How Animals Talk 



aisles, their mysterious depths, their breathing 

 silence, makes you go gently) you find yourself 

 in an old logging-road, once a garish symbol of 

 man's destructiveness, but growing yearly more 

 subdued, more beautiful, since Nature began her 

 work of healing. The earth beneath your feet, 

 the restful earth which the lumbermen left torn 

 by iron tools or rent by dynamite, has again put 

 on her soft-colored garments. Feathery beds of 

 fern push boldly into the road from shadowy 

 places ; wild grasses fill all its sunny openings with 

 their bloom and fragrance; and winding down 

 through shade or sunshine comes a trail made by 

 the feet of deer and moose. Already these timid 

 animals have adopted the forgotten road as a 

 runway; you may meet them here when you re- 

 turn in the evening twilight. 



Everywhere beside the trail are old marks of the 

 destroyer. Noble maples or cedars that were 

 centuries growing have been slashed down, dis- 

 membered, thrust aside to decay, and all because 

 they stood in the way of a lumber-boss who 

 thought only of getting his cut of spruce down to 

 the lake. To look upon such trees, dead and 

 shorn of their beauty, is to feel pity or indignation; 

 but Nature does not share your feeling, being too 

 abundant of life and resource to waste any moment 

 in regret. Already she is upbuilding what man 



[238] 



