40 Trails to Woods and Waters 



great pine, one of the % choppers said he would 

 cut me down, as I was right in the way. I 

 did not care much if he did, the fall of my 

 sire had so saddened me, but the other 

 chopper told him to notice how tall and 

 straight I was, and how symmetrical. ' Some 

 day that will be as fine a tree as this,' he said, 

 so I was allowed to stand. 



" When the great pine had been cut into 

 logs and drawn away, there was a broad gap 

 in the woods where it had stood. I now got 

 a full blaze of sunlight and all the winds that 

 had formerly buffeted the sentinel. The sun 

 made me grow rapidly, and perhaps even the 

 winds which I at first thought very cold and 

 boisterous helped to develop me. At least 

 they taught me to strike my roots deep in the 

 earth and hold on with might and main. 



" Fifty more years went by, and I stood 

 at the edge of the forest where my sire had 

 stood and took the buffets of the wind, and 

 the smile of my foster father, the sun, and 

 was glad, after the manner of a pine. Glad 

 for the sunlight and the cold, the rain and 



