12 FOREST FANCIES 



small, but powerful. Fungus was ready to 

 attack, the mistletoe had sought to over- 

 come. Yet these had taught him the strength 

 of little things, the power of the weak when 

 persistence takes the place of might. It was 

 the yearly growth of tender buds and tiny 

 cells which had given him his powerful frame 

 and made him monarch of the forest. 



Quercus had conquered the years — a cen- 

 tury of them; and not insects, nor fungus, nor 

 mistletoe — not sun, nor shade, nor wind, nor 

 snow — ^had marred his strength. Yet the time 

 came when, like Shadrach, Meshach, and 

 Abednego, he must pass through the fiery fur- 

 nace. 



By day Quercus had rested in the silence of 

 the forest; by night he had listened to that 

 Voice which is like the sound of a mighty 

 ocean in a mammoth shell, when Life breathes 

 upon the forest and it becomes alive with my- 

 riad small beings, awake and musical. He 

 had listened to the wind passing over the wind- 

 harp of trees, with the soft touch of the zephyr 

 or the reckless crash of the storm, when boughs 



