Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
That night the Cardinal slept in the sumac, very close to his mate, and he shut only one eye at a time. Early in the morning, when he carried her the first food, he found that she was on the edge of the nest, dropping bits of shell outside; and creeping to peep, he saw the tiniest coral baby, with closed eyes, and little patches of soft silky down.
Of late years the leaves of this bush have been greatly in demand for tanning purposes, and, in some States, especially in Virginia, sumac gathering has become a very important branch of industry, particularly with the negroes; many of whom, during the sumac season, prefer gathering these leaves to doing any other kind of work. The sumac-bush is quite low, and the leaves are easily stripped off.
Straight and sure he winged his way toward the shining river; and it was only a few more miles until the rolling waters of its springtime flood caught his eye. Dropping precipitately, he plunged his burning beak into the loved water; then he flew into a fine old stag sumac and tucked his head under his wing for a short rest. He had made the long flight in one unbroken sweep, and he was sleepy.
Besides, there were eggs to hide at Easter; cherries and strawberries in May; fruit all summer; fishing parties by torchlight; lobelia and sumac to be gathered, dried and sold for pocket money; and in the fall, chestnuts, persimmons, wild grapes, cider, and the grand butchering after frost came, so that all the pleasures I knew were incidental to a farmer's life.
Before General MacIver was appointed to a high position at the St. Louis Fair, I saw much of him in New York. His room was in a side street in an old-fashioned boarding-house, and overlooked his neighbor's back yard and a typical New York City sumac tree; but when the general talked one forgot he was within a block of the Elevated, and roamed over all the world.
From the thorn tree they worked their way to the dead sycamore; but there the lack of foliage made them so conspicuous that their mother almost went into spasms from fright, and she literally drove them back to the sumac.
When the children's arms were full and they had gone on homeward down a pathway among lower sumac thickets, Alec turned and saw Sophia, just as stately, just as quiet, as he had ever seen her. So they two began to follow. Her hand had been cut the day before, and the handkerchief that bound it had come off. Demurely she gave it to him to be fastened.
Before the fight was quite over that morning, saddle-horses were stepping from big white barns in the land Jason was entering, and being led to old-fashioned stiles; buggies, phaetons, and rock-aways were emerging from turnpike gates; and rabbit-hunters moved, shouting, laughing, running races, singing, past fields sober with autumn, woods dingy with oaks and streaked with the fire of sumac and maple.
When a woman signals any man it conveys consent. Denials receive no signals; they are inferred. In this particular case Captain Renfrew found every reason to believe that this flaring bit of sumac was the prelude to an elopement. In the window of his library the Captain saw his secretary staring at his cards and books with an intentness plainly assumed.
It was, as already stated, that season of the year when the American woods array themselves in their most attractive robes when the very leaves appear as if they were flowers, so varied and brilliant are their hues when the foliage of the young beeches becomes a pale yellow, and glimmers translucent against the sun when the maples are dying off of a deep red, and the sumac and sassafras turning respectively crimson and scarlet when the large drupes of the Osage orange, the purple clusters of the fox-grape, and the golden berries of the persimmon or Virginian lotus, hang temptingly from the tree: just at that season when the benignant earth has perfected, and is about to yield up, her annual bounty; and all nature is gratefully rejoicing at the gift.
Word Of The Day