114 Next to the Ground 



branch, especially when burning. Sassafras- 

 root bark was good to eat, if you did not try 

 to eat too much of it, full of a burning aromatic 

 bitter, wonderfully staying to the stomach when 

 you were cold and hungry. Now and again 

 also he chewed the budded tips of the stalks. 

 When the buds had swelled to very young 

 leaves, he sometimes ate the leaves outright. 

 He always gathered handfuls of them for his 

 mother to dry. Dried they were good to put 

 in winter soup, though not quite so good as 

 the fresh tips which flavored gumbo in sum- 

 mer. It had to be the merest flavor — if it 

 amounted to a taste, the gumbo was spoiled. 

 It was spoiled anyway if the tips had turned 

 green before they were broken. The time to 

 gather them was while they were brownish 

 red, and so tender a touch bruised them. 



Sassafras is aromatic all through — wood, 

 bark, leaves and fruit. It rarely grows into a 

 big tree, no matter how rich the soil. A trunk 

 three feet through is almost phenomenal. It 

 cannot fight shade, so does not dispute ground 

 with forest trees. Around the edges of a rich 

 low-lying open glade, it often grows very tall, 

 running up maybe fifty feet, with trunks a foot 

 through. The sunny edge of a clearing is 

 indeed its favorite seat. In the fall when the 

 leaves are all of the richest golden-yellow, you 

 may look along field margins, and judge fairly 



