A Quest of Fall Berries 



and clear. Autumn, with its frost-painted 

 leaves and bright berries, has vastly more 

 splendor of color than flowery June Itself. 

 The fragrance is lacking, to be sure; but 

 for the pleasure of the eye give me a fall 

 morning, after the first sharp frost. Then 

 indeed one thanks God for the priceless 

 privilege of sight. 



My course led me first up a ragged slope, 

 covered with low bushes and dotted with 

 piles of brush. Half way up the hill I came 

 upon the small, dark blue berry of the 

 Solomon's seal, drooping gracefully from its 

 delicately curved flower-stalk. The Solo- 

 mon's seal is a plant that loves the shade, 

 but it also loves and clings to the spots 

 where its vigorous roots have established 

 themselves, and will often linger in sunny 

 clearings for years after the woods have 

 been cut away. 



Not far from the bed of Solomon's seal, I 

 stumbled on a patch of hobble-bush, strag- 

 gling over the ground and reproducing its 

 short, thick roots at every few feet a ver- 

 itable net and trap for the unwary pedes- 

 trian. Its bright coral berries, however, be- 

 trayed it to me, and with a handful of them 



