TILE BOLE OF THE BEECH. 123 



These sounds are but the beginning of that au- 

 tumn chorus whose symphony will soon be 

 heard throughout the land. 



Another fortnight and the purple cymes of 

 the ironweed w T ill be waving in the breeze. Al- 

 ready the buds are swollen nearly to the burst- 

 ing stage. 



The sunbeams, falling almost perpendicularly 

 through a rift in the overshadowing branches, 

 have caused me to move to the base of the great 

 white oak. Its trunk, strong, massive, gray, is 

 full of vigor and the joy of living. The smooth 

 gray bole of a half -grown beech, here and there 

 mottled with the darker spots of moss or lichen, 

 and with the sunlight glinting in patches o'er 

 the surface, is one of the most attractive sights 

 of this woodland slope. 



I could almost hug the trunks of some of the 

 smooth, medium sized beeches, oaks and maples 

 of this old pasture, so much I think of them, 

 their strength, their graceful forms, their ever 

 welcome shade. It is the full vigor of middle 

 life which seemingly I most admire in them. 

 As they become older, their bark tends to become 



