Ellen, too, was espied gazing regretfully after us, as we set off with the baskets and tools. Halse had a pocketful of doughnuts (which he always called duffnuts). He had made a raid on the pantry, he said, and enlivened the way by topping off his dinner with them.
We went out through the fields to the southwest of the farm buildings, then crossed a lot called the calf pasture, and then a swale, descending through woods and bushes into the valley of the west brook.
"This is the meadow-brook," said Addison. "But Titcomb's meadow is a mile below here. We will follow down the brook till we come to it.
"That's poke," he continued, pointing to a thick, rank, green plant, with great curved leaves, now about a foot in height and growing near the bank of the brook. Halstead gave one of the plants a crushing stroke with his hoe, and I noticed that it gave off a very unpleasant odor.
"It is poison," Addison remarked. "It is the plant that botanists call veratrum viride, I believe. But the common name is Indian poke."
"O Ad knows everything; his head is stuffed with long words!" exclaimed Halse, derisively. "It'll bust one of these days. I don't dare to get very near him on that account."
"No danger that yours will ever 'bust' on account of what's inside it," retorted Addison, laughing.
But Halstead, although he had begun the joking, did not appear to take this shot back in good part. He turned aside and began to cut a witch-hazel rod.
"Now quit that, Halse," exclaimed Addison. "Wait till we get the poke dug, then we will all three cut some rods and fish for half an hour."
But Halstead proceeded to string a hook, bait it with a bit of pork which he had brought, and then dropped it into a hole beside an alder bush at a bend of the stream.