SIGNS OF SPRING 161 



(it invites breaking by its extreme fragility) 

 for its leaf -buds, pointed, parti-colored, 

 brown and yellowish green, tender-look- 

 ing, but hardy enough to withstand all the 

 rigors of New England frost. The broken 

 end of the branch, where I get the spicy 

 fragrance of the inner bark, brings back a 

 sense of half-forgotten boyish pleasures. I 

 used to nibble the bark in spring. A little 

 dry it was, as I remember it, but it had the 

 spicy taste of wintergreen (checkerberry), 

 without the latter's almost excessive pun- 

 gency, or bite. Some of my country-bred 

 readers must have been accustomed to eat 

 the tender reddish young checkerberry 

 leaves, and will understand perfectly what 

 I mean by that word " bite." I wonder if 

 they had our curious Old Colony name for 

 those vernal dainties. It sounds like canni- 

 balism, but we gathered them and ate them 

 in all innocence (the taste is on my tongue 

 now) as "youngsters." No doubt the tree 

 gets its name, " sweet birch," from this 

 savoriness of its green inner bark, rather 

 than from the pedagogic employment of 

 its branches in schoolrooms as a means of 

 promoting the sweet uses of adversity. 



