“That is awful stuff! I’ve heard that you can’t look at it without getting poisoned,” said Ella.
“I don’t believe that story,” replied Clinton. “I’ve looked at it myself without being poisoned. Sometimes people who have been poisoned a good many times, get to be so susceptible that they can’t go near ivy or dogwood without being infected, even if they don’t touch it; and I suppose that accounts for the notion that dogwood will poison you if you only look at it.”
“What sort of a thing is dogwood? What does it look like?” inquired Whistler.
“It is a very pretty shrub,” replied his cousin. “It grows almost large enough to be called a tree, and has smooth and glossy branches and leaves. It thrives only in wet places, I believe; but it is not near so common as the poison ivy.”
There are one or two other facts relating to these plants, which Clinton did not know, but which may be of some advantage to my readers when they ramble through the woods and swamps. These two shrubs, known in common language as “poison ivy” and “poison dogwood,” both belong to the sumach family, and are the only plants in our New England woods that are poisonous to the touch. Neither of them bears a conspicuous blossom or fruit; so that if the young botanist should chance to discover a strange plant with a beautiful and prominent flower, he may be sure that it will not harm him to pluck it. An unknown plant should never be eaten, however; as many species of the vegetable kingdom, which may be handled with impunity, are poisonous if taken into the stomach.
Our party had now emerged from the swamp, and were ascending to higher land. They soon came to the strawberry patch, but did not find the berries quite so plenty as they anticipated, other pickers having been there before them. Clinton proposed going further, and Whistler fell in with the suggestion; but the girls preferred to stop and glean the few berries that were left, rather than to seek new fields. The boys, however, concluded to extend their tramp to the hills, about a mile distant, leaving the girls to look out for themselves. Their course lay through a succession of fields and pastures, gradually ascending, until they reached the base of the high hills shown in the upper part of the map of Brookdale. These hills were thickly wooded, many of the trees being of majestic size and great beauty. They were chiefly pines, and the ground beneath was cushioned with the brown foliage of former years, while the air was full of the balmy odor that distills from this noble tree. Now and then a decayed stump, which their united arms could scarcely encircle, showed where some giant of the woods had fallen; but, in the main, this hill-side forest was as nature made it.
The boys found it a slippery and toilsome path up the hill; but, once on the top of “Bald Peak,” as the eminence was called, they were rewarded for their pains by the extensive prospect that met their eyes. The spot was very rocky, and, as its name implied, was destitute of trees. The view took in a wide range of country, dotted with houses and cultivated fields.
“There!” exclaimed Clinton, as they seated themselves upon a mossy stone,—“have you got anything in Boston that beats this?”
“I don’t know,—we have some pretty good views in Boston,” replied his cousin.
“From the top of the State House?” inquired Clinton.