Blueberries
“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!
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
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
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
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,
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.
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
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?”
“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,
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,
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,
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
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;
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
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.
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,
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,
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
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
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—
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.”
