STRAWBERRIES. 73 



comes up in your face ; to your knees you are in a 

 sea of daisies and clover ; from your knees up you 

 are in a sea of solar light and warmth. Now you are 

 prostrate like a swimmer, or like a surf -bather reach- 

 ing for pebbles or shells, the white and green spray 

 breaks above you ; then like a devotee before a 

 shrine, or naming his beads, your rosary strung with 

 luscious berries ; anon you are a grazing Nebuchad- 

 nezzar, or an artist taking an inverted view of the 

 landscape. 



The birds are alarmed by your close scrutiny of 

 their domain. They hardly know whether to sing or 

 to cry, and do a little of both. The bobolink follows 

 you and circles above and in advance of you, and is 

 ready to give you a triumphal exit from the field, if 

 you will only depart. 



" Ye boys that gather flowers and strawberries, 

 Lo, hid within the grass, an adder lies," 



Warton makes Virgil sing; and Montaigne, in his 

 Journey to Italy, says, " The children very often are 

 afraid, on account of the snakes, to go and pick the 

 strawberries that grow in quantities on the mountains 

 and among the bushes." But there is no serpent 

 here at worst, only a bumble-bee's or yellow-jack- 

 et's nest. JYou soon find out the spring in the corner 

 of the field under the beechen tree. While you wipe 

 your brow and thank the Lord for spring water, you 

 glance at the initials in the bark, some of them so old 

 that they seem runic and legendary. You find out, 

 also, how gregarious the strawberry is that the dif 



