74 STRAWBERRIES. 



ferent varieties exist in little colonies about the field. 

 When you strike the outskirts of one of these plan- 

 tations, how quickly you work toward the centre of 

 it, and then from the centre out, then circumnavigate 

 it, and follow up all its branchings and windings ! 



Then the delight in the abstract and in the con- 

 crete of strolling and lounging about the June mead- 

 ows ; of lying in pickle for half a day or more in this 

 pastoral sea, laved by the great tide, shone upon by 

 the virile sun, drenched to the very marrow of your 

 being with the warm and wooing influences of the 

 young summer ! 



I was a famous berry-picker when a boy. It was 

 near enough to hunting and fishing to enlist me. 

 Mother would always send me in preference to any of 

 the rest of the boys. I got the biggest berries and the 

 most of them. There was something of the excite- 

 ment of the chase in the occupation, and something of 

 the charm and preciousness of game about the tro- 

 phies. The pursuit had its surprises, its expectancies, 

 its sudden disclosures, in fact, its uncertainties. I 

 went forth adventurously. I could wander free as the 

 wind. Then there were moments of inspiration, for 

 it always seemed a felicitous stroke to light upon a 

 particularly fine spot, as its does when one takes an 

 old and wary trout. You discovered the game where 

 it was hidden. Your genius prompted you. Another 

 had passed that way and had missed the prize. In- 

 deed, the successful berry-picker, like Walton's an- 

 gler, is born, not made. It is only another kind of 



