UNDER A GREENWOOD-TREE 



The hard maples are among the tallest 

 and most graceful of all trees. They grow 

 farther apart than the beeches, and do not 

 begin to branch out until their trunks have 

 reached to a considerable height. Among a 

 clump or group of these trees, with the sun- 

 light falling through on their delicate leaves 

 and fine outlines, there is a sense of some inte- 

 rior of a vast cathedral, so much is the feeling 

 of arch, pillar, dome, and fresco suggested. 



There is little to be seen here either of bird 

 or animal life. Sometimes a small red squir- 

 rel, white-bellied, and with eloquent tail, will 

 scurry up a tree, pause on some lower limb, 

 curl his tail over his back, sit up, eye you 

 curiously, and then unhinge himself and lie 

 close to the bark as if to escape observation. 

 If you frighten him from his perch or his 

 hold on the bark, he will dart up the tree like 

 a streak of sunlight and put the tree-trunk 

 between you and himself. He is a very curi- 

 ous little creature, and will come back if there 

 is an interval of silence, and with inquisitive, 

 beady eyes, survey you until you make another 

 movement that sends him out of sight. 



The sycamores are marvellous shapes 

 105 



