Huckleberry

“ All that is repulsive about death was here hidden beneath abounding life. Some rocks along the shore were completely covered with crimson-leafed huckleberry bushes; one species still in fruit might well be called the winter huckleberry. In a short walk I found vetches eight feet high leaning on raspberry bushes, and tall ferns and Smilacina unifolia with leaves six inches wide growing on yellow-green moss, producing a beautiful effect.
Our Indians seemed to be enjoying a quick and merry reaction from the doleful domestic dumps in which the voyage was begun. ”

“ The popular name of the genus Gaylussacia, of which there are several species. The Dwarf huckleberry, the Blue huckleberry and the Black huckleberry are common throughout the United States, the latter being the huckleberry of the Northern States. In New England the name is commonly restricted to the black berry species in distinction from the blue berry. The shrubs range in height from about three feet to twelve feet high. In New England canning huckleberries is an extensive if not exceedingly profitable industry. The crop is first picked by hand and afterwards with a “blueberry rake.” ”

“ The huckleberry is a sweet, dark blue berry, that grows on a very delicate low shrub, the blossoms are very pretty, pale pink or greenish white bells, the fruit is very wholesome; it grows on light dry ground, on those parts of the country that are called plains in Canada. The settlers' children go out in parties, and gather great quantities, either to eat or dry for winter use. These berries are a great blessing to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges; squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary ”

“ How can I adequately sing the praises of the gentle, the neat, the comfortable huckleberry! No briers, no squash bugs, no back-breaking stoop or arm-rending stretch to [Pg 133] reach them. Just a big, bushy, green clump, full of glossy black or softly blue berries, and you can sit right down on the tussocks among them, put your pail underneath a bush, and begin. At first, the handfuls drop in with a high-keyed "plinking" sound ”

“ Mosses and lichens, brown and black with the summer's heat, clothed the rocks and dressed out their barrenness; green tufts of fern nodded in many a nook, and kept their greenness still; and huckleberry bushes were on every hand, in every spare place, and standing full of the unreaped black and blue harvest. And in the very path, under their feet, sprang many an unassuming little green plant, that in the Spring had lifted its head in glorious beauty with some delicate crown of a flower. A stranger would have made nothing of them; but Winnie and Winthrop knew them all, crowned or uncrowned. ”

“ In the huckleberry pasture, by the fence of old barn boards, I notice many little pale-brown, dome-shaped puffballs puckered to a centre beneath. When you pinch them, a smoke-like, brown, snuff-colored dust rises from the orifice at their top, just like smoke from a chimney. It is so fine and light that it rises into the air, and is wafted away like smoke from a chimney. ”

“ There is a species of huckleberry common to the piny lands from the commencement of the Columbian valley to the seacoast; it rises to the hight of 6 or 8 feet. is a simple branching some what defuse stem; the main body or trunk is cilindric and of a dark brown, while the colateral branches are green smooth, squar, and put forth a number of alternate branches of the same colour and form from the two horizontal sides only. the fruit is a small deep perple berry which the natives inform us is very good. the leaf is thin of a pale green and small being 3/4 of an inch in length and 3/8 in width ”

“ Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. ”

“ Small handles are made of it, and it gives good service, provided great strength and stiffness are not required. Sourwood is not abundant anywhere, and seldom are more than a few trees found in a group.
Tree Huckleberry (Vaccinium arboreum) is the only tree form of twenty-five or thirty species of huckleberry in this country. The cranberry is one of the best known species. The range of tree huckleberry extends from North Carolina to Texas, and it reaches its largest size in the latter state where trunks thirty feet high and ten inches in diameter occur, but not in great abundance. ”

“ The common huckleberry of the northern states is G. resinosa; while G. brachycera and G. dumosa are known respectively as box and dwarf huckleberry. The name Gaylussacia commemorates the famous French chemist Gay-Lussac. ”

“ Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, “Don’t put your feet up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;” and pretty soon she would say, “Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don’t you try to behave?” ”

“ A trail that runs through blackberry bushes two miles out of three is hard to follow. Then there was a huckleberry bush reaching to our waists growing thickly upon the ground as tomato vines, curled hard, and stubborn ”

“ Off to the place where the huckleberries grew went the six little Bunkers, with their mother and their grandmother.
"And I'm coming, too," said Daddy Bunker. "I'm too fond of huckleberry pie to risk having all the berries go into the children's mouths. I'll go along and pick some myself, then I'll be sure of one pie at least." ”

“ This is an upright slender shrub, with a few long, wand-like branches, with green bark and glaucous green leaves, its recent shoots crimson-colored. The flowers have a considerably rosy tinge, a delicate tint. The last two kinds are more densely flowered than the others.—The huckleberry is an upright shrub, more or less stout according to its exposure to the sun and air, with a spreading, bushy top, a dark brown bark and thick leaves, the recent shoots red. The flowers are much more red than those of the others. ”

“ The name huckleberry is applied because of a fancied resemblance of the leaves to those of huckleberries. They are generally less than one inch in length, sometimes not half an inch. This unique variety of oak ranges on elevated slopes and ridges of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the traveler in climbing to the peaks is often grateful for the privilege of pulling himself up the steep slopes by grasping in his hands the tops of full grown trees. ”

