Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/84

70 recent shoots crimson-colored. The flowers have a considerably rosy tinge, a delicate tint. The last two kinds are more densely flowered than the others.—The huckleberry is an upright shrub, more or less stout according to its exposure to the sun and air, with a spreading, bushy top, a dark brown bark and thick leaves, the recent shoots red. The flowers are much more red than those of the others.

As in old times they who dwelt on the heath, remote from towns, were backward to adopt the doctrines which prevailed there, and were therefore called heathen, so we dwellers in the huckleberry pastures, which are our heathlands, are slow to adopt the notions of large towns and cities, and may perchance be nicknamed huckleberry people. But the worst of it is that the emissaries of the towns care more for our berries than we for their doctrines. In those days the very race had got a bad name, and ethnicus was only another name for heathen.

All our hills are or have been huckleberry hills,—the three hills of Boston, and no doubt Bunker Hill among the rest.

In May and June all our hills and fields are adorned with a profusion of the pretty little, more or less bell-shaped flowers of this family, commonly turned toward the earth, and more or less tinged with red or pink, and resounding