Bilberry

“ When these fail, there may often be seen a line of stunted yews, or hollies, or junipers, straggling up the slope, or a mountain-ash jutting out slantwise from the side of some narrow ravine and almost bridging the watercourse. The bilberry, like the heather, is at times found growing at great heights, especially in the rockier and less accessible places, such as the sides of Tryfan or Scafell Pike, where it flourishes amazingly in some seasons and produces berries of giant size. ”

“ Three kinds of cranberries, American, pied, and English; two blackberries, huckleberries, high-bush and low-bush blueberries—the latter being the English bilberry—are among the best known of the native fruits. No one in this country, however idle he be, need starve. If he goes farther south, he has the banana, the true staff of life. ”

“ Black-heath. See Red-heath.
Black-heart, The. The bilberry (Vaccinium Myrtillus) , the “whimberry” of the northern counties, which grows very plentifully throughout the Forest. It is so called, by a singular corruption, the original word being hartberry, the Old-English heorot-berg, to which the qualifying adjective has been added, whilst the terminal substantive has been lost, and the first totally misapprehended. To go “hearting” is a very common phrase. (See Proceedings of the Philological Society, vol. iii. pp. 154, 155.) ”

“ What was worse, he carried his dissolute habits into the countryside, and at one time his way of living at the family seat White Ladies was so openly outrageous that the incumbent of Bilberry actually denounced the squire from the pulpit, referring to him as 'a notorious evil-liver' and 'an abandoned wretch.' If not for his good name, however, for the house and pleasure-gardens he seems to have had some respect, for it was during his tenure that the stables were rebuilt and the gardens decorated with statuary which has since disappeared. ”

“ They make a fine purple colour by treating bilberry in the same way and mixing it with milk. ”

“ Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber’s cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. ”

“ She made as if to go on, and Billie was in despair, and redoubled his persuasion. She had never heard such a tattoo, nor seen such a 186 xylophone, nor yet so fine a fellow as Billie. Soon she stopped her pretended search for larvae under the loose bark and made another inspection of the house. She exemplified the maxim, “To hesitate is to be lost,” and soon she and Billie were busy with their housekeeping. The sparrows got no further chance to occupy Billie’s summer home. A happy family was reared and educated and in the autumn disappeared. ”

“ I continued wandering aimlessly onward, until I descended a large valley, filled with trees of enormous growth. As I entered, I heard a crackling in the bushes above me. I looked carefully about, but could detect nothing, although the crackling was still heard. Creeping cautiously and stealthily up the bank, I came upon the cause of this apprehension. There was a species of fruit, called the “buffalo berry,” quite numerous here, and in among them, seated on his haunches, and contentedly devouring, was a grizzly bear. ”

“ It is a native of the cold, dry northwestern part of North America, where it has achieved its greatest success under cultivation. The buffalo-berry is a shrub with small silvery leaves, short thorny spines or branches, upon which the fruits, of about the size of a common currant, are borne. The plant is dioecious, consequently both male and female forms must be planted in order to insure fruit production. The two forms are easily recognized by the form and distribution of the winter buds; the staminate or male plant bears small rounded buds in dense clusters scattered all along the spurs ”

“ Pushing their way towards the shop was a number of vegetables: a carrot, a turnip, a cabbage, a tomato, a cucumber, a potato, a marrow, to name only a few. Each seemed to be on legs and was playing an instrument of some description.
Was he mad? Could that really be a melon playing the drum? Did bananas play cornets? Could cucumbers draw music from piccolos? Mr. Hearty blinked his eyes. Here indeed was a dream, a nightmare. He saw Bindle with an inspector and a constable turn the vegetables back, obviously denying them admission. He watched as one who has no personal interest in the affair. ”

“ You come back alone. You bring no honey. Your look is fierce, as of one who fights, and your arms are covered with blood. Tell me, I say, where are my daughters?"
"Ask me not, Bilber. Ask Wurranunnah the bee, he may know. Narahdarn the bat knows nothing." And he wrapped himself in a silence which no questioning could pierce. Leaving him there, before his camp, the mother of the Bilbers returned to her dardurr and told her tribe that her daughters were gone, and Narahdarn, their husband, would tell her nothing of them. ”

“ Billy grinned. “What time do you look for Mayflower fruit?” said he.
“Along about wild strawberry time,” said Somebody.
[41]
The “Mayflower”
[42] About Pearls
“MY,” said the boy named Billy. “I nearly broke my tooth on the bone of this oyster. Isn’t it funny? It’s as round as a shot and just as hard.”
Everybody laughed, but Somebody said, “That isn’t a bone, Billy; old Mr. Oyster has no bones. That’s a pearl. Too bad you didn’t find it before it was cooked, because then you might have had it set in a pin to wear in your scarf. Now that it has been cooked, it is worthless.” ”

“ How little the two (Leucothoë and blueberry) resemble each other at this time of the year may be seen by comparing the stem I have been talking about with the one lying next to it—a short twig, every branchlet of which ends in a very bright, extremely handsome (if one stops to regard it) pinkish globe. This is the high-bush blueberry in its best winter estate. Every bud is like a jewel. ”

“ Certainly if one bear can have less shape than another, which has none, Billy has. He is more than shapeless; he approaches the nebulous. A sort of vast, indefinite, black mop, with certain very long and ill-kept claws observable in odd places, and now and again a dissolute, confused muzzle, in which a double allowance of lip and a half-allowance of lip mingle indistinguishably. Billy is usually asleep. He is as fond of eating as any other bear, but fonder still of sleeping. ”

