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Updated: June 8, 2025
In the fall, I notice on the ground, either within or in the neighborhood of oak woods, on all sides of the town, stout oak twigs three or four inches long, bearing half-a-dozen empty acorn-cups, which twigs have been gnawed off by squirrels, on both sides of the nuts, in order to make them more portable.
To get some idea of this peculiarly Californian institution as we encountered it, imagine a side-hill which would have given the best horse a hard pull, even had it been bare of undergrowth, and set this hill as thick as it will hold with manzanita and burr-oak: the former, as its name implies, like a little apple-tree, only more viciously gnarled, leathery, and complicated in its boughs than the most picturesque old russet in a New-England orchard, and ramifying at once from the root without any main trunk; the latter, an oak-bush of the same general characteristics, having its swarming acorn-cups covered with spikes like the chestnut.
After one of these women, in Williams township, had been punished for enchanting a twenty-dollar horse, their sabbaths were held more quietly. Mom Rinkle, whose "rock" is pointed out beside the Wissahickon, in Philadelphia, "drank dew from acorn-cups and had the evil eye." Juan Perea, of San Mateo, New Mexico, would fly with his chums to meetings in the mountains in the shape of a fire-ball.
Between this little king and queen of sprites there happened, at this time, a sad disagreement: they never met by moonlight in the shady walks of this pleasant wood, but they were quarrelling, till all their fairy elves would creep into acorn-cups and hide themselves for fear.
Between this little king and queen of sprites there happened, at this time, a sad disagreement; they never met by moonlight in the shady walks of this pleasant wood, but they were quarrelling, till all their fairy elves would creep into acorn-cups and hide themselves for fear.
Then came recollections of later days, when John was a young man, and Lizzy still a little girl, when long talks banished turkeys and apples and sliding, when new books or sleigh-rides crowded out the old games, when the two days of John's yearly visit were half-spent in the leafless, sunny woods, gathering mosses and acorn-cups, delicate fern leaves, and clusters of fire-moss, and red winter-green berries, for the pretty frames and baskets Lizzy's skilful fingers fabricated, when he shook hands at coming and going, instead of kissing her; but it seemed just the same, somehow.
One might have said that the cloth was laid above giant mushroom-stems, the service acorn-cups and calices of milky blooms; golden was the honey-comb we broke, manna was our bread; she caught the water in her hand from the fountain and pledged me, and swift as sunshine I bent forward and prevented the thirsty lips.
The tiny queen of fairy-land, Who knows thy speed, hath sent thee far, To bring, or ere the night-watch stand, Rich essence for her shadowy car: Perchance her acorn-cups to fill With nectar from the Indian rose, Or gather, near some haunted rill, May-dews, that lull to sleep Love's woes: Or, o'er the mountains, bade thee fly, To tell her fairy love to speed, When ev'ning steals upon the sky, To dance along the twilight mead.
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