Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
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B
<div class="poem">
<p>" He seems to be thrifty ; and hasn't he need,<br />
With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed ?<br />
He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say,<br />
Like birds. They store a great many away.<br />
They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat<br />
They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet."
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>" I wonder you didn't see Loren about."
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>" We shan't have the place to ourselves to enjoy—<br />
Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy.<br />
They'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night.<br />
They won't be too friendly—they may be polite—<br />
To people they look on as having no right<br />
To pick where they're picking. But we won't complain.<br />
You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain,<br />
The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,<br />
Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves."
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>" Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think ? "
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>" I've told you how once not long after we came,<br />
I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth<br />
By going to him of all people on earth<br />
To ask if he knew any fruit to be had<br />
For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad<br />
To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.<br />
There had been some berries—but those were all gone.<br />
He didn't say where they had been. He went on :<br />
' I'm sure—I'm sure '—as polite as could be.<br />
He spoke to his wife in the door, ' Let me see,<br />
Mame, we don't know any good berrying place ? '<br />
It was all he could do to keep a straight face.
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>" He may and not care and so leave the chewink<br />
To gather them for him—you know what he is.<br />
He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his<br />
An excuse for keeping us other folk out."
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>" The best of it was that I did. Do you know,<br />
I was just getting through what the field had to show<br />
And over the wall and into the road,<br />
When who should come by, with a democrat-load<br />
Of all the young chattering Lorens alive,<br />
But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive."
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" He seems to be thrifty ; and hasn't he need,<br />
With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed ?<br />
He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say,<br />
Like birds. They store a great many away.<br />
They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat<br />
They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet."
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" He just kept nodding his head up and down.<br />
You know how politely he always goes by.<br />
But he thought a big thought—I could tell by his eye—<br />
Which being expressed, might be this in effect :<br />
' I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,<br />
To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.' "<br />
" He's a thriftier person than some I could name."
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>“ I wish I knew half what the flock of them know<br />
Of where all the berries and other things grow,<br />
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top<br />
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.<br />
I met them one day and each had a flower<br />
Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower ;<br />
Some strange kind—they told me it hadn't a name. "
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" Who cares what they say ? It's a nice way to live,<br />
Just taking what Nature is willing to give,<br />
Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow. “<br />
“I wish you had seen his perpetual bow—<br />
And the air of the youngsters ! Not one of them turned,<br />
And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.”
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>“ I wish I knew half what the flock of them know<br />
Of where all the berries and other things grow,<br />
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top<br />
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.<br />
I met them one day and each had a flower<br />
Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower ;<br />
Some strange kind—they told me it hadn't a name. "
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>How we used to pick berries : we took one look round,<br />
Then sank out of sight like trolls underground,<br />
And saw nothing more of each other, or heard,<br />
Unless when you said I was keeping a bird<br />
Away from its nest, and I said it was you.<br />
' Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew<br />
Around and around us. And then for a while<br />
We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile,<br />
And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout<br />
Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out,<br />
For when you made answer, your voice was as low<br />
As talking—you stood up beside me, you know.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" Who cares what they say ? It's a nice way to live,<br />
Just taking what Nature is willing to give,<br />
Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow. “<br />
“I wish you had seen his perpetual bow—<br />
And the air of the youngsters ! Not one of them turned,<br />
And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.”
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" He saw you, then ? What did he do ? Did he frown ? "
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" You ought to have seen what I saw on my way<br />
To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day :<br />
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,<br />
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum<br />
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come !<br />
And all ripe together, not some of them green<br />
And some of them ripe ! You ought to have seen ! "
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" You know where they cut off the woods—let me see—<br />
It was two years ago—or no !—can it be<br />
No longer than that ?—and the following fall<br />
The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall."
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>" If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him,<br />
He'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim,<br />
We'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year.<br />
We'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear,<br />
And the sun shines out warm : the vines must be wet.<br />
It's so long since I picked I almost forget
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>“ It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.<br />
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.<br />
And after all really they're ebony skinned :<br />
The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind,<br />
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,<br />
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned."
</p>
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