"Let us run after Graffam, and
have some fun," the boys would say on returning home; and then it was
wonderful to see the change which had been wrought in this
mournful-looking, taciturn man of the morning. Sometimes he was in a
rage, repaying their assaults with fearful oaths and bitter curses; but
it was a thing more general to find him in merry mood, and then he was
himself a boy, pitching his companions about in the snow, or talking
with them largely and confidentially of landed estates and vast
resources all his own. It is needless to inform my sagacious young
reader, that the cause of this change in the poor man was rum.
We have referred to the month of July and a part of August; it was
during this season of the year that the plain, on account of the rich
berries tinging its surface with beautiful blue, became a place of much
resort. These berries, hanging in countless clusters upon their low
bushes among the shrubbery, were at least worth going to see. It is the
opinion of most people, however, (an opinion first entertained in
Eden,) that fruit pleasant to the eye is desirable for the taste. Such
was the opinion prevalent in that region; and the sight of merry
"blue-berry companies," sometimes in wagons, sometimes on foot, was
among the most common of our midsummer morning scenes. Equally familiar
was the sight of like companies returning at evening, weary, but better
satisfied; glad that, with well-filled pails and baskets, they were so
near home.
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