To make friends with the birds provide food and water for them, then sit down and wait quietly until they appear. Let them become accustomed to seeing you sitting still every day for a while, then begin slow, careful movements, gradually becoming more natural, and in time the birds will allow you to walk among them as you please, if you are careful never to frighten them. You can do this in camp; you can do it at home if you are not living in a city. The trustful friendship of animals and birds opens a new path of happiness and one that all girls should be able, in some measure, to enjoy.
CHAPTER VII
WILD FOOD ON THE TRAIL
Edible Fruits, Nuts, Roots, and Plants
While wild foods gathered on the trail give a delightful variety to camp fare, be advised and do not gather, still less eat, them unless you are absolutely sure you know what they are and that they are not poisonous. You must be able to identify a thing with certainty before tasting in order to enjoy it in safety. It is well worth while to make a study of the wild-growing foods, but in the meantime this chapter will help you to know some of them. The italicized names are of the things I know to be edible from personal experience. You are probably well acquainted with the common wild fruits such as the raspberry, strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, and huckleberry, but there are varieties of these and all will bear description.
Red Raspberry
The wild berry often has a more delicious flavor and perfume than the cultivated one of the same species. Nothing can approach the wonderful and delicate flavor of the little wild strawberry, unless it is the wild red raspberry; and the fully ripe wild blackberry holds a spicy sweetness that makes the garden blackberry taste tame and flat in comparison.
The wild red raspberry is found in open fields and growing along fences and the sides of the road. The flowers are white and grow in loose clusters, while the berry, when fully ripe, is a deep, translucent red. The bush is shrubby, is generally about waist-high, and the stems bear small, hooked prickles. The leaves are what is called compound, being composed of three or five leaflets, usually three, which branch out from the main stem like the leaves of the rose-bush. The edges of the leaves are irregularly toothed.
The berry is cup-shaped and fits over a core which is called the receptacle, and from which it loosens when ripe to drop easily into your hand, leaving the receptacle and calyx on the stem. The sweet, far-carrying perfume of the gathered wild red raspberry will always identify it. The season for fruit is July and August.