From birch bark gathered in long wood walks could be made cornucopias and drinking-cups, and letters could be cut thereon and thereof. There wandered through the town, harmless and happy, one of "God's fools," whose like is seen in every country community. He found his pleasure in early autumn in strolling through the country, and marking with his jack-knife, in cabalistic designs, the surface of all the unripe pumpkins and squashes. He was driven by the farmers from this annoying trespass in the daytime, but "by brave moonshine" could still make his mysterious mark on the harvest of the year. The boys of the town, impressed by the sight of a garden or field of squashes thus curiously marked, fell into a habit of similar inscription, which in them became wanton vandalism, and had none of the sense of baffled mystery which always hung around and illumined poor Elmer's letters. A favorite manner of using the autumn store of pumpkins was in the manufacture of Jack-o'-lanterns, which were most effective and hideous when lighted from within. "The umbrellas are out!" call country children in spring, when the peltate leaves of the May apple spread their umbrella-shaped lobes, and the little girls gather them, and the leaves of the wild sarsaparilla, for dolls' parasols. The spreading head of what we called snake grass could also be tied into a very effective miniature parasol. There is no sense of caste among children when in a field or garden--all are equally well dressed when "bedizened and brocaded" with garden finery. Green leaves can be pinned with their stems into fantastic caps and bonnets; foxglove fingers can be used as gloves; the blossoms of the jewelweed make pretty earrings; and the dandelion and daisy chains are not the only necklaces,--the lilac and larkspur chains and pretty little circlets of phlox are proudly worn; and strings of rose-hips end the summer. The old English herbalist says "children with delight make chains and pretty gewgaws of the fruit of roses." Truly, the garden-bred child walks in gay attire from May to October. The "satten" found by the traveller Josselyn, in seventeenth-century New England gardens, formed throughout New England a universal plaything, and a frequent winter posy, in country parlors, on mantel or table. The broad white oval partition, of satiny lustre, remaining after the side valves had fallen, made juvenile money, and the plant went by the appropriate name of money-in-both-pockets. Other seeds were gathered as the children's spoils: those of the garden balsam, to see them burst, or to feel them curl up in the hand like living creatures; those of the balsam's cousin, the jewelweed, to watch them snap violently open--hence its country name of touch-me-not and snapweed. When the leaves were hung with dew it deserved its title of jewelweed, and when they were immersed in water its other pretty descriptive folk name of silver-leaf.