The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1883-12-27
Chestnuts.

IL is GIle Time OF Lno year, when people
who have never been taught any better
go ehestnutting.
Chestnuts do not grow wild out West.
Let the mighty West remember that
with grateful heart on Thanksgiving
Day. On the boundless prairies the
chestnut only grows in the train-boy's
basket.
The chestnut is the home Of the riot
ing worm. No self-respecting worm
will live in the ground if he can find a
chestnut He enters it by hole which
cannot be perceived, and once in the
nut he riots in solitude and abundance,
until some incautious man reads the
riot act to him. A chestnut without
worm is as great rarity as bee with
out sting.
Where all the chestnuts come from,
goodness only knows. don't. They
don't grow on the trees. The Prince
went out one day, with the little ones
at the parsonage. He came home with
half peck of beautiful brown chest
nuts. | smiled at the child enthusi-
asm, and said to his mother:
II will go out with him myself, and
get couple of bushel."
did go out with him. took some
things to bring the nuts home in; to-
wit, grain sack, a large double-decker
market basket, and box; the aggregate
capacity of these vessels was two and
one-half bushels. DR.. McLain and
Louie accompanied us, with some
what larger equipment.
The proportion of the chestnut burs
| - IL = AI., L. ,e Al Il
ders to the trout in the brook. just
about. You walk over acres of hulls,
you turn them over, you look into them,
you stumble and fall on them. At last
your heart bounds with. Joy. You finA
bur with a chestnut in it. You get
all the needles on the bur into your
two thumbs while you extract that
chestnut, and then the ever-present
worm looks out and denounces the bar
barity of eviction.
/ carried the chestnuts home that
night in my pocket. The grain bag
folded up and hid under my coat, ]
threw the box away and the basket
filled with hickory nuts. After it was
full, native drove past and looked at
me kindly.
There's lots and bushels of she'll
barks down on the other road about a
mile" he said, with peculiar empha-
sis on the shell-barks.
''Well, what's there?" / asked with a
sinking heart.
'.Pig nuts,'' he replied, ''they're nc
good; nobody ever gathers them"
| l lied. feebly, saying that / kept a
PIC and had gathered these nuts for
| feed, and the native looked iBcredulous
and drove on.
What. you emptyin' all dem nut:
over de fence for?" the Prince de
manded.
Itold him there were motives in the
human heart that sometimes shaped
our actions, too deep and intricate for
him to comprehend, and then the Doc
tor and gathered up the children and
trespassed across field to O. forbidden
chestnut tree, escorted by whole hero
of cattle and a Mr.. Durham, who
paved the ground in another field anc
talked bass at us through the rails
We made a great haul at this tree
The venerable old monarch of the fores
was about two thousand years old, anG
its branches had spread of abou
twenty acres. It was cloudy witt
burs, but we got seven nuts and ten
worms.
[ know what the worms are for
They are to keep people from eatin:
the chestnuts. We're it not for tn
worms many people would eat chest
: nuts who cannot now be induced +
| taste them, and great amount of sui
! fering would thereby be entailed upol
t the human race. OF all the awful
? tiresome, maddening things in the worl
9 to eat, a chestnut is the Gngeringest
A man may start in on chestnut sa
about the 10th of October. He ca
chew it all that day, and from time t
time make desperate efforts to swalloV
? fine fragments of it. 1t viii make hir
e cough all night, and he can resume th
process of mastication early in th
: morning and keep it up all the ne1
y day. It will last him that week, an
!, Sunday he cannot sing at church witt
$ out blowing dessicated chestnut all owe
t the pew in front of him. He's lucky
!, he finally gets that chestnut ehewe
!, and swallowed by the end of Noven
ber. I always hated it, and since
J have met it in its native haunt / Al
e less than ever a friend of the chestnu
l Darlington Hdt0beye.