The Old Pine Tree's Story 



By Anna Botsford Comstock 



A suggestion as to a method of teaching history in connection with the life 



of a tree. 



I am so old that I have forgotten the number of my years, but I 

 was a middle aged tree before I ever saw a white man. I remember 



when I was one of twin seeds under a 

 scale of a cone on my mother tree which 

 stood yonder on the hill. One night a 

 terrible wind blew dow^n the lake and 

 tore me from my protecting cone ; but 

 I had a little wing of my own and I 

 went whirling around in great glee and 

 finally settled to the ground under an 

 old oak that stood over yonder. My 

 bed was of leaves and verv^ thick, and 

 though I was safe and cosy, I feared I 

 could never send my rootlet down to the 

 earth through those dead leaves. And 

 there I waited and wondered a whole 

 year until one day a black bear came 

 there hunting acorns. He scratched 

 away the leaves with his great paws and 

 though his visit was rather hard on the 

 acorns, to me he was very kind for he threw me down next to the 

 bare earth and pressed me down with great flat feet. So when spring 

 came I nestled into the warm soil and put a little root down so 

 far as I could push it, and then I pushed my head up with my 

 seed cap still on. But I wriggled and shook it off and soon 

 stood up with my tassel of needles free and with a little bud 

 in the center that would reach up into the world. 



Those first years were full of difficulties. There were around me 

 many other plants that grew faster than I and spread their leaves 

 above me and stole my sunlight. But I was a patient little tree 

 and waited, and when they died with the first frosts of auttmm 

 I had all the light to myself and made the most of it. I stretched 

 out my rootlets as far as possible and next year I was not so 

 crowded. Later the great trees tried to crowd me out and shade 

 me down but I would not give up. Once when I was quite young, 

 some red men built a camp fire close to me and if the wind had not 



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