"YARBS" 97 



budding romances of youth. Only common field flowers, but mighty 

 factors through the centuries in developing and ministering to man- 

 kind. 



"Yarbs." 



In different corners of the hedgerows grew "yarbs," and at the edge 

 of the woods and brook shrubs and roots that from the time of the 

 progenitors of Philip of Mount Hope through a half score of 

 American ancestors have . cured the ills of puling infancy and 

 eased the aches of old age. 



"Scarce any plant is growing here that against death some weapon does 



not bear." 



Among these mute, but mighty warriors, defenders and prolongers 

 of man's life, were thoroughwort, stramonium or jimson weed, chamo- 

 mile, senna, boneset, snakeroot, rhubarb, self-heal, sarsaparilla, rue, 

 smartweed, plantain, mandrake, gentian, wormwood, fever-bush, rheu- 

 matism root, alum root, colchicum, bloodroot, bayberry, flagroot, 

 arnica, colic root or star grass, sage, sorrel and tansy, and in larger 

 growth toothache tree and balm of gilead, planted in a sheltered 

 valley, as well as sassafras and witch-hazel, some of which in our 

 home brewed extracts competed and often successfully with those of 

 the apothecary shop. We brewed decoctions from lily of the valley 

 and the fringe tree, and from the rampant growths of spearmint and 

 spikenard, pennyroyal, bergamot, and spice bush, basil or thyme, 

 fennel, caraway, marjoram, valerian and peppermint we expressed 

 perfumes that permeated every corner of buffets and low and high- 

 boys at times packed to their capacity with trousseaux, bed linen and 

 best bibs and tuckers. 



The animal kingdom in our fields, woods and at brookside had 

 generous representation from the old-time grannies, or rather let us 

 crow T n them geniuses. They labeled goatsbeard, skunk-cabbage, horse- 

 radish, horse-geranium and horse-mint, adder's tongue and rattle- 

 snake root, spiderwort and bugbane, crowfoot and coltsfoot, cat- 

 nip, ragged-robin and wake-robin, cat-tail flag and cat-brier ; cowberry, 

 cowslip, cow-parsnip and goose grass, with a side line of milkweed, 

 butter and eggs and buttercups, and dogwood, dogbane, foxglove, 

 chickw r eed, hen and chickens, hogweed, horse tail, duckweed, leopard's 

 bane, crane's bill and squirrel corn, crowberry and crowfoot, sheep- 

 berry, shadbush, nannyberry, crab apple, and toadstools, often over- 

 night-surprise-plants. The delicate pink of the bleeding heart, the 

 spider-web gauze of baby's breath, the gracefully waving, pure 

 white festoons of the bridal wreath, were near neighbors to the 

 matrimony vine ; its pale, dull pink blossoms, made still duller by the 

 blazing star (called the devil's bit, the old fashioned cure for quinsy), 

 and scarlet-lightning, which, with the Star of Bethlehem, brightened 

 hillside and pasture. 



