106 The Parks. 



cherries remind one of bright new shoe buttons, but my 

 companion has said it was shameful to compare them to 

 such things, and Pomona would not be pleased if she 

 heard me say it. Indeed she did not forget to give them a 

 decided flavor — the flavor of wild cherries, who cannot 

 remember that ? You taste it to the bottom of your 

 stomach. 



Pomona also provides huckleberries, and the cat-birds, 

 as a short cut to them, build their nests in the bushes, and 

 often scold me, if I appear at the other end of the patch. 



Still later come the apples, borne on a few twisted 

 sprawling trees standing in one of the parks, and surrounded 

 by cedars, by oaks, and by other indigenous growth. I do 

 not think the fruit would bring a high price in the market, 

 but it is far too good to send there, it serves a better pur- 

 pose where it is. It is not always well to send all the 

 apples to market, or pick all the nuts from a tree — you do 

 not "then get the best they can give you. 



The ants run about under the apple trees, and what an 

 important matter to them is this falling off of the fruit. 

 Who can tell if many are not killed so ; they run a great 

 risk. Probably the universal eye beholds the meteors 

 falling to the Earth, as often as we see the apples descen- 

 ding to the ground, and yet men are not killed by them, 

 the land and the sea are so wide. Thus, perhaps, it rarely 

 happens, that an ant is crushed to death beneath an apple 

 tree. 



Some of the apple trees look aflame with their fruit, 

 and the ground is speckled red. How pleasing are the 

 little dots on the rosy skin, they seem to be made for 



