Berrie

“ When ripe the berry has a slightly sweet taste on the surface, but the rest is very bitter. They make a beverage of the berries by gently rubbing them in the hand, in warm water, until all their sweetness has come out, without any of the bitter. ”

“ It rained a good deal now, as it always does in the mountains in the late autumn, and as a general rule the woods were full of mist all day, in which we went about tearing the roots out of the soft earth, eating the late blueberries where we could find them, and the cranberries and the elderberries, which were ripe on the bushes, now and then coming across a clump of nut-trees, and once in a while, the greatest of all treats, revelling in a feast of honey. ”

“ There were both red and white raspberries—beautiful fruit. Gooseberries of all kinds abounded, and currants, too; but the loveliest sight of all was a cherry tree, so covered with bright red fruit shining in the sun that it almost hid the leaves.
Here we spent the long hot afternoon, and when we saw our friends’ buggy slowly making its way down the wide river-bed, we hailed them and helped to gather as much fruit as they wanted; and then they departed, leaving the valley empty once more, except for ourselves. ”

“ The fruit grows close to the stalk, completely surrounding it, and forming a long spike of the richest crimson berries. I have gathered branches a foot in length, closely covered with the beautiful looking fruit, and have regretted that it was so insipid in its flavour as to make it uneatable. On the banks of creeks and in rich ground, it grows most luxuriantly, one root sending up twenty or thirty branches, drooping with the weight of their magnificent burden. ”

“ When the company darts again out of the jungle, each with a berry in its bill and each shrilly exulting, many a load is dropped by the way, and many another falls to mother earth in the act of feeding the clamorous young. Berries and seeds having no means of self-transportation are thus borne far from parent trees to vegetate in sweet unencumbered soil. ”

“ Early in summer we feasted on strawberries, [123] that grew in rich beds beneath the meadow grasses and sedges as well as in the dry sunny woods. And in different bogs and marshes, and around their borders on our own farm and along the Fox River, we found dewberries and cranberries, and a glorious profusion of huckleberries, the fountain-heads of pies of wondrous taste and size, colored in the heart like sunsets. Nor were we slow to discover the value of the hickory trees yielding both sugar and nuts. ”

“ In the autumn berries of every color and flavor abound, enough for birds, bears, and everybody, particularly about the stream-sides and meadows where sunshine reaches the ground: huckleberries, red, blue, and black, some growing close to the ground others on bushes ten feet high ”

“ On the brambles the unpicked blackberries still hung ripe, though so absolutely sodden and tasteless that they were not worth the eating; there was even a spray of blossom left here and there. A branch of scarlet hips shone brightly in the sunlight; the birds, sated with yew berries, had spared it thus far, and it rivalled the holly on the bush close by, while trails of bryony [149] berries repeated the colour with varieties of lemon and orange. ”

“ And sometimes little Prue would eat a berry, and sometimes Davy would eat a berry—big, big berries—just because they looked so good, and tasted so good, that a little boy and a little girl could not help eating them, even if it took some of the berries out of the shortcake they were going to have for tea. ”

“ Country children know that there are two ways to go berrying. According to the first of these you stroll into the pasture in the cool of the day, and at your leisure pick as many as you choose of the ripest and largest of the berries, putting every one into your mouth. ”

“ And everything that looks in the least reddish is a strawberry. Unripe blackberries along the hedges were hailed with tumult and shouting as strawberries. Every cow with horns was regarded a little fearfully as a bull. ”

“ Berries then, and little else, unless we had a chance at a trout or a partridge. It is not cheery, but dreary, to be left in pathlessness, blanketless, guideless, and with breadths of lake and mountain and Nature, shaggy and bearish, between man and man. ”

“ He threw upon the fire all of the wood which lay near, and Berrie, taking the ax, went to the big fir and began to chop off the dry branches which hung beneath, working almost as effectively as a man. Wayland insisted on taking a turn with the tool ”

