sions which color the
whole subsequent life. They are implicit in that soil where we find the
roots of our being. They are what make us good citizens, steadfast
friends, true lovers, observers of nature, disciples of the poets. They,
whose early life is diffused over too many objects, with too many
opportunities, have only a temporary and incomplete hold and delight in
any of the advantages of their superior fortune. What is the good of
however large a circle, if it have no center?

The lean and hungry pastures of Bellingham were prolific in
inexhaustible harvests; what they bore on their surface may hint of
something deeper and more perennial. The pastures and borders of the
woods were covered with patches of huckleberry and blue-berry bushes,
and over every stone heap clambered the low blackberry vines with
racemes of luscious fruit. The pastures were named from one or the other
of these berries, and their owners never claimed private right to them.
To put up the bars as we entered and left the field, was the only
obligation expected of us. Seldom were they taken down; the women
crawled through, the boys leaped over, the small girls squeezed in
between the posts and the wall. Our forefathers left the turnstile
behind them in their English meadows, but not the short-cut from house
to house, from field to field or from village to village. There is
always a shorter way than the crowd travels. Boys and animals, those
untaught explorers and surveyors, are the first to find it. Once within
the pasture, a hundred short paths led hither and thither wherein grew a
little low, sweet grass which the red cows grazed and sheep nibbled; and
as they sauntered along they paid behind for their food in front. Then a
warning voice would be raised telling us to be careful where we stepped.
In these mazy pathways we were always returning upon our tracks and
finding the bushes we had already stripped. Children were crying out to
each other that the bottom of their pails was covered, or that they had
a pint or quart, and generally as many went into the mouth as into the
pail. The days when we went berrying were holidays, although the berries
were picked for market and added a mite to the year's supply of silver
money. Bank bills and gold we never saw, only silver and copper, and of
these, silver was the money of men and women and huge copper cents and
half cents of boys. I can remember a time when one cent was riches
unspeakable, treasured