Discouragements 



unfriendly twitch, from which they were Trees in 

 suffering but as the days went by and a tr 

 stout little Norway Spruce near the house 

 began to lose its topknot, and Episcopus 

 himself showed a bad droop in his mitre, 

 we thought it worth while to look into the 

 matter more closely, so we chopped off 

 the head of one of the sufferers, and gave 

 it a post-mortem examination. Dissec- 

 tion revealed ravages, and the fatal secret 

 was out. There was a worm at the core ! 



And not one worm, but many, small, 

 white, plump and persevering, indifferent 

 to resin, and coolly tunneling their way 

 down the inside of the stem toward the 

 ground. Certain leaks on the outside, 

 and port-holes of their own construction, 

 showed the exact length to which they 

 had gone, so that by cutting just where 

 these signs disappeared, we had the satis- 

 faction of ending the earthly career of the 

 leading invader, by snipping his fat un- 

 pleasant carcass neatly in two. 



We pursued our insidious foe from tree ^ insidious 



to tree with the shears, and beheaded him 



with great slaughter. But, alas ! it was 



only a realization of the old nursery sneer, 



219 



