A Tree-Top Aeronaut 



A LTHOUGH in the open clearings it was 

 f\. full noon the noon of early Septem- 

 ber, hot and blue and golden here in the 

 lofty aisles of the forest it was all cold twi- 

 light. Such light as glimmered down through 

 the thick-leaved tree-tops was of a mellow 

 shadowy brown and a translucent green, 

 changing from the one tone to the other 

 mysteriously as the eye shifted its backgrounds. 

 One tall trunk, long ago shattered and broken 

 off just below the crown by a stroke of light- 

 ning, stood pointing bleakly toward a round 

 opening in the leafy roof, reaching upward 

 a thin-foliaged, half-dead, gnarled and twisted 

 arm. 



In the outer shell and coarse strong bark 

 of the stricken tree life lingered tenaciously, 

 but its heart was fallen to decay. Near 

 the base of the arm a round hole gave en- 

 trance, through the shell of live wood, to a 



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