the globe where the subtle chemistry
of the earth produces more that is agreeable to the senses than a New
England hill-pasture and the green meadow at its foot. The poets
have succeeded in turning our attention from it to the comparatively
barren Orient as the land of sweet-smelling spices and odorous gums.
And it is indeed a constant surprise that this poor and stony soil
elaborates and grows so many delicate and aromatic products.

John, it is true, did not care much for anything that did not appeal
to his taste and smell and delight in brilliant color; and he trod
down the exquisite ferns and the wonderful mosses--without
compunction. But he gathered from the crevices of the rocks the
columbine and the eglantine and the blue harebell; he picked the
high-flavored alpine strawberry, the blueberry, the boxberry, wild
currants and gooseberries, and fox-grapes; he brought home armfuls of
the pink-and-white laurel and the wild honeysuckle; he dug the roots
of the fragrant sassafras and of the sweet-flag; he ate the tender
leaves of the wintergreen and its red berries; he gathered the
peppermint and the spearmint; he gnawed the twigs of the black birch;
there was a stout fern which he called "brake," which he pulled up,
and found that the soft end "tasted good;" he dug the amber gum from
the spruce-tree, and liked to smell, though he could not chew, the
gum of the wild cherry; it was his melancholy duty to bring home such
medicinal herbs for the garret as the gold-thread, the tansy, and the
loathsome "boneset;" and he laid in for the winter, like a squirrel,
stores of beechnuts, hazel-nuts, hickory-nuts, chestnuts, and
butternuts. But that which lives most vividly in his memory and most
strongly draws him back to the New England hills is the aromatic
sweet-fern; he likes to eat its spicy seeds, and to crush in his
hands its fragrant leaves; their odor is the unique essence of New
England.

XVI

JOHN'S REVIVAL

The New England country-boy of the last generation never heard of
Christmas. There was no such day in his calendar. If John ever came
across it in his reading, he attached no meaning to the word.

If his curiosity had been aroused, and he had asked his elders about
it, he might have got the dim impression that it was a kind of
Popish holiday, the celebration of which was about as wicked as
"card-playing," or being a "Democrat." John knew a couple of
desperately bad boys who were reported to play "seven-