140 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



large as the Black Hamburgs. It is slow 

 work picking them. I do not see how the 

 gatherers for the vintage ever get off enough. 

 It takes so long to disentangle the bunches 

 from the leaves and the interlacing vines 

 and the supporting tendrils ; and then I like 

 to hold up each bunch and look at it in 

 the sunlight, and get the fragrance and the 

 bloom of it, and show it to Polly, who is 

 making herself useful, as taster and com- 

 panion, at the foot of the ladder, before 

 dropping it into the basket. But we have 

 other company. The robin, the most know- 

 ing and greedy bird out of paradise (I trust 

 he will always be kept out), has discovered 

 that the grape-crop is uncommonly good, and 

 has come back, with his whole tribe and 

 family, larger than it was in pea-time. He 

 knows the ripest bunches as well as any- 

 body, and tries them all. If he would take 

 a whole bunch here and there, say half the 

 number, and be off with it, I should not so 

 much care. But he will not. He pecks 

 away at all the bunches, and spoils as many 

 as he can. It is time he went south. 



