MIDSUMMER 203 



Tommy told Grandmother that if he were not a 

 naturalist when he grew up he would be a doctor. 

 Then, he said, he could still love and study plants, 

 and find out which ones would cure sickness. 



Grandmother said then that once she had a 

 gardener who used to make tea from Black Cohosh 

 and drink it to cure his rheumatism. She wasn't 

 quite sure though whether it did cure him or not, 

 for he went away when Herr Wilhelm Fritz came 

 to this country. She remembered that the same 

 man used to hang up dried bunches of Black Co- 

 hosh in the glass-houses to keep insects away from 

 the flowers. 



Tommy was surprised to hear this about Black 

 Cohosh, for his father once told him that long ago 

 the Indians used it as a rattlesnake master. 



I asked him if he meant that people used to 

 wave long wands of the flowers at snakes and 

 charm them, to pay them back for harming birds 

 and rabbits. 



"Oh, no," he said; "it only means that they 

 used the plant to cure snake-bites just as country 

 people do the leaves of the Rattlesnake-weed. 



There are lots of toads in our woods, but nobody 

 minds them. They hop away as fast as they hear 

 any one. I am glad, though, that we seldom see 

 snakes. Tommy thinks this Is silly and often tells 

 me that many of them are good creatures, for they 

 eat worms and mites that would do the plants no 

 good. Ladybugs and toads also eat up harmful 



