lofty heads to the kisses of the sun, cen- 

 turies before ]Moses, the orreat law-giver, 

 led his people out of Egypt. The storms 

 of thrice two thousand years had beaten 

 on their heads and rocked their mighty 

 branches, before the gentle Jesus was 

 born in Bethlehem of Judea. 



"Empires and kingdoms, warriors and 

 statesmen ; the great, the good, have 

 come, held sway, and passed into dumb 

 forgetfulness ; while these mighty trees 

 have sunken their roots deeper and still 

 deeper into the moist bosom of mother 

 earth and drawn from her ever willing 

 bosom, health, strength, and life." 



He ceased speaking ; his great plumes 

 hung motionless as if with the burden 

 of years, then resuming his family his- 

 tory, he said : 



"Still another ■ branch of our family, 

 the Douglas Pine, reaches the height of 

 three hundred feet and grows so straight 

 that it is used for the masts of vessels. 

 Think of the wonders of the ocean which 

 they see ! Think of the grandeur of the 

 watery world during a thunderstorm ! I 

 fancy I can see the storm-tossed vessel, 

 the huge waves lashed into fury until 

 they froth like yeast. I can hear the heavy 

 roll of the thunder and see the vivid 

 forked tongues of lightning as they dart 

 across the blackened sky, and that mys- 

 tery of mysteries, the Fire of St. Elmo, 

 as it plays about the mast." 



Again he paused and Mabel sat w^on- 

 dering about the Fire of St. Elmo. Her 

 book had fallen and lay on the dark 

 brown needles at her feet. 



"What book is that ?" she thought she 

 heard the old tree say. 



"Why, Longfellow." 



"Ah ! that is the kind of book to bring 

 here. He sings of some of my people. 

 You know Hiawatha says : 



Give me your roots, O Tamarack, 

 Of your fibrous roots, O Larch Tree, 

 My canoe to bind together 

 So to bind the ends together 



That the water may not enter 

 That the water may not wet me. 



"I always liked Hiawatha," said Ma- 

 bel. "I will like it still better now that 

 I know those were members of your fam- 

 ily." ■ 



"The Larch tree Is valuable for its tur- 

 pentine, which it stores in great reser- 

 voirs near its heart. This turpentine. 



is collected by boring holes into the tree 

 and inserting little pipes, which conduct 

 it into buckets, placed ready to catch It. 

 It is beautiful clear tuq:)cntine, and ready 

 for use. Did you ever rise early in the 

 morning, just as the sun is tinging the 

 eastern sky with saffron and lake, and 

 look at the young shoots of those larches 

 growing there ? You will sometimes find 

 them sprinkled with sweet white drops, 

 which in some countries, is collected and 

 called manna. Sometimes when a farmer 

 finds a rough tract of land which yields 

 nothing but coarse grass, he will plant 

 Larch trees and the coarse grass gives 

 place to fine, and the earth is reclaimed. 



"The Pine was the sacred tree of the 

 Germans. Another member, the Deodar 

 — a Hindu word meaning 'tree of gods,' 

 and by them held sacred — is found in 

 the snowy Himalayas." 



"Do go on, old Tree, I love to hear 

 you talk. Tell me if this gray moss is 

 of any use," and she began playing with 

 some moss that she had pulled off his 

 trunk. 



Then he tossed his great branches 

 gently, as if singing a lullaby and he 

 seemed to say, "Years ago, when the red 

 man roamed these forests, the Indian 

 mother used to rock her baby in the 

 trees. She would bind him with thongs 

 to a rough bark, and hang him on a 

 branch of a tree ; and his tiny limbs 

 w^ould be swathed in moss pulled from 

 our trunks. No white baby was ever bet- 

 ter cared for in its linen and flannel than 

 the red-skinned baby in his blankets of 

 grey moss. A good Indian mother would 

 gather bushels of that moss and we 

 would lull the baby to sleep, singing 

 sweetly and gently to him." 



His voice sank to a murmur and Mabel 

 fancied he was thinking of the Indian 

 babies long since driven back by the on- 

 ward march of the Paleface; then heav- 

 ing a sigh, he continued: "You have 

 never been in a pine forest. That is a 

 sight worth seeing, the trunks rising 

 straight and tall like Corinthian columns, 

 the ceaseless murmur of the wind in the 

 tree-tops, the soft, brown carpet of fallen 

 needles, the subdued light and the still- 

 ness inspire one with reverence and awe. 

 The branches spread out above, and are 

 so interwoven that no matter how the 



31 



