258 In Touch with Nature. 



has to do with it. A child that lives among oaks 

 will have sturdier thought than he who knows 

 nothing but brambles. 



I would that I were rich in the wisdom of these 

 unlearned men. Never knowledge so refreshing 

 as that doled out by octogenarians who have 

 grown up with the trees, in the shade of which 

 they passed their declining years. 



Here, as I recall it, is what one of these old men 

 said to me just before he died, some twenty years 

 ago: " Gran'daddy cleared off the woods in 1765 

 and daddy built this house in '93, and I've growed 

 up with the trees that make it shady round the 

 yard. I got so far as to write my name, when a 

 boy, but always did my figurin' in my head. As 

 to readin', well, I'd rather be read to." Again, he 

 remarked, " A roof's handy, but I live out o' doors, 

 and I tell you, I like these old trees. They talk 

 when the wind blows ; and it never struck me, as 

 it seems to some folks, that a tree was sort of in 

 ruins when it lost its leaves. Or take the bushes, 

 when they're out o' bloom they're not out o' 

 beauty." 



Here was a man worth talking to ; one who 



