THE ROAD TO MUDDY POND 



the motionless leaves above your head 

 still leaves you in doubt. It may be trees 

 that sorrow for dead neighbors or gasp 

 in the struggle to retain their own breath- 

 ing space. 



Little obstructs your passage, now that 

 the firm ice is underfoot, unless it is the 

 too close set tree trunks. Goldthread and 

 partridge berry creep in the moss that 

 mounds about the very stumps of the 

 cedars, but no other vine or shrub seems 

 to have the vitality to grow here, or if it 

 had it has wisely used it to flee to more 

 sunny uplands. Not even in tropical 

 jungles have I seen the struggle for exist- 

 ence so . fierce as it is among these too 

 closely set swamp cedars. One in ten 

 eventually survives and makes a market- 

 able growth. Other things bring them 

 to disaster than the choking crowding 

 of their neighbors, however. Here and 

 207 



