A Window in Arcady 
of his vocation; by no means, for ginseng is the most 
select of roots, and sells dried for about $3 a pound. 
He tests me in half a dozen ways, as a trout a suspicious 
worm, before, assured of my trustworthiness, he shows 
me one of the precious forked roots, and bites into it 
for love of its warm, spicy flavor. Like poet and fish¬ 
erman, the ginseng hunter is born, not made. At his 
best he is kin to Thoreau’s famous visitor at Walden 
Pond—that true Homeric or Paphlagonian man. He 
loves the wild life of outdoors for its own wild sake, and 
all elemental things—the sunshine, and the wind, the low 
flying mist, even a dash of rain; uncultured though he be, 
there is that in him which responds blindly to the solem¬ 
nities of the still deep woods, where the rare plant of his 
seeking spreads its palmate leaves and nurses its family 
of small red berries. With the ginseng of the books he 
has no acquaintance; what he knows is “ginshang,” but 
this so familiarly that he has even verbalized it, and speaks 
of its quest as “goin’ ginshangin’.” He will spend days in 
contented search for it, faring dinnerless if need be, and 
sleeping out in the open, until with pockets packed and 
bulging, he returns to his home, lays his spoil on the 
garret floor to dry and takes up again the thread of his 
village life. As other men go fishing, he goes “gins- 
hanging.” 
July 10.—Jack-in-the-pulpit has a cousin that loves 
to live in the sunshine by the river waters. Sometimes 
we find it when we go for water lilies. Arrow arum is 
its name. It is a stemless plant, readily recognized by its 
stately upright leaves with blades shaped like great flat 
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