NATURE AND THE CITY. 325 



cherries, peaches, apricots, the early apples, plums, 

 pears, the fall and winter apples — and all still lapping 

 over from one season to another, the maple syrup often 

 doing duty even in winter, a year from its making, 

 along with the berries of last summer and the apples 

 of the fall. There have been known such prosperous 

 years on the old homestead that the old promise to 

 Israel seemed to have been fulfilled especially for us, 

 that the "threshing shall reach into the vintage, and 

 the vintage shall reach into the sowing time." On 

 those memorable, happy years, the last run of the sap 

 at sugar-making would lap over on to the spring plow- 

 ing and the pruning, the early vegetables would still 

 be palatable when the later garden was well under way, 

 haying and harvest would extend until the apples were 

 ripe, threshing would occupy us up to cider-making, 

 and the corn husking and hauling in of the winter 

 wood and the other fall work would keep us busy until 

 the hogs were fattened — and by that time the sap was 

 in the trees again and the camp opened. But they have 

 not all been such years ; for sometimes the sugar season 

 was a short one, frost nipped the fruit buds, rain spoiled 

 the hay and flattened the grain, worms and insects got 

 in the garden patch, wasps stung the grapes, and some- 

 how the winter wood was water-soaked and doty. 



In many city yards, cut up for a subdivision, last 

 remnants of the country still linger where not dis- 

 turbed. An occasional stray violet may yet stay to 

 bloom by the wayside, golden-rod and iron weed shake 

 their tassels in a fence-corner, or a clump of elderberry 

 bushes hold aloft their glistening cymes of jet black 

 berries. But, when pent-up perforce for a time between 



