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it tires of playing the painter, and ripples 

 merrily away, a fairy cascade, over the dam 

 of Nature's building. 



The pool lies in green gloom. A huge 

 bending sycamore leans far over it. Ash, 

 maple, locust, elm, rise column-wise about 

 it. A little farther, and you come to rank 

 upon rank of oak, hickory, walnut, all atangle 

 at foot with hawthorn, iron-wood, crab-apple. 

 The farther bank is matted with shrub- 

 cottonwood, that is tufted with round, white 

 flowers. This side a reach of bare, flat 

 stone juts out into the water, still warm 

 with the sun of yesterday, despite the cool 

 night-dews. 



Stepping-stones, flat and smooth, lead 

 down to it from the bath-house. That was, 

 three hundred years ago, a smart young 

 white-oak, the vigorous pioneer of what was 

 still a prairie world. Time brought it age 

 and girth. A hollow came at the foot ran 

 up through the towering frame. The tree 

 became a living shell, hiding a body of 

 death. By and by bees found it the hol- 

 low became a chamber of sweets. A dark 

 bee -hunter found the hoard, and set his 

 mark upon the tree. A little later a rival 

 hunter discovered it, stole the honey, and 

 sought to conceal the theft with fire. 



