CHRISTMAS MISTLETOE 177 
beauty, I set out toward the cottonwood of the 
surly rind, and unsociable look, but with this 
mistletoe cluster defying my acrobatic powers. 
My solitary regret on this voyage of acquisition 
that happy, happy day is that there was no wit- 
ness to my feat of scrambling up that corrugated 
trunk and rushing down the same trunk in a 
most unpremeditated, and I will allow, most 
unministerial way. The tree was a noble bole. 
Its growth had been from long ago. Few things 
in nature are so noble as a great tree trunk, 
and few tree trunks as noble to my eyes as the 
cottonwood trunk. Great gashes in its bark as 
if hacked there by a crusader battleax or the 
sharp ax of a lightning, it frowns defiance and 
despite upon me, not knowing, I choose in Chris- 
tian charity to believe, how partial I am to 
cottonwood trees, trunk, branches, leaf, and 
summer music of the fretted leaves and spring, 
fresh green in summer time shining like metallic 
trivial shields and catching the rain on their 
roof of foliage ere it kisses the ground and mingles 
with the dust. Had the cottonwood tree known 
this, it would have bidden me welcome to its 
high places. However, being modest and diffi- 
dent, I gave no hint of my preference but essayed 
my arduous ascent. There was where the cloud 
of witnesses was needed. So much fun in seeing 
a man not do what he came to do and did not do 
should not have gone to waste. It was like 
wasting kisses. The incorrigible cottonwood tree 
