172 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



pushed about a little, in one direction and 

 another, and finding nothing but woods, re- 

 turned to the path and retraced my steps. I 

 might as well try to find my own lost youth as 

 those well-remembered huckleberry patches. 

 Even in that far-away time so the re- 

 collection comes to me now the place was 

 not strictly a pasture. It had been such, no 

 doubt, and Harvey White, whoever he was, 

 had owned it. Probably his cattle had once 

 been pastured there. Now he owned no land, 

 being nothing but a clod himself, and this 

 broad clearing would not have kept a single 

 cow from starvation. The wilderness was 

 claiming its own again. Instead of the grass 

 had come up the huckleberry bushes, the New 

 England heather. These, with a sprinkling 

 of blackberry vines, barberry bushes, and 

 savins, filled the place from end to end. We 

 knew them all. In the season we gathered 

 huckleberries, blackberries, and barberries 

 (the last made what some gastronomic cob- 

 bler called felicitously " shoe-peg sauce "), 

 while the young cone-shaped cedars were of 

 use as landmarks. We could leave a pail or 

 basket in the shelter of one, and with good 



