David Abercombie, of the well known 
sporting goods store of New York. 
There was much agreeable conver¬ 
sation relative to the modern movement 
in camps for boys, with everyone agree¬ 
ing that they would eventually revolu¬ 
tionize the moods, morals and physical 
condition of generations to come. 
Beneath the friendly trees of the 
place, these men were talking, back and 
forth. Sonnyboy had gone for a frolic 
with some of the boys. I remained 
with the grown-ups. 
“Every time I visit one of these 
splendid camps,” said a man of forty- 
five, whose hair had greyed at the 
temples, and in whose clear, smiling 
face a spiritual character was reflected, 
“I think of the reclaiming work t-hey 
do . . . bringing fathers and sons to¬ 
gether on a basis of comradeship. The 
boys learn woodcraft, fishing, hunting, 
love of outdoor life in general. They 
take their enthusiasms home with them 
—to their fathers. A boy becomes a 
better companion for his Dad. And 
it’s a big, a necessary, a vital work. 
“See these grey hairs—they came 
almost overnight three years ago. I 
had never played around with my son. 
I was either too busy or too much in¬ 
terested in men of my own age—and 
my golf. We were virtually strangers. 
“Scarlet fever nipped the lad. We 
almost lost him. I went in one eve¬ 
ning and, in my sudden fear, tried to 
take him in my arms as I felt him de¬ 
parting this earth. I knew then what 
a terrible, selfish mistake I had made, 
and it had come to me too late! I 
wanted the good Lord to take ME in¬ 
stead. I had nothing else to offer. 
“But he would have none of me . . . 
pushed me away ... in his delirium, 
I presume. It was almost revulsion. 
The moment his mother appeared, how¬ 
ever, his little pale, damp face was 
turned to hers—like a bird’s. He did 
his best to reach up to her and pull 
her cheek down to his. Delirium or 
no, he knew HER . . . WANTED her 
. . . was eager for her caress. Love 
was stronger and more enduring than 
fever. Love cleared away the delirium 
for that beautiful moment. And with 
her first kiss, he began to mend. 
Gentlemen—that cured ME! I have 
given half my life to the boy ever since 
and we are the best pals you ever saw. 
Maybe he loves me a little in the way 
he loves his mother. See that, young¬ 
ster in khaki over yonder—with a 
canoe paddle, that’s Jim.” He waved 
an enthusiastic hand high in air. 
The boy with the paddle waved 
back. 
“Hello, Dad!” came the cheery call 
down the green aisles of the camp. 
Can you imagine My thoughts? 
Just before twilight, on the same 
day, after we had returned to our 
mountain home, several young men 
came up the road from the Forestry 
Camp. Their mission was soon made 
known to us. 
Two or three hundred feet out from 
the farmhouse, on the highest point of 
land, stood a venerable white pine. 
Sonnyboy had referred to it more than 
once, because of its strangely gnarled 
and twisted limbs and the quaintly 
beautiful character of its outflung 
plumage of shimmering green. As 
sunset came on, and the burnt-orange 
globe became snagged on the white 
steeples of the valley, this old tree 
seemed to become wistfully animate, as 
if to reach down to the very edge of 
the Delaware and cool its tired brow 
in the flowing waters. Silhouetted 
against various moods of sky, and 
when night sifted across fields and 
little lanes and into a hundred thickets, 
alive with bird and beast, its austere 
outline was even more impressive. For 
more than one hundred years its faith¬ 
ful vigil had been kept. 
But long winter snows heaped upon 
the flattened masses of pine; and 
boughs snapped, and snarling winds 
blew, and the White Pine, imperiously 
proud, nevertheless showed its age. It 
was not unlike some splendid Grand 
Dame, silver-haired, and unwilling to 
admit the enfeebling touch of the 
years—brave under the gaze of day¬ 
light—a little bowed as twilight ap¬ 
proached. 
Insidiously, a more subtle thing than 
age nibbled at its vitals. Ants came 
up from the earth and bore into the 
noble trunk, and deposited their eggs 
in the once sturdy form. The Forestry 
Camp boys, as a part of both their 
homage to conscience and their scien¬ 
tific studies, had decided to prolong the 
life of the White Pine. 
Sonnyboy stood for two hours, 
watching—speechless and reverent, as 
the experts went at their affectionate 
task. The rotted and defiled wood was 
cut away, bit by bit; the ants and their 
eggs destroyed, and, finally, bared to 
air and sun, we saw the gaping wound, 
cruelly larger than we had ever 
imagined. But it was a sweet, clean 
wound, free of infection. Then came 
chemicals, painted on with a brush— 
and cement, shrewdly modelled into 
place and made symmetrically even 
with the uncontaminated trunk. 
Sonnyboy, during these processes, 
seemed scarcely to breathe, so profound 
was his interest. It did not escape 
him that the hands of the Forestry 
Camp boys were sympathetic, tender; 
as solicitious as might have been the 
hands of a mother with her child. 
It had come to him that trees were 
“human”; that they suffered, as people 
suffer and that they are the prey of 
both disease and powerful enemies. It 
(Continued on page 542) 
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