158 ARBOR DAY 



the rocks where there are a few grains of the nour- 

 ishing substance they care for, and insinuate them- 

 selves into its deepest recesses. When spring and 

 summer come, they let their tails grow, and delight 

 in whisking them about in the wind or letting them 

 be whisked about by it; for these tails are poor 

 passive things, with very little will of their own, 

 and bend in whatever direction the wind chooses 

 to make them. The leaves make a deal of noise 

 whispering. I have sometimes thought I could 

 understand them, as they talk with each other, and 

 that they seemed to think they made the wind as 

 they wagged forward and back. Remember what 

 I say. The next time you see a tree waving in the 

 wind recollect that it is the tail of a great under- 

 ground, many-armed, polypus-like creature, which 

 is as proud of its caudal appendage, especially in 

 the summer time, as a peacock of his gorgeous 

 expanse of plumage. 



Do you think there is anything so very odd about 

 that idea ? Once get it well into your head and you 

 well find it renders the landscape wonderfully 

 interesting. There are as many kinds of tree- 

 tails as there are of tails to dogs and other quad- 

 rupeds. Study them as Dady Gilpin studied 

 them in his "Forest Scenery," but don't forget 

 that they are only the appendage of the under- 

 ground vegetable polypus, the true organism to 

 which they belong. 



