CHAPTER XI. 

 OF VINES. 



AT the end of the island where the summer breezes always 

 blow, where the wild honeysuckle clambers high up into the 

 overhanging maple trees and the bitter-sweet not only covers 

 bushes and tall milkweed with its twisted sprays but pops up its 

 swaying stems all through the grass, beseeching a support, where 

 the wild grape in tangled masses hangs from the iron-woods and 

 small poplars, here would be an ideal place to build a rustic 

 tea-house covered with vines, looking out over the dancing waters. 

 No sooner said than done all except the " covered with vines ! " 

 Those vines of all descriptions avoided that little arbor as if it had 

 the plague. The bitter-sweet at its feet, touching its floor, when 

 coaxed along with a staple or two, merely withered or refused to 

 grow. The wild grape clinging to the tree on the east side had no 

 place in its life for a rustic arbor. We tacked branches of the 

 poplar, vine and all, to the tea-house roof, but the grape turned 

 its back and went to the other side of the tree ; we put some better 

 soil in about the postsand planted woodbines and Japanese clematis 



but they only made a stunted attempt at living, until finally we 



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