“ We came out from the thickets on a high, brushy field, sheeted in fine rain that dimmed even the near wood edges. Blackberries grew thick, and we made our way carefully among the briers, following the narrow and devious cow-paths. Suddenly we both stopped. Just ahead of us, under a blackberry bush, was a huge snapping-turtle. He was standing on his hind legs, with his fore legs resting on a branch loaded with fruit, his narrow dark head stretched far up and out, while he quietly ate berry after berry. He was a handsome fellow, with his big black shell all brilliant in the wetness of the rain. ”

“ The food that they ate was berries much resembling the mountain ash; and on leaving the fairylands the king made them promise that none of them would lose a berry outside the fairylands; for if they did, a tree of many branches would spring up, and if an old woman of eighty ate one of those berries she would become as youthful as though she was sixteen, and if a little maid ate one of them she would become a flower of beauty. ”

“ Are there many runners, or few, or none? Do the new runners bear blossoms and fruit? If so, when do they commence to bud and bloom? When do the berries begin to ripen? Notice the size and shape of the fruit, also the color. You can tell much from the taste of the berry. No two varieties taste exactly alike. Some are real sweet and some kinds real sour. ”

“ All the women and children would start for the hills, and come back, their baskets laden with ripe blackberries, and the crimson thimble-berries, and yellow salmon-berries, and scarlet huckleberries, and later on with the black, sweet sal-lals. ”

“ You shall not imagine I am a girl like your girls—that I am a woman such as you are. Sometimes, sitting on the grass quietly by myself, I think about myself. Of course it is folly; but I do it, and wonder what I should have been like had my lot been cast at Berrie Down. I have seen nothing in my life but planning and scheming and shamming—nothing till I came here. Amongst you all, I dream of a different life to any I have ever known. I feel like a fallen angel on a short visit to Paradise. How you look at me! How stupid it is to talk about oneself! Shall we go in?”
“One moment,” Heather said. ”

“ Who takes pride in filling his pail, but is not so desperately single-minded that he is unmoved by the seductions of goldenrod in bloom, of juniper and bayberries, of dry goldenrod stalks (for kite sticks) , of deserted birds' nests, and all the other delights that fall in his way.
For berrying does not consist chiefly in getting berries, any more than fishing consists chiefly in getting fish, or hunting in getting birds. The essence of berrying is the state of mind that accompanies it. ”

“ There were lots and lots of red berries, but only a few ripe ones here and there. I wandered on and on, thinking every minute I should come to a patch of ripe berries where I could fill my pail in a few minutes. It wasn’t much fun blackberrying all by myself. I scratched my hands and face and tore my dress on the briars and wished many times that I was back home, but I kept on picking until my pail was full. ”

“ I have got the Ague and must quit, and finish in the morning. The Sal-lal Berries is a large, dark blue berry, somewhat resembling the wherttleberries, but as large as four of the latter, grows in clusters like grapes, and are rather sweet in tast, very pleasant, the bush they grow on is an evergreen. They grow much larger on the coast than up here. ”

“ Many times it happens that a farmer or a gardener wants to start a strawberry bed and buys plants of a variety of berries that have the reputation of being very productive. He plants them and cultivates them carefully, and at the proper time they blossom very freely, and there is promise of a large crop, yet very few berries appear and this continues to be the case. ”

“ Passionately, perhaps, as he ever loved any woman, Arthur loved the stately fair whom he had wooed in the old-fashioned gardens at Copt Hall. She was his style of beauty; his ideal of feminine perfection; haughty and queenlike; capricious and fanciful; strong-willed and domineering; a woman to rule slaves—to govern so feeble and purposeless a nature as his, despotically. Had all things gone well, she would, as Miss Hope declared, have “ruled the roast” at Berrie Down; she would have been mistress and master too; she would have led him a pleasant life of it in the old Hertfordshire home ”

“ There must exist somewhere sinless women who could eat these berries without being reminded of the lost purity and delicacy of the primeval senses. Every year I doubt not this stainless berry ripens here, and is unplucked by any knight of the Holy Grail who is worthy to eat it, and keeps alive, in the prodigality of nature, the tradition of the unperverted conditions of taste before the fall. ”

