of te 



small the patch of water ! and the two persimmon 

 trees ? The bush and undergrowth had grown these 

 twenty years. Which way Ah, there they stand, 

 only their leafless tops showing; but see the hard 

 angular limbs, how closely globed with fruit ! how 

 softly etched upon the sky ! 



I hurried around to the trees and climbed the one 

 with the two broken branches, up, clear up to the 

 top, into the thick of the persimmons. 



Did I say it had been twenty years ? That could 

 not be. Twenty years would have made me a man, 

 and this sweet, real taste in my mouth only a boy 

 could know. But there was college, and marriage, a 

 Massachusetts farm, four boys of my own, and no 

 matter! it could not have been years twenty years 

 since. Jt was only yesterday that I last climbed this 

 tree and ate the rich rimy fruit frosted with a Christ- 

 mas snow. 



And yet, could it have been yesterday? It was 

 storming, and I clung here in the swirling snow and 

 heard the wild ducks go over in their hurry toward 

 the bay. Yesterday, and all this change in the vast 

 treetop world, this huddled pond, those narrowed 

 meadows, that shrunken creek ! I should have eaten 



22 



