That Wild Berries Should Grow Read Online Free Page A

into a pail of quick silvery forms flashing back and forth in the water. My hand closed on one of the silvery darts. I felt the minnow squirm in my hand. Grandpapa showed me how to stick the minnow on a hook. The line went into the water. I watched the minnow disappear into the lake.
    I was sitting there feeling awful about the minnow when I felt a tug on the line and let out a scream. “Hang on,” Grandpapa said. I reeled in a fish.
    Grandmama was pleased. “A nice perch. Big enough for the frying pan.” When I put the next minnow on the hook I hardly felt sorry for it at all.
    We had the perch for dinner, and they were the best fish I ever tasted. We all went upstairs to bed early. “There’s no lullaby like a rocking boat,” Grandpapa said.
    The quiet followed me all the way up the narrow wooden stairway to my bedroom, where my grandpapa has painted garlands of pink roses around the walls. There is a wooden dresser, a rocking chair, a brass bed, and a little table where I can write my poems. It was so quiet in my room that to stop the silence I opened my window. I could hear the leaves of the big poplar tree rattling and rustling just outside my window. So I knew I wasn’t alone.
    I hadn’t thought much about trees before I came to Greenbush. They just seemed to be there like lampposts and buildings. Here in the country, where there aren’t any buildings or lampposts, the trees stand out.
    Early in the morning when I wake up, I can look out of the window and see Grandpapa walking in the orchard. He pays each tree a visit. He knows all of the fruit trees as well as he knows Grandmama and me.
    There are other trees, too. When my mother was a girl, she planted a little maple tree. Now the tree reaches to the roof of the cottage. In front of the cottage are two weeping mulberry trees. Their branches hang all the way down to the ground. You can push the branches apart like a curtain and hide yourself in the little room the weeping branches make.
    My favorite tree is an old apple tree. It teeters on the edge of the bank that leads down to the lake. Grandpapa says the apples are sour and wormy, and the tree isn’t worth caring for. I like the tree because it makes an umbrella of shade where I can sit and read and keep an eye on the lake.

The Library
    Alone ,
    walking slowly ,
    my city girl’s bare feet
    shy of glass and stone ,
    fields orange with hawkweed —
    by whose hands
    so many?
    One look takes in the town ,
    awnings cranked down
    against the sun
    making pools of shade
    cool to cross .
    The library building
    its age in stone 1859 .
    Floor, tables, chairs ,
    all oak
    all with shiny skin
    of varnish .
    Sun stopped by
    window shades
    the color of dried moss .
    Books leap
    to my hands
    green, tan, brown ,
    dog-eared .
    I choose three ,
    their small weight
    friendly
    in my arms .
    And home
    I walk
    three friends
    with me now .
    Everything is up! My garden has five green rows. Only what I had to do was awful. Grandmama said there were too many seedlings. (“Seedlings” is one of my favorite words now.) They were crowding each other out. So I had to pull some of them up and throw them away. I hated that.
    Something else. I can walk barefoot. It took me a week to get used to going without shoes. When you’re barefoot you can feel the softness of the dirt and the graininess of the sand and the sun’s heat on the sidewalks in town. It’s as if you’re attached to the earth.
    I walked to the library today because all the books I brought with me to read are used up. Though she had never set eyes on me before, the librarian, Miss Walther, greeted me with the kind of smile that says, “I knew you’d be coming.” She was sitting at her desk with her glasses clamped to her nose and her white hair done up in a big puff with a pencil through it. When I said I would please like a library card, she wrote down my name without asking what it was.
    I love the