A Tale from the Skid way 57 



" What a pity that you are dead," said the 

 boy sympathetically. 



" I am not exactly dead," said the old butt- 

 log, in its deep rich voice, " but I am wonder- 

 fully changed. Nothing is quite dead until it 

 disintegrates, and falls to dust. 



" I still have great possibilities ahead. I 

 am too valuable for men to allow me to pass 

 out of existence like a useless thing. 



" Who can say just what my future life 

 will be? I am quite curious about it myself. 

 True, yonder howling saw will work havoc 

 with me as a butt-log, but I shall be some- 

 thing else when I am sawed. 



" Perhaps I shall travel. Maybe I shall 

 be the finishing stuff of a great ocean liner. 

 Then will I ride the billowing deep and 

 my fiber will sing the ancient song of 

 the sea, where the wind howls in the rig- 

 ging just as it does in the treetops of the 

 forest. 



" Perhaps as the floor stuff of a parlor car 

 I shall travel from seaboard to seaboard, vi- 

 brating and thrilling to the song of thunder- 



