* 

 3 



soon we saw carloads of logs and boards going along 

 the railway, always going westward, and we heard 

 that they needed lumber for building houses and 

 schools and churches in the prairie country. At 

 first the news filled us all with horror, but after 

 thinking over it a while the older trees saw that it 

 was what we had been growing for all these years. 

 When we were saplings and half-grown trees we did 

 not want to be cut down. We wanted to go on 

 living simply for the joy of it, but we always had 

 this thought that we were created for some purpose, 

 and that we wanted to live till that purpose was 

 accomplished. As we saw big trees die of old age, 

 or insect attacks, or go down in a wind-storm, we 

 felt that this was not the end for which we were 

 created. It was not for this we wanted to live on. 

 It was not because we wanted to die of old age that 

 we shuddered when the Red Demon killed our 

 brothers and threatened us." 



At this such a shudder passed over the school- 

 room floor, wainscot, and desks that the whole 

 building shook. This sudden evidence of fear so 

 startled the Stove that he asked who this Red Demon 

 was, but the White Pine repliecUthat the Stove would 

 learn before the night was over and went on with 

 its story thus: 



"When I saw the railway and the houses and schools 

 I realized that the end of my existence was not to 

 fall and rot away but to be changed into something 

 useful. My brothers and cousins realized this 

 also, and all we were now anxious for was that we 

 might be chopped down and taken away before the 

 Red Demon devoured us. One summer day I 

 realized that it was just 150 years since I pushed up 

 25451 1$ 



