. It is your
family, old tree, which has lent itself willingly to the service of
man, in the comfort and stability of his home and in the panels and
carvings which adorn the great cathedrals he has built for the worship
of his Creator and the enrichment of his own soul."

Still the old tree listens. The heart warms toward it as memory speaks
of its companionship through the years:

"And I have watched you, old tree, in storm and in sunshine; in the
early winter when the soft snow stuck fast to your rugged old trunk
and your branches and twigs and made you a picture of purity; and in
the later winter when the fierce storms wrestled in vain with your
sinewy limbs. While the other trees of the forest were tossing hither
and thither, bent and broken by the blast, you stood in calm poise and
dignity, nodding and swaying towards me as if to show me how to
withstand adversity. And I have watched your pendulous blossoms daily
grow more beautiful among the miracles of early May when the sunshine
of the flower-spangled days made you a vision of tender green and
gold. I have seen your tiny leaves creep out of their protecting
bud-scales in the springtime, their upper surfaces touched with a pink
more lovely than that on the cheek of a child, while below they were
clothed with a silvery softness more delicately fair than the coverlid
in the cradle of a king. I have watched them develop into full-grown
leaves with lobes as rounded and finely formed as the tips of ladies'
fingers and I have noted how well the mass of your foliage has
protected your feathered friends and their naked nestlings from the
peltings of the hail, the drenchings of the rain and the scorching of
the summer sun. I have gloried in the grateful shade you gave alike to
happy children in their play and to tired parents weary and worn with
the work and the worry of the world; and it was then, old tree, that
you taught me to be sympathetic and hospitable. And I have watched
your fruit ripen and fall, to be eagerly seized by the wild folk of
the woodland and stored, some of it in the holes of your own trunk,
for use during the long winter. You taught me to be generous and they
gave me lessons in forethought and frugality. Later in the autumn I
have watched your green leaves take on a wondrous wine-red beauty, as
the splendor of a soul sometimes shines most vividly in the hour
before it is called home; and they taught me not to grieve or to
murmur because death must