OUR BROTHERS, THE TREES 



man or woman who will be wise enough to 

 sit at its feet. 



While all trees are good company, some 

 are much more affable than others, and make 

 their appeal to more of our senses. To the 

 writer the maple, especially the sugar maple, 

 has always seemed one of the most motherly 

 of trees, a suggestion borne out not only by 

 its full matronly figure and rich autumnal 

 tints, but also by the maternal largess which 

 allows a springtime lechery of the sweetness 

 of its veins. But who would think of ask- 

 ing for a pail of sap from a Lombardy pop- 

 lar, in her close-fitting hobble, and "touch 

 me not" written in every line of her figure, 

 whose angular uprightness has, neverthe- 

 less, a charm all its own. With her ever-sky- 

 ward glance, the Lombardy is a bosky nun, 

 or a personification of Wordsworth's "Ode 

 to Duty." Or might she be called an arbor- 

 esque Laertes, pointing others the steep and 

 thorny path to heaven? 



Related to the Lombardy, as a gentle 

 grandniece might be to a more austere and 

 rigidly righteous grandaunt, the white birch 



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