BERRIES FOR NAUGHT

By Don Doucette

As a boy, we had an unspoken ritual in my home – come home with a coffee can full of wild berries and Ma turned out an upside-down berry cake; without communication, a done deal and as for the cakes, they usually never saw sunset.

I stumbled across a patch of wild black raspberries one fine summer day behind the old Watson Factory along the Ten Mile River in Attleboro – actually located along the mill race at the south end of Mechanics Pond.

My mouth watered with the thought of a for-certain berry upside-down cake and I ran home to Franklin Street and fashioned a coffee can with a twine neck string and ran back to my new-found berry patch.

My can’s berry level was up, picking was good as the biggest most plump berries hung in the sunshine above the mill race.

I leaned out, greed got the better of me as my foot slipped on the wild grass lining the river bank. In I went berries and all and my hard work went for naught as I pulled myself from the water looking like my dream of berry upside-down cake had foundered like some shipwreck on jagged rocks. 

Ma never knew of that adventure and I never enjoyed my berry upside-down cake that fine summer day with my taste buds and pride castaway along the shore of the Ten Mile River. 

Donald M. Doucette

Ten Mile River Rambles

Friends of the Ten Mile

Citizen of the Ten Mile River Watershed