The Wood’s Edge 
the poker would be great friends, you would think. Some¬ 
times its erect fronds are seen rising from amid a bed 
of poison ivy, reminding you of some sweet soul that in 
spite of evil surroundings strives resolutely upward to the 
light. The fern’s name is the ebony spleenwort—ebony 
because the stalk and midrib are dark and shining, and 
spleenwort because men used to think ferns of this tribe 
were remedial in diseases of the spleen. 
Now are the childhood days of the nuts which will be 
cracking next fall and winter. It is worth your while, 
when you are so close to the woods, to take a look at them 
in the nursery. The chestnuts are hardly out of long 
clothes yet, for they were still in flower a week or two 
ago, but you will find them snuggling among the leaves 
near the branch tips; shellbarks and walnuts bloomed more 
than a month ago, and these baby nuts now look like fat 
little flasks; it is pleasant to rub them and sniff their 
wholesome, bitterish fragrance. Infant beechnuts are 
bristly little fellows on rather long stalks, and when quite 
young make you think of tiny brushes that have been 
dipped in yellow. They are getting to be big boys now* 
as also are the hazels, which are encased in tight green 
jackets with frills. 
July 8. —It is back in the hills, far from the madding 
trolley gong, that I meet now and then a ginseng hunter. 
It may be he sees me stoop to a plant, and a fellow-feel¬ 
ing prompts him to acquaintanceship; or perhaps he drops 
in upon me as I am weathering a shower in some wayside 
shack, and fellowship in adversity makes, for the nonce, 
of us two one. Not that he divulges at once the fact 
[69] 
