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SS C ^ S i 0NALLY there is a mill rape 
ORA SHIMMERING flow down a half 
- SoAKS^vnan WHILE ALL ABORT 
THE OAKS AND SILVER BIRCHES GLEAM 
WELCOME. 
If you have no sons of your own, then 
borrow a son. Take some OTHER in¬ 
dolent, sluggish man’s boy out for a 
good time in the game country. 
That third morning found me oddly 
and paternally linked with my environ¬ 
ment. The little farmhouse, and the 
barn and the outer boundaries of woods 
and berry bushes and fruit trees and 
sky so near that we could all but touch 
it, were wholesomely intimate things. 
I think I realized, with greater signifi¬ 
cance than ever, how far more whole¬ 
some and lovable and sincere were the 
places away from cities. • 
And there were just the two of us. 
We had breakfast in the tiny kitchen 
and then, with buckets over our arms, 
set forth on a berrying expedition. 
Mister Chip’s promise of trout was 
secondary. Not one hundred feet from 
the farm, we came upon wild black caps 
and the plumpest of tempting, 
lustrous red raspberries, pioneers 
of the age that had planted them, 
long, long ago. They hid from us 
beneath clumps of wide leaves, 
and peeped out at us from caverns 
of shadow. Thirty years ago—or 
more—sturdy hands had set out 
the first plants. And time had 
covered them up, and set them to 
pioneering on their own. Often 
we found a wind-blown harvest 
beneath a canopy of white birch, 
segregated and alone, but proudly 
bearing, as if they dared the iso¬ 
lation. 
And so, every little while, over 
a barrier of green, I would hear 
his exultant voice cry: “Oh, come 
over HERE, Father! This is a fine 
patch. More’n you can ever, ever pick! 
If Mother could be here . . . wouldn’t 
she like it? These are BIG ones.” 
Youth has such an advantage with its 
natural enthusiasms. 
I never envied them more than when 
I heard them shout across the top of a 
mountain berry bush in the early morn¬ 
ing. 
Indeed, the farm was a veritable 
■ treasure trove of more practical things 
than romance. 
Although the nearest “civilization” 
was miles distant, enough of genera¬ 
tions gone remained to give us constant 
pleasure. Bees hummed incessantly in 
the countless old apple trees and the 
last of the cherries had left birds noisy 
in the neighborhood. 
While sitting on the rickety front 
porch, we could watch the insistent 
progress of chipmunks, as they played 
upon the dismantled stone wall, and 
there were indications that the deep 
wood, to the rear of the house, held 
everything from fox to wildcat. 
When the hour was hushed, the roar 
of the falls was ever in our ears, like a 
blurr of sound, bringing with it a thou¬ 
sand voices of a thousand trails over 
which those wild waters had rushed in 
their final journey. 
My thoughts turned, irresistably, to 
trout. 
Sonnyboy was to know what it really 
means to whip a stream and to see the 
fighting heroes landed at last on the 
fern and grass. 
It was across the berry bushes, in 
that sublime mountain hush, that a 
significant running fire of conversation 
took place. I could not see Sonnyboy 
nor could he see me. But we were 
within companionable talking range 
nevertheless. 
“Father.” 
“Yes, Son.” 
“When YOU were a boy, did you 
pick berries like this? Did you go 
to a place where there was a barn, 
J^L C0ULD Sta ND ON THE BRIDGE AND 
down upon them as they 
DARTED IN THE SILENT, PURPLING 
o\ATER. WATER THAT WAS HALF MU¬ 
SIC, RIPPLED AND EDDIED ITS UNTIRING 
COURSE. 
and chipmunks, and did you ever sleep 
in a place where you could see the 
rafters . . . where wasps had nests?” 
“No, Son. I missed all that sort of 
thing.” 
“Live in the city?” 
“For the most part.” 
A thoughtful pause and a 
half lost in the tangle of 
bushes. Then— 
“When you were a little boy . . . 
did YOUR father take you to places 
(Continued on page 446) 
little sigh, 
raspberry 
THE OLD HAUNTED HOUSE—REMNANT OF THE 
LONG. LONG AGO. SONNYBOY INSISTED THAT 
HE COULD SEE GHOSTS OF THE DEPARTED 
™^^?IL TIP ’ T0EING THROUGH THE BROKEN 
DOORWAYS. AND JUST BACK OF THIS—THE 
TROUT STREAM. 
POOR RUSTY! HE HAD 
EATEN MORE WOOD¬ 
CHUCK THAN WAS GOOD 
FOR HIM, HIDE. HAIR 
AND ALL, AND HIS DE¬ 
JECTED FACE SHOWS 
THE PRICE HE PAID. 
DOG INDIGESTION IS 
SOMETHIN’ TURRIBLK I 
Page 125 
