BERRY-TIME FELICITIES 155 



when we talked it was mostly of trifles : the 

 bindweed, the goldenrod, a passing butterfly, 

 a sparrow. Those who are really happy are 

 often pleased to speak of matters indifferent. 

 Sometimes I think it is those who only wish 

 to be happy who deal in superlatives and 

 exclamations. 



One thing I was especially glad to see : 

 the big pastures on the Wallace Hill road 

 full of hardhack bloom. Many times, in 

 September and October, I had stopped to 

 gaze upon those acres on acres of brown 

 spires ; now I beheld them pink. It was 

 really a sight, a sea of color. If cattle 

 would eat Spircea tomentosa, the fields 

 would be as good as gold mines. So I 

 thought. I thought, too, what an ocean of 

 " herb tea " might be concocted from those 

 millions and millions of leafy stalks. The 

 idea was too much for me ; imagination was 

 near to being drowned in a sea of its own 

 creating; and I was relieved when we left 

 the rosy wilderness behind us, and came to 

 the famous clump of pear-leaved willow (/Sa- 

 lix balsamifera) near the edge of the wood. 

 This I must get over the fence and put my 



