Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/168

 “Here’s the fly agaric,” he babbled. “It’s one of the two poisonous specimens of mushrooms found in Maine. Take it in July and August when the fly is cutting up something disagreeable and put it in water and it’ll kill ’em off. Ye’ll notice the stem is white and a foot tall, with a creamy yaller cap on top. And the cap is spattered with little scales. They say a Czar of Russia once was killed by eating these.”

Still Stanley and Bub sat side by side, looking at their feet and apparently not hearing him.

Coughing loudly to arouse interest he continued, “And here is the only other poisonous specimen. I don’t know the foreign name, but we call it the ‘Death Cup.’ Pure satiny white. Ain’t it a beauty? There’s no cure for the man who eats it.”

The two youths might have been figures of marble, so motionless did they remain.

“Ahem!” sounded Abner desperately. “Have a few of these snow berries. They have a taste of wintergreen and are s’posed to be a little extry.”

Receiving no recognition Abner hurled the berries from him and threw his hat on the ground. “If I’ve got to be in the woods with