268 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



The deciduous trees follow the fashions and 

 change their suits for the prevailing mode three 

 or four times a year, yet it is true of them that 

 nature unadorned is adorned the most. There 

 is a beauty in the bare wood standing revealed 

 in November that they never had in the flush of 

 June or the glory of early October. There is 

 nothing in flower -or leaf that can match the ex- 

 quisite harmony of the bark tints, nor can the 

 foliage in mass so please the eye as the delicate 

 tracery of twigs and the matchless contour of 

 tapering limbs. In the November birch or 

 maple the dryad herself stands revealed. 



It is not so with the pines. They change 

 gowns so decorously and the new one is so like the 

 old in its simple lines and perfect good taste that 

 we are unaware of the transition. There is a 

 perfection of dignity and serenity about a free- 

 grown pasture pine that I find equalled in no other 

 tree. These are druids of eld, if you' will, harp- 

 ers hoar, plucking wild symphonies from the 

 tense wires of the storm wind's three-stringed 

 harp. Yet the dryad dwells within them as well, 

 and on gentler days they show her in many phases 

 of queenly womanhood. They mother the romp- 



