A SPRAY OF PINE 159 



A SPRAY OF PINE* 



BY JOHN BURROUGHS 



From Signs and Seasons 



THE pine is the tree of silence. Who was the 

 Goddess of Silence? Look for her altars amid the 

 pines silence above, silence below. Pass from 

 deciduous woods into pine woods of a windy day, 

 and you think the day has suddenly become calm. 

 Then how silent to the foot! One walks over a 

 carpet of pine needles almost as noiselessly as over 

 the carpets of our dwellings. Do these halls lead 

 to the chambers of the great that all noise should be 

 banished from them? Let the designers come here 

 and get the true pattern for a carpet a soft yel- 

 lowish brown, with only a red leaf, or a bit of gray 

 moss, or a dusky lichen scattered here and there; 

 a background that does not weary or bewilder the 

 eye, or insult the ground-loving foot. 



How friendly the pine-tree is to man so docile 

 and available as timber, and so warm and protec- 

 tive as shelter. Its balsam is salve to his wounds, 

 its fragrance is long life to his nostrils; an abiding, 

 perennial tree, tempering the climate, cool as mur- 

 muring waters in summer and like a wrapping of 

 fur in winter. 



*By permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



