66 THOREAU. 



bury. One or two of these perhaps survive the 

 drought and other accidents, their very birthplace 

 defending them against the encroaching grass and 

 some other dangers, at first. 



In two years time t had thus 



Reached the level of the rocks, 

 Admired the stretching world, 



Nor feared the wandering flocks. 



But at this tender age 



Its sufferings began : 

 There came a browsing ox 



And cut it down a span. 



This time, perhaps, the ox does not notice it amid the 

 grass ; but the next year, when it has grown more 

 stout, he recognizes it for a fellow-emigrant from the 

 old country, the flavor of whose leaves and twigs he 

 well knows ; and though at first he pauses to welcome 

 it, and express his surprise, and gets for answer, &quot; The 

 same cause that brought you here brought me,&quot; he 

 nevertheless browses it again, reflecting, it may be, 

 that he has some title to it. 



Thus cut down annually, it does not despair ; but, 

 putting forth two short twigs for every one cut off, it 

 spreads out low along the ground in the hollows or 

 between the rocks, growing more stout and scrubby, 

 until it forms, not a tree as yet, but a little pyramidal, 

 stiff, twiggy mass, almost as solid and impenetrable 

 as a rock. Some of the densest and most impene 

 trable clumps of bushes that I have ever seen, as well 

 on account of the closeness and stubbornness of their 

 branches as of their thorns, have been these wild-apple 

 scrubs. They are more like the scrubby fir and black 

 spruce on which you stand, and sometimes walk, on 

 the tops of mountains, where cold is the demon they 



