Show inkberry weed clings to accustomed haunts along the shady path beside sprain la lake in yonkers close by the site bite of 0 kinn icle a an n ancient nt indian village grows the pokeweed pigeon berry garget or inkberry de candra a coarse smooth weed with field acid poisonous root and stem branching sometimes six sh feet or more tall with r racemes cemes ot of flowers white with green centers on in angular peduncles ped uncles two to four inches long they become clusters 0 of f scarlet luice juice berries in the autumn the indians used the red juice to stain their deerskin and paint their faces in warm wartime rne white people settling on farms among the westchester West chestor hills and writing home borne to relatives in E angland n land about the I 1 bar hardness driess ot of their lives and ana the sav agyness of the country wrote with quill pens dipped in inkberry juice the indians are gone from the hill but the weed the squaws squads used to dye feathers with still grows lovingly above the arrowheads find and stone hand band choppers sleeping in the black loam of 0 rocky lonesome once the I 1 lovely 0 v c color 0 1 0 ot t the h e berr berries i es decorated le c or a t e d belya iota lf t the h blankets n k 0 ot h hundreds u n d s of 0 w warriors a r 1 0 r about campfires camp lires fires where now boy scouts sleep out overnight and imagine they are old fashioned herb doctors thought the root an emetic and a tincture ot of the ripe berries was once used as a popular remedy for chronic rheumatism wild birds use the fruit for foo food 1 I and robins with their bills stained scarlet in august or october are not uncommon eights its chief benefit to humanity is its beauty in fruit J otis swift in the new york world telegram |