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As soon as we were entered in the garden the eunuch conducted us through an orchard and down a grove of persimmons, to where there was a fountain, and close by it a square marble tank bordered by roses in white marble boxes. Here he left us for a moment, while he went forward to examine the summer-house, if there were any one stirring within.
If one cared for sweets there was honey in the honeycomb in almost any hollow tree, where the wild bees worked and the bear profited; and for fruit and nuts there were the delicious amber persimmons, and the sprightly frost grapes, and walnuts and hickory-nuts and chestnuts galore.
'Tain't no 'sperience. You ain't been converted. You're gettin' ripe! 'S all is about it. Wha' changes green persimmons? 's nature; 'tain't 'sperience." "Well, I'd like to know if sunshine an' frost ain't experiences," retorted Champion. "Some experiences," laughed John, "are mighty hot sunshine, and some are mighty hard frosts."
At last the crab thought he would get the best of the ape. So when his enemy had eaten his fill until he was bulged out, he cried out, "Now Mister Ape, I dare you to come down head-foremost. You can't do it." So the ape began to descend, head downward. This was just what the crab wanted, for all the finest persimmons rolled out of his pockets on the ground.
I wished, too, that I had had a little more practise in pistol shooting. "What do you think of Virginia's dress and shawl?" asked Mrs. Stone, as we drove along the trail which wound over the prairie, in disregard of section lines, as all roads did then. The judge and I both looked at Virginia again. "They're old persimmons," commented the judge. "You'll be the belle of the ball, Virginia."
Some of the trees, especially the sycamores and the cottonwoods, were of giant size. And the woods abounded in nuts and wild fruits; hickory nuts, walnuts, pecans, pawpaws, big wild grapes, and persimmons, but the latter were not yet ripe.
The apples by the roadside are for him, and the berries, and the spring of water, and the friendly shelter; and if the weather is cold, he eats the frost grapes and the persimmons, or even the white-meated turnip, snatched from the field he passed through, with incredible relish. Afoot and in the open road, one has a fair start in life at last. There is no hindrance now.
During the day, Captain Hock in skirmishing around the woods came across four or five shoats and an old sow feeding on the nuts and persimmons, and tried by shelling corn to coax them near enough to knock one over to cook for rations; but they were so wild he could not get near enough to capture one.
"Boys! them poor sick fellows with nothing but hardtack " The persimmons were carried to the hospital tents. Before the sun was halfway to the meridian a curious spectacle appeared along the banks of Buffalo Run. Every hundred feet or so was built a large fire. Over it hung a camp kettle, full of water water hot as the fire could make it.
The haversack generally contained smoking tobacco and a pipe, and a small piece of soap, with temporary additions of apples, persimmons, blackberries, and such other commodities as he could pick up on the march. The company property consisted of two or three skillets and frying pans, which were sometimes carried in the wagon, but oftener in the hands of the soldiers.
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