MY WOODLAND INTIMATES 



" very slow in unfolding their leaves " and " ex- 

 tremely loath to part with them ; for that matter 

 the beeches often hold their faded, ghostly, brown- 

 white leaves through the winter." * 



In sunset lights this old tree takes on a delicate 

 pink flush, not unlike the faint bloom one some- 

 times sees on aged checks ; but in the starlight the 

 dead leaves have an almost spectral appearance. 



Here you see the dim, faint outline of a bare 

 tree from near whose base long, slender brier 

 shoots rise. When I first saw the brier it was 

 covered with leaf and bloom, and one long, fra- 

 grant, graceful arm its skeleton still clings to 

 the leafless maple carried flowers far up the 

 trunk of the tree, even into its very branches. 

 Thus was hidden a great scar which days of Au- 

 tumn despoiling bring to view; for a lightning- 

 dart once smote the beautiful tree and seamed its 

 strong trunk. Then it was that the sweetbrier 

 crept into the wounded heart and shared with it 

 her leaf and bloom and fragrance. After many 

 days much of the old vigor returned to the strick- 

 en tree and the wound was healed ; but the scar 

 remains. 



Tree and brier sleep together now, but when 



* Mr. F. Schuyler Mathews, in Familiar Trees and Their Leaves, 



[92] 



