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Everything turns out right some time, and from what we have heard of God, off and on, we don't believe He is going to let no ordinary man, bald headed and apoplectic, carry off all the persimmons, and put his fingers to his nose and dare the ruler of the universe to tread on the tail of his coat.

Deliciously sweet and spicy when frost has ripened it, very astringent until ripe. It is plentiful in Kentucky and one of my earliest memories is of going to market with my mother in the fall to buy persimmons. There I learned to avoid the fair, perfect fruit, though to all appearances it was quite ripe, and to choose that which looked bruised and broken.

Only once during his lifetime does Williams recall tasting whisky, when his cousin bought a pint. It cost three cents in those days. He said his mother used to make beer out of persimmons and cornhusks, but they don't make it any more, so he doesn't even drink beer now. He would much rather have a good cigar. He has since a boy, smoked a pipe.

On the way home he came across his father dead, in a most dreadful condition his head was smashed and his shell broken in several places, and around his body lay the unripe persimmons which had done their deadly work. At this dreadful sight the poor young crab sat down and wept.

When he heard that the seed which he had long ago exchanged for a rice-dumpling had grown into a tree and was now bearing good fruit, he was delighted, for he at once devised a cunning plan which would give him all the persimmons for himself. He consented to go with the crab to pick the fruit for him.

The chrysanthemums and roses are still blooming, and the trees are heavily laden with fruit. The persimmons grow bigger than a coffee cup and the oranges are tiny things, but both are delicious. Chestnuts are twice as big as ours, and they cook them as a vegetable. You'll be having Thanksgiving soon, and you will all go up to Grandmother's, and have a jolly time together.

In the woods there were several persimmon-trees, but the boys knew where those persimmons grew, and gathered them as soon as they ripened, and very often before they were ready to eat; so it was of no use going there to look for any.

The palms and eucalyptus-trees darkened about the villas; the bits of vineyard, in their lingering crimson or lingering gold, and the orchards of peaches and persimmons enriched with the varying reds of their ripening leaves and fruits the enchanting color scheme.

The money-market grows "tight," as it is phrased; the money-world feels generally as if it had taken an overdose of persimmons. Merchants and dealers, shorn of their usual accommodations, are compelled to borrow at ruinous usuries, or to fail to meet their payments. Their default involves others; others fail, and others again.

The shops were poor and it was difficult to buy rice even though the entire valley was devoted to paddy fields, but we did get quantities of delicious persimmons. Wu told us that seven different languages were spoken in the city, and we could well believe it, for we recognized Mosos, Lolos, Chinese, and Tibetans.