“ In a few moments their arms were filled with the golden blossoms.
9 “Aren’t they the loveliest things you ever saw, girls?” cried Billie.
“Yes, they are. I adore this bright yellow, whether it’s in flowers or dresses or hangings. It always makes me feel more cheerful.”
“I wonder how anyone can have a favorite flower. It always seems to me that the flower I’m looking at at the moment is my favorite. Just now, of course, it’s goldenrod. To-morrow it may be roses, for instance.”
“Come on, let’s start back,” said Vi.
Laura and Vi had turned to go back when a sharp cry from Billie startled them. ”

“ Bilber, the soft-furred sandhill rat, was once a man, and lived in a camp with Mayrah the wind for a mate. Mayrah was a strange mullayerh for a man, he was invisible. He could hold conversations with Bilber, but much as he desired it, Bilber could never see him. One day he said to Mayrah: "Why do you not become like me that I might see you?" ”

“ Billie was given no opportunity to comment on this peculiar observation for at the moment Vi and Laura dashed in from the woods, rushed to Billie and flung their arms about her. They had come by the woods path “around Robin Hood’s barn” and had reached her as soon as possible.
“Oh-h, look out! Don’t hug so tightly, darlings. I’m—to put it mildly—sensitive. Yes, I’m alive—as you see. No there are no bones broken—I think. But I’ll have to soak in arnica to-night. Bruises—hundreds of ’em. But I’m not complaining. I know how lucky I am just to be alive!” ”

“ He wondered if Betty's orange was anywhere near as good. Later in the evening Gerald went out on the beach with his father to see if there were any boats in sight to be reported. While he was gone, Betty prepared to eat her orange.
"Come on, Billy," she suggested, "get your rocker, and we'll eat our oranges while mamma undresses the baby. I'm glad it is a chilly night, so we had to have a fire in the grate."
A wistful expression crept into Billy's face. "I gave my orange to Antoine to take to 'Phonse," was his reply in sorrowful tones. ”

“ Billy soon came to a house with a beautiful garden in front in which were climbing roses and many other kinds of flowers, while [28] at the back was a big vegetable garden. On the way to the garden he nibbled off the fragrant, sweet tasting, full blooming red roses, taking care not to let the thorns prick him.
“Well, I declare!” said Billy to himself, “I never knew roses were so deliciously sweet and tasty before. Why, they are better eating than carrots or lettuce! The only trouble is that I can’t get a big mouthful at a time on account of having to look out for the thorns. ”

“ In my wanderings through the country I never fail to investigate the quality of the fruit, and have made a discovery, in two places, of a very superior kind of mulberry, of which there appears to be only half a dozen trees in the whole valley. They are so different from the common kinds that the natives call them Shah-toot, which means, the King mulberry, and the trees they grow on are considered quite curiosities. ”

“ That last morning at Easthaven, Miriam, alone of us three, preserved her equanimity. I had arisen with the lark, having my own things to pack, to say nothing—though nothing was not the only thing I said—of Billie's pram and Billie's cot and Billie's bath. I wished afterwards I had let the lark rise by himself; if I do heavy work before breakfast I always feel a little depressed ("snappy" is Miriam's crude synonym) for the remainder of the day. ”

“ The grapefruit everybody ate. The cold lamb too, met with a hearty reception, especially after the potatoes, corn, and tomatoes were served—and tasted. Outwardly, through it all, Billy was gayety itself. Inwardly she was burning up with anger and mortification. And because she was all this, there was, apparently, no limit to her laughter and sparkling repartee as she talked with Calderwell, her guest—the guest who, according to her original plans, was to be shown how happy she and Bertram were, what a good wife she made, and how devoted and satisfied Bertram was in his home. ”

“ As to ordering them now—Billy glanced at the clock and shook her head.
“It's almost five, already, and they'd never get here in time,” she sighed regretfully. “I'll have to have something else.”
Billy looked now, not for what she wanted, but for what she could find. And she found: some cold roast lamb, at which she turned up her nose; an uncooked beefsteak, which she appropriated doubtfully; a raw turnip and a head of lettuce, which she hailed with glee; and some beets, potatoes, onions, and grapefruit, from all of which she took a generous supply. ”

“ It is this mass of cohering calices and ovaries which, gradually becoming fleshy and juicy, form eventually the fruit, each ovary maturing, in its two-celled interior, a single seed, and as it thus consists of “seeds embedded in pulp,” the appearance of the whole fully answers to the popular description of a “berry,” and has therefore earned for it the title of Mulberry. A modern botanist, however, would no more let this suffice to give it a place among berries, than he would consider that a butterfly must be classed among birds, because both have wings ”

“ Marie's voice was wistful, in spite of the laugh—so wistful that it reminded Billy of their conversation a few weeks before.
“But it is you, Marie, who want the stockings to darn and the puddings to make,” she retorted playfully. “Not I! And, do you know? I believe I shall turn matchmaker yet, and find you a man; and the chiefest of his qualifications shall be that he's wretchedly hard on his hose, and that he adores puddings.” ”

“ And Billy ought to talk of something else, too! Bertram, Jr., wonderful as he was, really was not the only thing in the world, or even the only baby; and other people—outsiders, their friends—had a right to expect that sometimes other matters might be considered—their own, for instance. But Billy seemed to have forgotten this. No matter whether the subject of conversation had to do with the latest novel or a trip to Europe, under Billy's guidance it invariably led straight to Baby's Jack-and-Jill book, or to a perambulator journey in the Public Garden. ”

“ Billie corrected, a trifle frigidly.
“Well, Oklahoma, then. You aren’t really going to wish her on the crowd, are you, Billie? If you insist, the girls will take her up for your sake, but there will be trouble. I feel it in my bones.”
“I have no intention of wishing her on anyone,” retorted Billie coldly. “The girl saved my life and I am going to help her to be happy here at Three Towers Hall, if such a thing is possible. You girls may do as you like.”
Vi put an arm about Billie’s shoulders. ”