ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 175 
to afford much welcome protection from the 
sun. Here it was good to find the sassafras 
growing side by side with the persimmon, al- 
though when, for old acquaintance’ sake, I 
put a leaf into my mouth I was half glad to 
fancy it a thought less savory than some I 
had tastedin Yankeeland. I took a kind of 
foolish satisfaction, too, in the obvious fact 
that certain plants — the sumach and the 
Virginia creeper, to mention no others — 
were less at home here than a thousand miles 
farther north. With the wild-cherry trees, I 
was obliged to confess, the case was reversed. 
I had seen larger ones in Massachusetts, per- 
haps, but none that looked half so clean and 
thrifty. In truth, their appearance was a 
puzzle, rum-cherry trees as by all tokens they 
undoubtedly were, till of a sudden it flashed 
upon me that there were no caterpillars’ nests 
in them! Then I ceased to wonder at their 
odd look. It spoke well for my botanical 
acumen that I had recognized them at all. 
Before I had been a weeksin Tallahassee 
I found that, without forethought or plan, I 
had dropped into the habit (and how pleas- 
ant it is to think that some good habits can 
be dropped into !) of making the St. Augus- 
