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The only literary prodigy among our neighbors was a maiden lady who wrote obituary verses on the death of her pious friends. The berry season lasted several weeks, and toward its close prudent housewives dried some for winter use or preserved them in molasses. The last we gathered were the swamp, or high-bush blueberries.
Long strings of silvery-grey tree-moss hung dangling over their heads, the bark and roots of the birch and cedars were covered with a luxuriant growth of green moss, but there was a dampness and closeness in this place that made it far from wholesome, and the little band of voyagers were not very sorry when the water became too shallow to admit of the canoe making its way through the swampy channel, and they landed on the banks of a small circular pond, as round as a ring, and nearly surrounded by tall trees, hoary with moss and lichens; large water-lilies floated on the surface of this miniature lake, and the brilliant red berries of the high-bush cranberry, and the purple clusters of grapes, festooned the trees.
Catharine neglected not to reach down flowery bunches of the fragrant white-thorn and of the high-bush cranberry, then radiant with nodding umbels of snowy blossoms, or to wreath the handle of the little basket with the graceful trailing runners of the lovely twin-flowered plant, the Linnæa borealis, which she always said reminded her of the twins, Louise and Marie, her little cousins.
She also found plenty of wild black currants and high-bush cranberries, on the banks of a charming creek of bright water that flowed between a range of high pine hills and finally emptied itself into the lake. There were great quantities of water-cresses in this pretty brook; they grew in bright, round, cushion-like tufts at the bottom of the water, and were tender and wholesome.
=High-Bush Blackberry= Throughout the northern states as far west as Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri and down to North Carolina, you may find the high-bush blackberry. Its stems are sometimes ten feet high; they are furrowed and thorny and the bush grows along country roads, by fences, and in the woods. The berries are sweet, but quite seedy. They grow in long, loose clusters and ripen in July.
High-bush blackberries and low-bush black-berries, you understand, just so everywhere, high-bush here and there, low-bush plenty. You must see the two parsons' daughters, Saint Ambrose's and Saint Joseph's, and another girl I want particularly to introduce you to. You shall form your own opinion of her. I call her handsome and stylish, but you have got spoiled, you know.
The sides were most gracefully adorned with flowering shrubs, wild vines, creepers of various species, wild cherries of several kinds, hawthorns, bilberry bushes, high-bush cranberries, silver birch, poplars, oaks and pines; while in the deep ravines on either side grew trees of the largest growth, the heads of which lay on a level with their path.
There were huckleberry-pastures on the lower flanks of The Mountain, with plenty of the sweet-scented bayberry mingled with the other bushes. In other fields grew great store of high-bush blackberries. Along the roadside were bayberry-bushes, hung all over with bright red coral pendants in autumn and far into the winter.
The sides were most gracefully adorned with flowering shrubs, wild vines, creepers of various species, wild cherries of several kinds, hawthorns, bilberry bushes, high-bush cranberries, silver birch, poplars, oaks, and pines; while in the deep ravines on either side grew trees of the largest growth, the heads of which lay on a level with their path.
Our "high-bush blackberries," to take a familiar illustration, are all of one species, but it does not follow that they are all exactly alike. So far from it, I knew in my time and the school-boys of the present day are not less accurately informed, we may presume where to find berries of all shapes, sizes, and flavors.
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