“ For the abundant fruit set on huckleberry bushes, as on so many others, we are indebted chiefly to the lesser bees, which, receiving the pollen jarred out from the terminal chinks in the anther-sacs on their undersides as they cling, transfer it to the protruding stigmas of the next blossom visited. After fertilization, when the now useless corolla falls, the ten-celled ovary is protected by the encircling calyx, that grows rapidly, swells, fills with juice, and takes on color until it and the ovary together become a so-called berry, whose seeds are dropped far and wide by birds and beasts. ”

“ I hope the factory hustles that casting right along.”
They could not expect it yet, and the remainder of the day was spent in roaming about the farm. The children found the biggest huckleberry pasture any of them had ever seen. Mrs. Heard’s housewifely desires were spurred.
“I do wish these berries were near Milton,” she declared. “I’d can enough of them to last the winter through for huckleberry pies.”
They were getting supper, Gypsy fashion, when the lanky boy with the pony drove up with the answers to the telegrams Neale had sent that morning from the Hickton station. ”

“ Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry viewed it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said:
“Is it genuwyne?”
Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy.
“Well, all right,” said Huckleberry, “it’s a trade.”
Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been the pinchbug’s prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than before. ”

“ HUCKLEBERRY CAKE.— Spread a quart of ripe huckleberries on a large dish, and dredge them thickly with flour. Mix together half a pint of milk; half a pint of molasses; half a pint of powdered sugar; and half a pound of butter. Warm them by the fire till the butter is quite soft then stir them all together, and set them away till cold. Prepare a large table-spoonful of powdered cloves and cinnamon mixed. Beat five eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the other ingredients; adding, by degrees, sufficient sifted flour to make a thick batter. ”

“ "Hello, Huckleberry!"
"Hello yourself, and see how you like it."
"What's that you got?"
"Dead cat."
"Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him ?"
"Bought him off'n a boy." ”

“ Nobody who has not attended to the matter would imagine how much of the brightness of our New England autumn—one of the pageants of the world—is due to these lowly bushes, which most people think of solely as useful in the production of pies and puddings. Without being mown, the huckleberry bears a second crop—a crop of color. It is twice blest; it blesses him that eats and him that looks. In many parts of New England, at least, the autumnal landscape could better spare the maples than the blueberries and the huckleberries. ”

“ The fruits do not yield their true flavor to the purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way. If you would know the flavor of huckleberries, ask the cow-boy or the partridge. It is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. A huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been known there since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial and essential part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off in the market cart, and they become mere provender. ”

“ The cinquefoil, in its ascending state, keeping pace with the grass, is now abundant in the fields. Saw it one or two weeks ago. This is a feature of June. Still both high and low blueberry and huckleberry blossoms abound. The hemlock woods, their fan-like sprays edged or spotted with short, yellowish-green shoots, tier above tier, shelf above shelf, look like a cool bazaar of rich embroidered goods. How dense their shade, dark and cool beneath them, as in a cellar. No plants grow there, but the ground is covered with fine red leaves. It is oftenest on a side hill they grow. ”

“ Huckleberry Huck′leberry, the fruit of various species of Vaceinium and Gaylussacia, genera which belong to the heath family and are sometimes considered as forming a family by themselves, known as the huckleberry family. ”

“ The pumpkin variety reaches almost the same lofty heights as the cherry. When not over-dosed with spices, a pumpkin-pie conveys a sense of the October landscape that is the despair of the best painters. In the gooseberry I find a certain raciness, or if I may use the expression, zip, that is highly stimulating. Both qualities you will observe in Hezekiah if you come to know her well. The thought of blackberry or raspberry-pie depresses me, but huckleberry buoys the spirit again. ”

“ But in the depths of the woods, where little sunshine can reach the ground, there is but little underbrush of any kind, only a very light growth of huckleberry and rubus and young maples in most places. ”

“ It is not only an interesting tree itself, but it has many interesting relatives, some of which are trees, others shrubs, and still others only small plants or vines. It may be called a second cousin to the common huckleberry, the mountain laurel, trailing arbutus, the azaleas, the tiny wintergreen, and the great rhododendron. It has some poor relations, but many that are highly respectable. It belongs to the heath family, of which there are seventy genera, and more than a thousand species; but less than half of them are in America, the others being scattered widely over the world. ”

“ Stewed dried apricots are a delicious addition to mince meat. They may be used in connection with minced apples, or to the exclusion of the latter.
HUCKLEBERRY PIE.
Put a quart of picked huckleberries into a basin of water; take off, whatever floats; take up the berries by the handful, pick out all the stems and unripe berries and put them into a dish; line a buttered pie, dish with a pie paste, put in the berries half an inch deep, and to a quart of berries, put half of a teacupful of brown sugar; dredge a teaspoonful of flour over, strew a saltspoonful of salt and a little nutmeg grated over ”

“ It appears . . . that the Indian used the dried berries commonly in the form of huckleberry cake, and also of huckleberry porridge or pudding. We have no national cake so universal and well known as this was in all parts of the country where corn and huckleberries grew.
Jan. 9, 1841. Each hearty stroke we deal with these outward hands slays an inward foe.
Jan. 9, 1842. One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense. Repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by something better, which is as free and original as if they had not been. ”