But they
never come to this perfection, never quite lose their pucker, until
midwinter,--as if they had been intended for the Christmas table of the
woods.
It had been nearly twenty years since I crossed this pasture of the
cedars on my way to the persimmon trees. The cows had been crossing
every year, yet not a single new crook had they worn in the old paths.
But I was half afraid as I came to the fence where I could look down
upon the pond and over to the persimmon trees. Not one of the Luptons,
who owned pasture and pond and trees, had ever been a boy, so far as I
could remember, or had ever eaten of those persimmons. Would they have
left the trees through all these years?
I pushed through the hedge of cedars and stopped for an instant,
confused. The very pond was gone! and the trees! No, there was the
pond,--but how small the patch of water! and the two persimmon trees?
The bush and undergrowth had grown these twenty years. Which way--Ah,
there they stand, only their leafless tops showing; but see the hard
angular limbs, how closely globed with fruit! how softly etched upon the
sky!
I hurried around to the trees and climbed the one with the two broken
branches, up, clear up to the top, into the thick of the persimmons.
Did I say it had been twenty years? That could not be. Twenty years
would have made me a man, and this sweet, real taste in my mouth only a
_boy_ could know. But there was college, and marriage, a Massachusetts
farm, four boys of my own, and--no matter! it could not have been
_years_--twenty years--since.
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