TREES AT LEISURE 



great undulating, serpent-like 

 branches, blotched with white, 

 show as distinctly against the 

 snow as they did against the 

 summer green; the very smooth- 

 ness of the few large limbs 

 makes us unprepared for the 

 way they break up into a mad- 

 ness of terminal branchlets, to 

 which still cling here and there a 

 button-ball not yet whipped off 

 its fibrous string. How different 

 the young trees, so slender and 

 shapely, and overfond of re- 

 flecting their graceful figures in 

 the still pools of streams! It 

 might seem that the stream 

 guards wear a uniform of khaki, 

 in evidence of which behold the 

 slender bole of the great-toothed 

 poplar and that of the quaking 

 aspen which has shaken off its 

 agitation with its leaves, and 



[31] 



