54 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



Let me not be afraid of overpraising it, but probe 

 and probe for words to bint its surprising virtues. 

 We may well celebrate it witb festivals and music. 

 It has that iadescribable quality of all first tbings, 

 — tbat sby, uncloying, provoking barbed sweetness. 

 It is eager and sanguine as youtb. It is born of tbe 

 copious dews, tbe fragrant nigbts, tbe tender skies, 

 tbe plentiful rains of tbe early season. The singing 

 of birds is in it, and tbe health and frolic of lusty 

 Nature. It is tbe product of liquid May touched by 

 tbe June sun. It bas the tartness, the briskness, 

 the unruliness of spring, and the aroma and intensity 

 of summer. 



Ob the strawberry days ! how vividly they come 

 back to one! Tbe smell of clover in the fields, of 

 blooming rye on tbe bills, of tbe wild grape beside 

 the woods, and of tbe sweet honeysuckle and spiraea 

 about tbe bouse. Tbe first hot, moist days. The 

 daisies and buttercups ; the song^ of tbe birds, their 

 first reckless jollity and love-making over; tbe full 

 tender foliage of the trees; the bees swarming, and 

 tbe air strung witb resonant musical chords. The 

 time of tbe sweetest and most succulent grass, when 

 the cows come home with aching udders. Indeed, 

 tbe strawberry belongs to the juciest time of tbe 

 year. 



"What a challenge it is to the taste ! how it bites 

 back again! and is there any other sound like the 

 snap and crackle witb which it salutes the ear on 

 being plucked from the stems? It is a threat to 

 one sense tbat the other is soon to verify. It snaps 



