through the ground, looking almost like a tiny blade 

 of grass" 



"Hold hard!" said the Stove, "aren't you drawing 

 the long bow there? Do trees ever live so long? 

 And if you say you do, how can you prove it? You 

 haven't got a birth certificate and so we have only 

 your word for it. Ha, ha!" and the Stove laughed 

 at his own cleverness. He was surprised that the 

 desks and the wainscot 'did not see the point and 

 laugh with him, and just then the White Pine answered 

 his question. 



"If you knew anything about trees" he said, 

 "you would know that every tree always keeps its 

 birth certificate, and always knows how old it is. 

 Every year we put on a new layer of wood under our 

 coats that is under our bark and each new layer 

 is separated from the older one by a darker, firmer 

 ring of wood. If you look at the stump of a tree 

 that has been sawn or chopped down, or at the end 

 of a log, you will see that the whole tree is made up 

 of rings of wood one outside the other, and if you 

 count the rings from the centre of the tree to the 

 bark you will know exactly how old it is; for one 

 ring, no more and no less, is added each year to the 

 growing tree." 



"I be your pardon," said the Stove humbly, 

 "I had no idea trees were such wonderful creatures. 

 Pray proceed with your history." 



"That winter, after the summer in which I attained 

 my 150th birthday," continued the White Pine 

 "men came with axes and felled me and hundreds 

 more of my White Pine brothers, and after cutting 

 us up into logs with saws, they dragged us out with 

 horses to the ice of the lake. In the spring the 



