The Newtown bee., 1880-07-14
Huckleberry Picking.

A recent issue of the Philadelphia Press says: The Moosic Highlands, which form spur of the Alleghanies, and cover vast tract of country be- tween Pittston and Hawley, are just now black with huckleberries. and at instantaneous " huckleberry brigades," made up of women and children who wander barefooted along the mountain- side during the day, and return to Scran. ton, Carbondale or Pittston, as the case may be, in the evening, carrying pails and buckets overfowing with the fruit.
 The berry -pickers, who go by hundreds
 to the mountains, manage to secure a
 ride on the gravity road of the Penn-
 syIvania Coal company clinging to the sides of the laden coal cars that are strung together by the dozen, and in this
 way women and children are whirled
 away across the dizzy chasms and through the deep cuts that distinguish
 this rugged landscape, until they ire quently find themselves as much as | twenty miles from home, trusting to | chance for return ride. A" huckle.
 berry train is one of the picturesque
 sights of the gravity road. The women
 and girls, with sunburned faces, cling to the side rails of the coal cars with
 one hand and hold their heaped pails of
 berries upon their heads with the other. | | peril, but they become insured to its
 hardships and learn to love its gypsy
 like character. They leave for the
 mountains at the mornings first light,
 and go in crowds of from twenty to thirty. The greatest terror of begin
 ners in the business are the rattlesnakes,
 which abound among the berry bushes. After a time, however, they learn to
 fight and vanquish the reptile, and 1t is
 no uncommon thing to hear veteran
 berry picker boast of the number of rat
 tlesnakes which she killed during the
 season. The violent storms that visit
 the mountains at this season of the year
 are considered a source of great danger
 by the pickers. About four years ago
 several women were killed by lightning
 while taking temporary refuge in 3 mountain shed. Their pails were filled with berries, and they were ready to re. . turn, when a fierce rain-storm came up , Several women who were hastening to ! ward the structure saw the bolt by which , their companions lost their lives, ant
 fled in terror to the town. Wagon: were sent out for the bodies, and tho 5 occurrence created a great sensation in Scranton. Some time ago, Superintend ent J John B. Smith, of the Pennsylvania I Coal company, issued an order prohibi ing the berrywomen from riding ovel
 the gravity road, and there was grea [ tribulation in consequence. The order : has been relaxed. however, and tn, huckleberry train is still an institu ton of the romantic route. The qualit, of berries this season is unusually larg , and fine. It was feared some time az, 7 that thr forest fires had swept the berr,
 bushes, but the region where they mos flourish was scarcely touched by tn flames, and the recent rains have con tributed largely to the development o the crop. which promises to yie,d abund
 antly. Some enterprising women f whose husbands have been killed by ac
 cidents in and about the mines, sup a port large and feeble families by tn t sale of their berries during the huckle
 berry season.