

fagots of wood, some of them quite 

 twenty feet long, and reaching into the 

 far corners of that gloomy and disordered 

 room. There were great limbs of blight- 

 killed chestnut, dead young cedars and 

 pines, punky old butternut, and many 

 other sorts of sticks, some rusty with dry 

 rot, and others chalky with fungus. They 

 stuck out like rays from the hearth and 

 used up most of the floor. I learned later 

 that they were gradually shoved into the 

 fire-place as the inner ends burned away. 

 At times in the past, some of the sticks 

 must have been forgotten until the fire 

 had crept out along them, past the edge 

 of the hearth, and had charred ragged 

 holes in the floor. 



THEN, from somewhere in a dark 

 comer, a voice called me by name. 

 It was a clear and sweet voice, but 

 sad. Soon I was face to face with Mr. 

 Emanon. He was old but not feeble, and 

 was interested in trees, as I thought he 

 would be; but strangely, he knew very 

 little about them, either as to their names 

 or uses. He loved them, but he did not 

 know them ! This seemed very strange, 

 because with us, the better we know a 

 thing the more we seem to like it. Nor 

 did he seem to get much joy from this 

 love, and there's something wrong in love 

 without gladness. 



He proved to be a strange man. His 

 heart was big, so big, I thought, that it 

 outweighed his head. He wanted me to 

 help him get Congress to pass a law that 

 no creature with wings — not even 

 chickens — should ever be put in a cage, 

 with the possible exception of canary 

 birds, and their cages should be eight 

 feet high by ten feet long. 

 WniEN it came to trees, he said that 

 W no tree should ever be cut; if they 

 did not die or shed their limbs he 

 would go without a fire because he could 

 not bear to see destroyed for fuel the 

 living, growing trunks. His own woods 

 had never been touched by the ax since 

 he had known them, and he was going to 

 give them as they were to his native 

 state, with the fixed rule that not a stick 

 of wood was ever to be cut from them. 

 Of course they were all in a tangle, and 

 full of disease and decav. for lack of care 



and thinning. He did not seem to realize 

 that there is just as much need for forest 

 sanitation to check disease and insects, 

 as there is for right measures in the 

 home, or in the growing of farm crops or 

 fruit. 



The sound of an ax, he said, really 

 made him ill. Only a few days before 

 he had taken to his bed at hearing a 

 horrible chopping in the neighborhood, 

 and was greatly reUeved the next day, 

 on looking from his bedroom window, to 

 find that it was only a telephone pole 

 that some linemen were removing. 



It was no wonder that he was a sad 

 man, when he looked on all his neighbors 

 as sinners and vandals, and saw in the 

 rest of the world a mass of people bent 

 on destruction alone. I could not make 

 him see the wise use of trees, and I think 

 he was greatly disappointed in me. How- 

 ever, I promised to talk to the schools 

 about how to know the trees, and not 

 about how to use them, and that made 

 him feel a httle better. 



The next morning, as I was leaving that 

 sombre house, Mr. Emanon was more 

 sorrowful than ever, because the big mas- 

 tiff had died during the night. He thought 

 the neighbors had poisoned the dog, but 

 it is my belief that the poor beast died of 

 old age, for besides being blind he was 

 very thin and weak. 



SO I drove off with the boy again; and 

 I never did convince the sorrowful 

 owner of that lonesome home in the 

 dying woods that the forests were for our 

 service, and that it is our duty to use them 

 wisely for ourselves and for the future. 



" This is the wild horse," briefly ex- 

 plained the boy as we rode away. 



" Is he so very bad? " 



" Sometimes he acts fierce! " 



*' Does he run away? " 



" No ; he just kicks up and smashes 

 the carriage all to pieces! " 



But the horse was meek enough. I 

 could see no difference between this and 

 the sleepy one, even to the smears of 

 whitewash. It is at this point, the end 

 of the story, that Toto always pipes up 

 and says, "That boy was only fooling 

 you, Dad; both of those horses were the 

 same one! " 



fi^:^ 



^?^ 



