Bob Cratchit’s goose: There never was such a goose, as you all know who have read Dickens’s “Christmas Carol.”
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liquid amber: The balsamic juice of the sweet gum tree, sometimes called “bilsted” (Liquidambar styraciflua), a large, beautiful swamp tree found from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas.
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half-human tracks: Because the coon is a relative of the bears and has a long hind foot that leaves a track much like that of a small baby.
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tupelo: See note on gum swamp, page 141.
sour gums: same as tupelo.
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chicken or frost grapes: Vitis cordifolia: the smallest, sourest, best (boy standards) of all our wild grapes. They ripen after the frost and feed the boys and birds when all other such fruits have gone from the woods.
Smooth winterberry: is really another ilex, Ilex lævigata, a larger bush than Ilex verticillata, the black alder or winterberry.
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