Nature and the Supernatural 



IT has been a day of rain — the pines are sighing 

 in the wind and tossing their plumy branches 

 as if flurried and disturbed. The pine is a 

 sensible tree. When the wind is so strong as to 

 endanger its hold in the earth, it casts off limb 

 after limb, until its strength of root and bole are 

 adequate to hold the remainder of its foliage against 

 the gale. It strips itself to the conflict, and yet 

 sacrifices not a twig that it can safely retain. 



The evening camp-fire burns low. One by one 

 the brands have dissolved into coals, and one by 

 one the little circle has retired into the cabins and 

 gone to sleep. I take from a pile of the skeleton 

 of a dead pine one of its huge resinous bones and 

 cast it on the coals. The surrounding trees have all 

 retired into the silent darkness to repose from the 

 toils of the stormy day — now with its wrestling 

 winds also gone into the darkness of the past. Im- 

 mediately the yellow flames shoot up high, and the 

 trees step out of the darkness on silent feet, with a 

 surprised expression, as if to say, as they look 

 down upon me, "Why, we did not expect you to 

 call for us again." And there they stand waiting, 

 with the stars glittering in their tangled hair. 



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