But the favorite haunt of the wild strawberry is an uplying meadow that
has been exempt from the plow for five or six years, and that has
little timothy and much daisy. When you go a-berrying, turn your steps
toward the milk-white meadows. The slightly bitter odor of the daisies
is very agreeable to the smell, and affords a good background for the
perfume of the fruit. The strawberry cannot cope with the rank and
deep-rooted clover, and seldom appears in a field till the clover has
had its day. But the daisy with its slender stalk does not crowd or
obstruct the plant, while its broad white flower is like a light
parasol that tempers and softens the too strong sunlight. Indeed,
daisies and strawberries are generally associated. Nature fills her
dish with the berries, then covers them with the white and yellow of
milk and cream, thus suggesting a combination we are quick to follow.
Milk alone, after it loses its animal heat, is a clod, and begets
torpidity of the brain; the berries lighten it, give wings to it, and
one is fed as by the air he breathes or the water he drinks.

Then the delight of "picking" the wild berries! It is one of the
fragrant memories of boyhood. Indeed, for boy or man to go a-berrying
in a certain pastoral country I know of, where a passer-by along the
highway is often regaled by a breeze loaded with a perfume of the o'er-
ripe fruit, is to get nearer to June than by almost any course I know
of. Your errand is so private and confidential! You stoop low. You part
away the grass and the daisies, and would lay bare the inmost secrets
of the meadow. Everything is yet tender and succulent; the very air is
bright and new; the warm breath of the meadow comes up in your face; to
your knees you are in a sea of daisies and clover; from your knees up,
you are in a sea of solar light and warmth. Now you are prostrate like
a swimmer, or like a surf-bather reaching for pebbles or shells, the