THE YELLOW VALLEY 41 



For years I was completely baffled by it. 

 But one March, in the farm orchard, I found 

 out part of the secret. I was planting my 

 sweet peas, when the well-remembered and 

 bewildering fragrance blew across me. I 

 sprang up and ran up the wind, and there, in 

 the midst of the old orchard, I came upon an 

 old apple tree just cut down by the thrift of 

 Jonathan s farmer, who has no silly weakness 

 for old apple trees. The fresh-cut wood was 

 moist with sap, and as I bent over it ah, 

 there it was! Here were my hepaticas, my 

 arbutus, here in the old apple tree! Such a 

 surprise ! I sat down beside it to think it over. 

 I was sorry it was cut down, but glad it had 

 told me its secret before it was made into 

 logs and piled in the woodshed. Blazing in 

 the fireplace it would tell me many things, 

 but it might perhaps not have told me 

 that. 



And so I knew part of the secret. But only 

 part. For the same fragrance has blown to 

 me often where there were no orchards and 

 no newly felled apple trees, and I have never, 

 except this once, been able to trace it. If it is 

 the flowing sap in all trees, why are not the 