“ Blackberries still very plenty, and sweet; they have not brought any to the village lately, people seem tired of them. Found also a few red raspberries, whortleberries, and the acid rose-berry. This is a land of berries; a large portion of our trees and plants yield their seed in this form. Among such are the several wild cherries, and plums, the amelanchiers and dog-woods, the mountain ash, the sumachs, and the thorns; all the large bramble tribe, with their pleasant fruits, roses, raspberries, the blackberry, and the gooseberry ”

“ Most of our cultivated fruits have been produced in this way. For instance, if two species of wild strawberries were found, one, large and beautiful but sour or tasteless, the other, small but delicious, the two could be bred together until finally a perfect berry, large and well-flavored, would result. ”

“ They often smash all the bushes in a berry patch, gathering the fruit with half-luxurious, half-laborious greed, sitting on their haunches, and sweeping the berries into their mouths with dexterous paws. So absorbed do they become in their feasts on the luscious fruit that they grow reckless of their safety, and feed in broad daylight, almost at midday ”

“ The berry is about the size of a pea, and covered with a bluish powder. They are gathered by spreading a skin on the sand, and beating the bush with a stick. When a sufficient quantity of the berries are collected, they are boiled in a great quantity of water, and the wax is skimmed off as fast as it rises ”

“ The fruits found in this country are the wild plum, a small sort of wild cherry, wild currants of different kinds, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, brambleberries, blackberries, choke cherries, wild grapes, sand cherries, a delicious fruit which grows on a small shrub near sandy shores, and another blueberry, a fine fruit not larger than a currant, tasting much like a pear and growing on a small tree about the size of a willow. ”

“ The berry is of a beautiful buff color, and its delicious flavor is the accepted standard of excellence. At the same time, it is well known that it will not thrive under hot suns or upon light land. It can be raised south of New York only in cool, moist soils, and in half-shady locations; but at the North, where the conditions of growth are favorable, it produces strong branching canes, covered with white spines, and is exceedingly productive of large, light-colored berries that melt on the tongue. ”

“ The more or less advanced state of maturity to which the berry is allowed to attain before picking, and, more particularly still, the degree of dryness, and the longer or shorter period of time for which it is kept before being sent into the market, exercise a most powerful influence upon the quality and flavour of the article. Berries gathered before they have attained maturity, though they may be perfect in colour, will always have a raw, herbaceous taste. ”

“ The harvest commences as soon as one or two berries at the base of the spikes begin to turn red, and before the fruit is mature, but when full-grown and still hard; if allowed to ripen, the berries lose pungency, and ultimately fall off and are lost. The spikes are collected in bags or baskets and dried in the sun, on mats or hard ground, for two or three days. ”

“ The lawn at Berrie Down is studded with fine old timber. Through the air pigeons are wheeling, on the ridge-tiles they are cooing; two or three dogs are lying basking in the sun; at one of the open windows of the drawing-room a cat is seated, gravely surveying the landscape, and perhaps at the same time prospectively viewing supper, or retrospectively thinking of her latest depredations in the dairy. There is a great peace in the scene—a peace which it requires a person to have been out in the hurry and turmoil of the world fully to comprehend. ”

“ Of the elder there are three varieties, all beautiful. The trees grow to a considerable size, and to a height of thirty feet. The colors of the berries are lavender, scarlet, and orange. We find also some other orange-colored berries, resembling immense raspberries, which our guide tells us arc "salmon-berries." They are so juicy they will hardly bear handling, and literally melt in your mouth. Of the trees in sight, the most are fir, hemlock, cedar, and yew. But of whatever species are the trees, their unusual size and beauty make them interesting. ”

“ Our little northern strawberries, and raspberries, and currants, and whortleberries, developed with a single eye to the petty robins and finches of temperate climates, can be popped into, the mouth whole and eaten as they stand: they are meant for small birds to devour, and to disperse the tiny undigested nut-like seeds in return for the bribe of the soft pulp that surrounds them. ”