PLUM-TREE GUM 



fruit trees were scattered about the com de recreation. 1 

 can now carve it, in fancy, out of the cultivated land shown 

 by the engraver in the most engaging conventional manner, 

 at the back of the northern street front an acre or so. 

 Perhaps a little more / likelier still, a little less : recollec- 

 tions of this kind have a knack of magnifying affairs. It 

 is bounded by grey walls, tall and thick, but distinctly 

 decrepit. The trees were, of course, long past bearing, 

 through age and neglect / but they were pleasant company, 

 whether snow-laden, or in summer affording their scanty 

 shade. Plum trees they were, I should say. At any rate 

 the rough bark of their boles distilled a kind of brown gum 

 which was in great demand among us small boys for imme- 

 diate consumption 1 / and sedulously scooped out, as soon 

 as discovered, with the help of the stump end of a steel- 

 pen nib. 



Interspersed among these remnants of the forgotten orchard 

 were the odd groups of Lilacs and Acacias previously 

 mentioned. The latter, the Acacias, were tall and above 

 interference. But strict were the standing orders touching 

 the bloom of the Lilac, and dire the prospect of pensum 

 or piquet to the youthful scholar who should dare to pluck 

 the fragrant bunches ! 



Thus came the Lilac to assume a character at once sacred 

 or, at least, " taboo "~ and at the same time perennially 

 tantalizing. It was long before the realization dawned that 

 Lilas were not the rare and precious blossoms that so 

 uncompromising a prohibition appeared to proclaim. As 

 a matter of fact, the Lilas, Blanc ou Rose, is one of the 

 commonest of spring objects in France. Almost might it 

 in its popularity be regarded as the national emblem of the 



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