A Tale from the Skidway 47 



into the whirling, seething vortex, and swept 

 on, leaving me writhing, twisting, and groan- 

 ing, torn, bent and bleeding with my bark 

 hanging in long white shreds. 



" How humiliated and crushed I felt as I 

 tried to straighten my half broken back and 

 untangle my split and broken limbs, from 

 which many of the green plumes had been 

 blown. I had been so proud but a few min- 

 utes before ! Sure of my own great strength 

 and thinking that nothing could make me 

 bow my haughty head. 



" That evening when the stars appeared 

 and the soft night winds sighed in my torn 

 plumes, the pale moon beheld not the haughty 

 old sentinel pine, but an humble tree, most 

 of whose symmetry and beauty had departed. 



" But time heals all such wounds as these, 

 and as the summers and winters came and 

 went, the green plumes were again luxuriant 

 upon my branches and new limbs appeared, 

 or the old ones spread and branched, to cover 

 up my fine trunk, and again I was sym- 

 metrical and beautiful as only a tree can be. 



