The huckleberries were no more than 100 feet from the broad, trampled parking lot on the summit of Mt. Wachusett. Not just a few huckleberries, either, for the low bushes were loaded with them. I bent down and tried one. It was a little dry, maybe a few days past its prime, but it had an excellent flavor. I started eating greedily. I must have gotten lost in the pleasure of eating, for I didn’t hear the man until he had come around the bend of the trail. You never want to give away the location of a good berry patch to anyone, so I quickly stood, but he had already seen me.

“Ha!” he said. He was an older man with a white beard, sensibly dressed with a bucket hat and daypack. “Don’t eat all the berries!”

“Look at them all,” I said. “These bushes haven’t been picked over at all. Tells you how far most people get away from their cars. And look how many there are!”

“Yes,” he said as he bent over to pick and eat berries. He looked up at me. “It must the all the rain we’ve had.”

“They’re a maybe little gone by, and they’re kind of dry,” I said, “but then huckleberries always are.”

“That’s because huckleberries are all seeds,” he said. He left soon after that. I don’t think he liked them as much as I did. They were a little dry, but they tasted so good; –not good enough to stop and pick a bucketful to take home, but good enough to stop for ten or fifteen minutes to pick and eat them on the spot.

***

I came up the steady incline of the trail to the top of High Meadow, breathing pretty hard because I was pushing myself pretty hard. But I wasn’t walking too fast to notice the black raspberries. I picked one and ate it, and it was so good, but then I had to stop to catch my breath before I could eat more.

I was most of the way back to the parking lot, and thirsty because the Audubon sanctuary didn’t have any drinking water available. The black raspberries had been well-picked over a few days before, probably over the weekend — you could see the empty stems where people had pulled berries off — but quite a few more had ripened since then. The ones I picked were perfectly ripe, and because I was thirsty, they tasted especially good. In among the black raspberries I came across some blackberry canes, and they too had ripe fruit on them. Blackberries used to be one of my favorite fruits, but now I don’t like them nearly as well as black raspberries; now I think they have a funny almost-dusty taste. I ate some more black raspberries to have a good taste in my mouth before I walked on.

Nine miles, four hours, total elevation gain about a thousand feet, lots of sore muscles.