There was sassafras root in the swamps--plenty of it for the digging; there were young winter-green leaves, stinging pleasantly his palate with green aromatic juice; later there would be raspberries and blackberries and huckleberries.

There were also the mysterious cedar apples, and the sour-sweet excrescences sometimes found on swamp bushes.

These last were the little rarities of Nature's table which a boy would come upon by chance when berrying and snatch with delighted surprise.

They appealed to his imagination as well as to his tongue, since they belonged not to the known fruits in his spelling-book and dictionary, and possessed a strange sweetness of fancy and mystery beyond their woodland savor.

In a few months, too, the garden would be grown and there would be corn and beans and potatoes.