under a cloud, while only the cottonwoods stood in the sunlight. They 
make the dawn and summer to rise upon me whenever | cast my eyes 
their way, which is so often as to preclude enumerations. Cottonwoods 
under cloud or light refuse to forget the sunlight. I think they remem- 
ber the sunny Kansas plains where they are often the sole tree occu- 
pants of wide wildernesses of grass. | can not be quit of the radiancy 
of these trees, standing tall, and with what seems a promise of sun- 
shine for all the woods. They are the true light-bearers. Because of 
this peculiarity cottonwoods in winter days have a surprise about them 
as though they had recently hailed from some land of delight, and kept 
glad memories always smiling in their looks. 1 would it lay in me to 
get people to watch the cottonwoods in winter as to listen to them in 
summer. | know not which mood entices my spirit the more. In 
summer when all is laughter the cottonwoods weep; in winter when all 
things else are sad or angry, cottonwoods are laughing like a holiday. 
They are the contradictions of the year; and may their beauty never 
know a twilight ! 
Willows always interest me. They are a fragile wood, but who 
would think so to see them travel along all shores? They are like frail 
men, who with a body as weak as that of William the Third do such 
herculean labor as would incline you to think old Samson hugged at the 
temple's pillars. Weakness hath its own puissance. Their sweet pen- 
siveness, their graceful droop along every ravine, saying as plainly as 
speech can say, ‘‘Where I throw my shadow you shall find a living 
well;"’ their dainty lance-leaves, among the earliest greenery of spring, 
and sometimes among the latest greenery of autumn, and in whose 
shadows summer winds seem prone to fall asleep or loiter idly; their 
dainty yellow of foliage of the autumntime, and their struggle with the 
winter's wind without complaint, and with strange career of victory, are 
things which should forever endear the willow to the lover of God's 
Out-of-Doors. 
A willow never stands erect. Either it can not or will not. I incline 
to the belief that the latter is the correct view. As in the picture, 
willows lean at an easy angle as in pensive mood. They dream, may- 
hap, upon the days that are no more. 
“0, those old days! Those near yet far off days ! 
Paged with dear legends, winsome with sweet ways! 
When spendthrift hearts all went a-gypsying: 
Cared naught for form or statute laws or king, 
But lived in melodies.” 
57 
