty. It was something to boast of, 

 and I did boast, and involved it all with mystery, 

 for no one in all that school knew where the 

 basket-maker lived. Every Saturday, in the 

 season, I secured a persimmon loaf and displayed 

 and shared it with the boys on Monday. Life 

 was worth living then, so persimmons, that helped 

 to make it so, have not lost favor since. How 

 often of late I have spoken of this persimmon 

 bread as a novelty, and there has been none to 

 gainsay me ! but it is no novelty after all. In Pick- 

 ering's " Chronological History of Plants" I find 

 it recorded that De Soto found loaves made of per- 

 simmon pulp, " like unto bricks." The basket- 

 maker's cakes were only so far " like unto bricks" 

 as to be of that shape. They were really tooth- 

 some. 



It would appear, according to Kalm, that in 

 early colonial times the persimmon was not so 

 despised as now ; pigs and small boys had their 

 share only, not all. Our author says, " In a 

 great book, which contains a description of Vir- 



