ne of the sheltered angles of my rail fence. It was
set about by dry grass, overhung by a much larger cherry tree, and
bearing still its withered last year's leaves, worn diaphanous but
curled delicately, and of a most beautiful ash gray colour, something
like the fabric of a wasp's nest, only yellower. I gave it a shake and
it sprung quickly under my hand like the muscle of a good horse. Its
bark was smooth and trim, its bole well set and solid.

A perfect tree! So I came up again with my short axe and after clearing
away the grass and leaves with which the wind had mulched it, I cut into
the clean white roots. I had no twinge of compunction, for was this not
fulfillment? Nothing comes of sorrow for worthy sacrifice. When I had
laid the tree low, I clipped off the lower branches, snapped off the top
with a single clean stroke of the axe, and shouldered as pretty a
second-growth sapling stick as anyone ever laid his eyes upon.

I carried it down to my barn and put it on the open rafters over the cow
stalls. A cow stable is warm and not too dry, so that a hickory log
cures slowly without cracking or checking. There it lay for many weeks.
Often I cast my eyes up at it with satisfaction, watching the bark
shrink and slightly deepen in colour, and once I climbed up where I
could see the minute seams making way in the end of the stick.

In the summer I brought the stick into the house, and put it in the dry,
warm storeroom over the kitchen where I keep my seed corn. I do not
suppose it really needed further attention, but sometimes when I chanced
to go into the storeroom, I turned it over with my foot. I felt a sort
of satisfaction in knowing that it was in preparation for service: good
material for useful work. So it lay during the autumn and far into the
winter.

One cold night when I sat comfortably at my fireplace, listening to the
wind outside, and feeling all the ease of a man at peace with himself,
my mind took flight to my snowy field sides and I thought of the trees
there waiting and resting through the winter. So I came in imagination
to the particular corner in the fence where I had cut my hickory
sapling. Instantly I started up, much to Harriet's astonishment, and
made my way mysteriously up the kitchen stairs. I would not tell what I
was after: I felt it a sort of adventure, almost like the joy of seeing
a friend long forgotten. It was as if my hickory stick had cried out at
last, after long chrysalishood: