“’A few days more, and I drop the white petals down among the grass, and, lo! there are the green tiny berries!  Carefully I hold them up to the sun; carefully I gather the dew in the summer nights; slowly they ripen; they grow larger and redder and darker, and at last they are black, shining, delicious.  I hold them as high as I can for the little boy, who comes dancing out.  He shouts with joy, and gathers them in his dear hand; and he runs to share them with his mother, saying, “Here is what the patient blackberry-bush bore for us:  see how nice, mamma!”

“’Ah! then indeed I am glad, and would say, if I could, “Yes, take them, dear little boy; I kept them for you, held them long up to the sun and rain to make them sweet and ripe for you”; and I nod and nod in full content, for my work is done.  From the window he watches me and thinks, “There is the little blackberry-bush that was so kind to me.  I see it and I love it.  I know it is safe out there nodding all alone, and next summer it will hold ripe berries up for me to gather again."’”

* * * * *

Then the wee boy smiled, and said he liked the little story.  His mother took him up in her arms, and they went out to supper and left the blackberry-bush nodding up and down in the wind; and there it is nodding yet.

FOOTNOTES: 

[16] From Celia Thaxter’s Stories and Poems for Children.

THE FAIRIES[17]

     Up the airy mountain,
       Down the rushy glen,
     We daren’t go a-hunting
       For fear of little men. 
     Wee folk, good folk,
       Trooping all together;
     Green jacket, red cap,
       And white owl’s feather!

     Down along the rocky shore
       Some make their home—­
     They live on crispy pancakes
       Of yellow tide-foam;
     Some in the reeds
       Of the black mountain-lake,
     With frogs for their watch-dogs,
       All night awake.

     High on the hilltop
       The old King sits;
     He is now so old and gray,
       He’s nigh lost his wits. 
     With a bridge of white mist
       Columbkill he crosses,
     On his stately journeys
       From Slieveleague to Rosses;
     Or going up with music
       On cold starry nights,
     To sup with the Queen
       Of the gay Northern Lights.

     They stole little Bridget
       For seven years long;
     When she came down again
       Her friends were all gone. 
     They took her lightly back,
       Between the night and morrow;
     They thought that she was fast asleep,
       But she was dead with sorrow. 
     They have kept her ever since
       Deep within the lake,
     On a bed of flag-leaves,
       Watching till she wake.