MEN OF THE TREES 



speaker for the first time and as yoic said yoii would 

 correct our papers, I tho2igbt 1 would like to try and so 

 here it is. 



"Yours respectfully, 



"Winifred Bailey." 



The essay started : 



"Of all the trees in the forest I think the Tropical 

 trees are the most beautiftd, but in the desert there are 

 no trees to rest the tired eyes of the wandering Arab 

 and so he mounts his steed and rides axvay ever in search 

 of trees." 



I had said nothing about tired Arabs in search of trees 

 but the child had let her imagination go in a dehghtf ul 

 manner. Later she had remembered quite a lot of what 

 I had told them of the oak and the ash — the old oak that 

 had been strangled to death by an ivy that was climbing 

 up him and how a forest scout, knowing the language 

 of trees and realizing that the old oak was in distress, 

 came up and with a few well-aimed blows from his 

 sharp axe cut the ivy asunder so that once again the old 

 oak could breathe freely and tell the story of the forest. 

 Winifred Bailey had remembered a lot of this and then 

 she started to ramble on in her innocent childish way. 



"Sometimes in England you see tired women lying 

 tinder the shade of an oak . . . and sometimes men." 



268 



