i go 



had tasted one the bitter roughness would 

 have clung to your mouth half the day. 

 Frost has sweetened them. 



It is the same with black haws. Chil- 

 dren and 'possums count them well worth 

 eating. Grown folk are apt to find too little 

 fruit to the amount of seed. Even the birds, 

 save in stress of snow, refuse the big, coarse, 

 red ones that shine like rubies all over 

 thorny branches. The rare, small, red one, 

 growing in clusters much like the garden 

 currant, is a dainty morsel for any palate. 

 It loves the lowland all the hawthorns do 

 and seldom grows twenty feet away from 

 water. Its leaves are among the last to 

 fall. Gather laden branches of it, if only 

 for their beauty. Box-elderberries are the 

 only things that compare with it. Mark 

 the grace of them round beads, true coral 

 red, hung in clusters by white stalks from 

 out a thick crimson-fleshed bract. See how 

 thickly they are sown along smooth, slender, 

 green branches that join at almost right 

 angles to make up a big bough ! The 

 boughs come out as squarely from a smooth, 

 yellow-gray trunk. The tree never grows 

 very tall thirty feet at most. Frost fairies 

 may well choose it for their revels. If it is 

 so lovely by daylight, think what it must be 



