ON THE NORTH SHORE AGAIN 113 



But if I was glad to see the frost grapes, 

 I was gladder still to see a certain hickory 

 tree. I was scarcely off the marsh before I 

 came to it, and had hardly put my eye upon 

 it before I said to myself (although so far 

 as I could have specified, it looked like any 

 other hickory ; but there is a kind of know- 

 ledge, or half knowledge, that does not rest 

 upon specifications), " There ! That should 

 be a bitternut tree." Now the bitternut is 

 not to be called a rarity, I am assured ; but 

 somehow I had never found it, notwithstand- 

 ing I was a nut-gatherer in my youth, and 

 have continued to be one to this day, an early 

 taste for wild forage being one of the vir- 

 tues that are seldom outgrown. Well, some- 

 thing distracted my attention just then, and 

 I contented myself with putting a leaf and a 

 handful of nuts into my pocket. Only on 

 getting home did I crack one and find it bit- 

 ter. Now, several days afterward, I have 

 cracked another, and tested it more fully. 

 The shell is extremely thin, like a pecan 

 nut's for fragility, and the meat, which is 

 large and full, is both bitter and puckery, 

 suggesting the brown inner partitions of a 



