| |
| “YOU ought to have seen what I saw on my way | |
| To the village, through Mortenson’s pasture to-day: | |
| Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, | |
| Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum | |
| In the cavernous pail of the first one to come! | 5 |
| And all ripe together, not some of them green | |
| And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!” | |
| |
| “I don’t know what part of the pasture you mean.” | |
| |
| “You know where they cut off the woods—let me see— | |
| It was two years ago—or no!—can it be | 10 |
| No longer than that?—and the following fall | |
| The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall.” | |
| |
| “Why, there hasn’t been time for the bushes to grow. | |
| That’s always the way with the blueberries, though: | |
| There may not have been the ghost of a sign | 15 |
| Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, | |
| But get the pine out of the way, you may burn | |
| The pasture all over until not a fern | |
| Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, | |
| And presto, they’re up all around you as thick | 20 |
| And hard to explain as a conjuror’s trick.” | |
| |
| “It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. | |
| I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. | |
| And after all really they’re ebony skinned: | |
| The blue’s but a mist from the breath of the wind, | 25 |
| A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand, | |
| And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned.” | |
| |
| “Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?” | |
| |
| “He may and not care and so leave the chewink | |
| To gather them for him—you know what he is. | 30 |
| He won’t make the fact that they’re rightfully his | |
| An excuse for keeping us other folk out.” | |
| |
| “I wonder you didn’t see Loren about.” | |
| |
| “The best of it was that I did. Do you know, | |
| I was just getting through what the field had to show | 35 |
| And over the wall and into the road, | |
| When who should come by, with a democrat-load | |
| Of all the young chattering Lorens alive, | |
| But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive.” | |
| |
| “He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?” | 40 |
| |
| “He just kept nodding his head up and down. | |
| You know how politely he always goes by. | |
| But he thought a big thought—I could tell by his eye— | |
| Which being expressed, might be this in effect: | |
| ‘I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect, | 45 |
| To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.’“ | |
| |
| “He’s a thriftier person than some I could name.” | |
| |
| “He seems to be thrifty; and hasn’t he need, | |
| With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed? | |
| He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say, | 50 |
| Like birds. They store a great many away. | |
| They eat them the year round, and those they don’t eat | |
| They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet.” | |
| |
| “Who cares what they say? It’s a nice way to live, | |
| Just taking what Nature is willing to give, | 55 |
| Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow.” | |
| |
| “I wish you had seen his perpetual bow— | |
| And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned, | |
| And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.” | |
| |
| “I wish I knew half what the flock of them know | 60 |
| Of where all the berries and other things grow, | |
| Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top | |
| Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop. | |
| I met them one day and each had a flower | |
| Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower; | 65 |
| Some strange kind—they told me it hadn’t a name.” | |
| |
| “I’ve told you how once not long after we came, | |
| I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth | |
| By going to him of all people on earth | |
| To ask if he knew any fruit to be had | 70 |
| For the picking. The rascal, he said he’d be glad | |
| To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad. | |
| There had been some berries—but those were all gone. | |
| He didn’t say where they had been. He went on: | |
| ‘I’m sure—I’m sure’—as polite as could be. | 75 |
| He spoke to his wife in the door, ‘Let me see, | |
| Mame, we don’t know any good berrying place?’ | |
| It was all he could do to keep a straight face. | |
| |
| “If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him, | |
| He’ll find he’s mistaken. See here, for a whim, | 80 |
| We’ll pick in the Mortensons’ pasture this year. | |
| We’ll go in the morning, that is, if it’s clear, | |
| And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet. | |
| It’s so long since I picked I almost forget | |
| How we used to pick berries: we took one look round, | 85 |
| Then sank out of sight like trolls underground, | |
| And saw nothing more of each other, or heard, | |
| Unless when you said I was keeping a bird | |
| Away from its nest, and I said it was you. | |
| ‘Well, one of us is.’ For complaining it flew | 90 |
| Around and around us. And then for a while | |
| We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile, | |
| And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout | |
| Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out, | |
| For when you made answer, your voice was as low | 95 |
| As talking—you stood up beside me, you know.” | |
| |
| “We sha’n’t have the place to ourselves to enjoy— | |
| Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy. | |
| They’ll be there to-morrow, or even to-night. | |
| They won’t be too friendly—they may be polite— | 100 |
| To people they look on as having no right | |
| To pick where they’re picking. But we won’t complain. | |
| You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain, | |
| The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves, | |
| Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.” | 105 |
| |
