TALKING IN THEIR SLEEP 177 



ing avail much toward getting back anything like 

 the noble primeval forests. During a man's life only 

 saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees 

 tens of centuries old that have been destroyed. 

 It took more than three thousand years to make 

 some of the trees in these Western woods trees 

 that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, 

 waving and singing in the mighty forests of the 

 Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful cen- 

 turies since Christ's time and long before that 

 God has cared for these trees, saved them from 

 drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand 

 straining, leveling tempests and floods; but He cannot 

 save them from fools only Uncle Sam can do that. 



TALKING IN THEIR SLEEP* 



BY EDITH M. THOMAS 



"You think I am dead," 



The apple-tree said, 

 "Because I have never a leaf to show 



Because I stoop 



And my branches droop, 

 And the dull gray mosses over me grow! 

 But I'm alive in trunk and shoot; 



The buds of next May 



I fold away 

 But I pity the withered grass at my foot." 



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



