motes of tbe 



and you think of a person turning about when 

 asleep, or moving an arm in response to some 

 impression due to dreaming. An ice-incased tree 

 is like the uplifted trap-rock that, not far away, 

 towers up from a level meadow several feet above 

 the surrounding plain. Their rest implies silence, 

 and this is true of them, save one. The shagbark 

 hickory has not one tongue within, but a hundred, 

 that girdle it about, and they are never idle 

 tongues. If they do not repeat, they at least 

 sound the notice that something has transpired. 

 Not a breeze can steal on tip-toe by, but one or a 

 dozen tongues will rattle the secret, and when the 

 wind sweeps down from the uplands, charged 

 with a chilly message to the low-lying plain, the 

 hickory tongues "ring out their delight in the 

 startled ear of night." Often have I been misled 

 by this strange sound of the pendant strips of 

 bark as they clashed with each other and struck 

 the sturdy tree-trunk. Is it the frozen sap in 

 the wood, or the empty vessels only, that makes 

 trees in winter so musical ? There is a ring to 

 many of them, in intensely cold weather, that is 

 almost metallic. Trees vary in this respect. I 

 know a tall ash without a branch lower than forty 

 feet from the ground that rings like a bell when it 

 is struck suddenly ; while an oak near-by, gnarly 

 from the roots up and all branches, tied with 

 a scrap of bark, gives forth no resonance. I 

 am speaking of trees that are frozen so very 

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