A Farewell "Hike" 



course quick-growing trees. How long 

 they live I do not know, but this one 

 of which I speak is not to hear its 

 leaves rattling in this southwest wind 

 for many seasons more. It is a giant 

 of its sort; I should say near ten feet 

 in circumference. That is conceding 

 a diameter at its base of around 

 three feet. Its main top branch has 

 been lost in some gale years ago. It 

 stands thus crippled and decaying in 

 its gray old age awaiting, like any 

 other living thing that has had its 

 great day on earth, the end of every- 

 thing. A decrepit wretch in human 

 form, probably from the county poor- 

 farm over there on the other road, 

 went by a few moments ago, and I 

 classed them together and knew that 

 the fate of both differs in no wise from 

 that which is overtaking a brown dust- 

 covered grasshopper that just jumped 

 feebly by me on the grass. 



And so we draw near home. Not 

 far from where the black swans nestle 



[i97] 



