lden sunshine has passed into
them, and distended their purple skins almost to bursting. Such heavy
clusters! such bloom! such sweetness! such meat and drink in their
round globes! What a fine fellow Bacchus would have been, if he had only
signed the pledge when he was a young man! I have taken off clusters
that were as compact and almost as large as the Black Hamburgs. It is
slow work picking them. I do not see how the gatherers for the vintage
ever get off enough. It takes so long to disentangle the bunches from
the leaves and the interlacing vines and the supporting tendrils; and
then I like to hold up each bunch and look at it in the sunlight, and
get the fragrance and the bloom of it, and show it to Polly, who is
making herself useful, as taster and companion, at the foot of the
ladder, before dropping it into the basket. But we have other company.
The robin, the most knowing and greedy bird out of paradise (I trust
he will always be kept out), has discovered that the grape-crop is
uncommonly good, and has come back, with his whole tribe and family,
larger than it was in pea-time. He knows the ripest bunches as well as
anybody, and tries them all. If he would take a whole bunch here and
there, say half the number, and be off with it, I should not so much
care. But he will not. He pecks away at all the bunches, and spoils as
many as he can. It is time he went south.

There is no prettier sight, to my eye, than a gardener on a ladder in
his grape-arbor, in these golden days, selecting the heaviest clusters
of grapes, and handing them down to one and another of a group of
neighbors and friends, who stand under the shade of the leaves, flecked
with the sunlight, and cry, "How sweet!" "What nice ones!" and the
like,--remarks encouraging to the man on the ladder. It is great
pleasure to see people eat grapes.

Moral Truth.--I have no doubt that grapes taste best in other people's
mouths. It is an old notion that it is easier to be generous than to
be stingy. I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous
from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity.

Philosophical Observation.--Nothing shows one who his friends are like
prosperity and ripe fruit. I had a good friend in the country, whom I
almost never visited except in cherry-time. By your fruits you shall
know them.

SEVENTEENTH WEEK

I like to go into the garden these warm latter days, and muse. To muse
is to sit in the sun, and not thi