THE TREE FOLK .9 



be broader. The Spruces (12) are conical; the Orange 

 trees (9) are spherical; the Junipers of New England (3) 

 are hemispherical, flat side up; the Locusts (13) the 

 shape of a loon's egg; and the young Tupelos (14) are 

 fatter than the Pines. 



Just as a girl when in love can recognize her young 

 man a long way off, even in a fog, by his shape or mass 

 alone, so a lover of trees knows each one of them in- 

 stantly, though reduced by the distance to mere silhou- 

 ettes of shimmering purple. 



Of course the tree often fails to achieve its ideal, like 

 the rest of us; but it never forgets that ideal. Deformed 

 by the wind, broken by ice and snow, slashed by ruth- 

 less mankind, in its abused body the anointed eye can 

 trace the remembered dream of the family ideal. 



Yes, even in dense forests, where the trees race up- 

 ward, striving with one another for a place in the sun, 

 they never lose entirely their likeness to their more for- 

 tunate relations who live in the open. They are like city 

 dwellers in that particular. Blood will tell. 



HABITS of growth, with the trees, are like the laws 

 of the Medes and Persians. They must not be 

 broken. 



No doubt you once heard a calm aristocratic woman 

 of long lineage say quietly but with unforgettable em- 

 phasis, "Our family never does that." ''The Manches- 



