Midsummer 



thickly with fruit, so thickly that one 

 could live for days on the rocky hillside 

 without other food than this most subtly 

 flavored of all berries. Overhead its pur- 

 ple-flowered sister betrays its kinship with 

 the now abundant w r ild rose, whose deli- 

 cate beauty it fails utterly to rival. In 

 the low thicket are tiny, rose-veined bells 

 of dogbane, and beyond, the bright if 

 somewhat ragged, yellow flowers and dot- 

 ted leaves of the irrepressible St. John's- 

 wort jut up everywhere. 



The umbrella-like clusters of the water 

 hemlock fill the moist ditches and suggest 

 the wild carrot of the later year ; close by 

 the coarse stems and flat, yellow tops of 

 its relative, the meadow parsnip, crowd 

 one upon another. Farther on are soft 

 plumes of the later yellow loosestrife, 

 with little flowers similar to those of the 

 four-leaved loosestrife, which is now on 

 the wane. 



One looks down upon a wood from 

 89 



