ams I picked nuts from trees, or gathered them and ate them from the
ground underneath trees, and in the same way I ate berries from vines
and bushes. This was beyond any experience of mine.

I shall never forget the first time I saw blueberries served on the
table. I had never seen blueberries before, and yet, at the sight
of them, there leaped up in my mind memories of dreams wherein I had
wandered through swampy land eating my fill of them. My mother set
before me a dish of the berries. I filled my spoon, but before I raised
it to my mouth I knew just how they would taste. Nor was I disappointed.
It was the same tang that I had tasted a thousand times in my sleep.

Snakes? Long before I had heard of the existence of snakes, I was
tormented by them in my sleep. They lurked for me in the forest glades;
leaped up, striking, under my feet; squirmed off through the dry grass
or across naked patches of rock; or pursued me into the tree-tops,
encircling the trunks with their great shining bodies, driving me higher
and higher or farther and farther out on swaying and crackling branches,
the ground a dizzy distance beneath me. Snakes!--with their forked
tongues, their beady eyes and glittering scales, their hissing and their
rattling--did I not already know them far too well on that day of my
first circus when I saw the snake-charmer lift them up?

They were old friends of mine, enemies rather, that peopled my nights
with fear.

Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what
eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature,
starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever
alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for
my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt
in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the
hunting monsters.

When I was five years old I went to my first circus. I came home from
it sick--but not from peanuts and pink lemonade. Let me tell you. As we
entered the animal tent, a hoarse roaring shook the air. I tore my hand
loose from my father's and dashed wildly back through the entrance. I
collided with people, fell down; and all the time I was screaming with
terror. My father caught me and soothed me. He pointed to the crowd of
people, all careless of the roaring, and cheered me with assurances of
safety.

Nevertheless, it was in fear and trembling, and with much encourage