JUNE O°’ THE YEAR 161 
In due time we start to the wild strawberries 
again, all of us, not as wanting the berries but 
wanting their witchery, their smell, and blush 
on the fingers that pick them, the perfect riot 
of wind-blown flowers sullen because the wind 
will not let them stay long enough to get hold 
of a single strawberry and then to stop and look 
and inhale the smells all mixed together in hilar- 
ious breaths and then down to the boat which 
by this time is rested from its voyage upward 
and ready for its homeward trip. 
The beloveds are aboard and both of them 
trail their hands in the water and finger at the 
lily pads while I row among them, and say sweet 
things of each other and to the humble oars- 
man with the singing heart; and slowly we go 
as not needing to do other than loiter amidst 
the day’s delight, and with the river all bubbly 
with the wind and touched here and there to 
foam we make our home-bound way to come 
toward evening into the shadow of the pine- 
crowned mount, where in the shadows the boats 
lie waiting and my boat of the day comes with 
a contented heart to its anchorage with its 
sister boats, and their shadows and its own, and 
thus wait for the night and its whippoorwill 
call and its stars. 
