I filled both pockets of my coat and climbed down. I kept those
persimmons and am tasting them to-night. Lupton's Pond may fill to a
puddle, the meadows may shrivel, the creek dry up and disappear, and old
Time may even try his wiles on me. But I shall foil him to the
end; for I am carrying still in my pocket some of yesterday's
persimmons,--persimmons that ripened in the rime of a winter when I was
a boy.

High and alone in a bare persimmon tree for one's dinner hardly sounds
like a merry Christmas. But I was not alone. I had noted the fresh
tracks beneath the tree before I climbed up, and now I saw that the snow
had been partly brushed from several of the large limbs as the 'possum
had moved about in the tree for his Christmas dinner. We were guests at
the same festive board, and both of us at Nature's invitation. It
mattered not that the 'possum had eaten and gone this hour or more. Such
is good form in the woods. He was expecting me, so he came early, out of
modesty; and, that I too might be entirely at my ease, he departed
early, leaving his greetings for me in the snow.

Thus I was not alone; here was good company and plenty of it. I never
lack a companion in the woods when I can pick up a trail. The 'possum
and I ate together. And this was just the fellowship I needed, this
sharing the persimmons with the 'possum. I had broken bread, not with
the 'possum only, but with all the out-of-doors. I was now fit to enter
the woods, for I was filled with good-will and persimmons, as full as
the 'possum; and putting myself under his gentle guidance, I got down
upon the ground, took up his clumsy trail, and descended toward the
swamp. Such an entry is one of the particular joys of the winter. To go
in with a fox, a mink, or a 'possum through the door of the woods is to