n 



the persimmons and climbed straight down, not 

 stopped to gaze out upon the pond, and away over 

 the dark ditches to the creek. But reaching out 

 quickly I gathered another handful, and all was 

 yesterday again. 



I filled both pockets of my coat and climbed down. 

 I kept those persimmons and am tasting them to- 

 night. Lupton's Pond may fill to a puddle, the mead- 

 ows may shrivel, the creek dry up and disappear, and 

 old Time may even try his wiles on me. But I shall 

 foil him to the end ; for I am carrying still in my 

 pocket some of yesterday's persimmons, persim- 

 mons that ripened in the rime of a winter when I was 

 a boy. 



High and alone in a bare persimmon tree for one's 

 dinner hardly sounds like a merry Christmas. But I 

 was not alone. I had noted the fresh tracks beneath 

 the tree before I climbed up, and now I saw that the 

 snow had been partly brushed from several of the 

 large limbs as the 'possum had moved about in 

 the tree for his Christmas dinner. We were guests 

 at the same festive board, and both of us at Nature's 

 invitation. It mattered not that the 'possum had 

 eaten and gone this hour or more. Such is good form 



23 



