m 
 
 III 
 
 "III 
 
 rfl 
 
Book _i£jl5'S2_- 
 fajwrightF I? 07 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 BY 
 
 ELMER WILLIS SERL 
 
 New York and Washington 
 THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 1907 
 
lUBRARYof C0NQKE9S 
 TwoCopl«s Received 
 
 DEC 20 1907 
 
 _ OoByriffci tntry 
 
 CLA8S/9 , XXc. NO. 
 COPY B. 
 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by 
 The Neale Publishing Company 
 
 First published in December^ 1907 
 
fir) 
 
 r 
 
 " The very quietness of nature is gradually 
 withdrawn from us; thousands who once in 
 their necessarily prolonged travel were sub- 
 jected to an influence, from the silent sky and 
 slumbering fields, more effectual than known 
 or confessed, now bear with them even there 
 the ceaseless fever of their life; and along 
 the iron veins that traverse the frame of our 
 country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its 
 exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All 
 vitality is concentrated through those throb- 
 bing arteries into the central cities; the 
 country is passed over like a green sea by 
 narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in 
 continually closer crowds upon the city 
 gates." 
 
 — RusKiN, in ''Seven Lamps of Architecture,'' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 April in the Heart 
 
 An Evening Silhouette . 
 
 The Listening of the Robin 
 
 The Other Harbinger 
 
 Pear-tree Wisdom . 
 
 Twenty-fold .... 
 
 Back to Eden .... 
 
 A Contented Trio 
 
 The Plotless Life 
 
 Straight-line Effects 
 
 A Wintry Vale 
 
 The Retreat of Life . 
 
 The Going of the Past . 
 
 Plenty of Time 
 
 A Southerner to the Last 
 
 Voices of the Gorge . 
 
 Spring Waters 
 
 The Divine Adjustment . 
 
 The Hillside Sleepers 
 
 The Garden of Quietness 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 
 14 
 
 18 
 22 
 27 
 31 
 38 
 47 
 58 
 64 
 70 
 73 
 76 
 78 
 81 
 86 
 92 
 94 
 96 
 99 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Where Lilacs Bloom . 
 When the Forest Closes In 
 A Blue-grass Idyl. 
 The Summit of the Year 
 The Explaining God . 
 Soil Thoughts 
 The Smug Life 
 Mountain Moonlight 
 The Isolation of Dawn . 
 Russet Premonitions . 
 Witching Pathways . 
 Out-door Compensations 
 Close Home .... 
 Wrestling Sycamores 
 
 103 
 108 
 113 
 118 
 124 
 126 
 133 
 135 
 140 
 144 
 147 
 153 
 156 
 158 
 
April in the Heart 
 
 I BEGIN these fancies at the time of 
 year when the buds are first seen. 
 They are chnging to the twigs with 
 their baby hands crowding each 
 other as though they were afraid 
 they might fall off. Selfishness is 
 life, I guess; anyhow it is in buds. 
 To-day there is no wind, and I think 
 the buds are holding on with one 
 hand and resting the other hand and 
 arm, as I have seen boys do after 
 carrying a heavy burden, swinging 
 their arms to ease the ache. 
 
 To have been strenuous I should 
 have begun with the tree tops in 
 
 [9] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 winter, but I do not like winter, and 
 if the Turks want another calendar 
 I will arrange one for them without 
 any winter. Those who have blood 
 that is nine-tenths iron enjoy winter, 
 at least they say they do. Those 
 who have iron that is nine-tenths 
 blood prefer summer. I am a blooded 
 individual, speaking of myself as I 
 do of a nut when I call it meaty. 
 Shut in by winter's rain and cold, I 
 dream all the time about the spring, 
 and imagine the soft breezes and 
 the languorous mood when peaches 
 bloom and roses scent the air. If 
 there is anything finer than a spring 
 day when sunshine floods the valley 
 and the warming earth sends up its 
 odors through the brush and along 
 the tree trunks, and finally out where 
 
 [10] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the buds cling to the tree tops, it cer- 
 tainly is not found during the winter, 
 but possibly later in the spring, or in 
 the summer, or autumn. 
 
 There are two harbingers of 
 spring. One is a girl newly gowned, 
 with a bunch of violets at her waist. 
 The other is the note of the robin. 
 They come close together. Some- 
 times the girl with the violets is first 
 — again it is the robin. This year 
 they were just six days apart, and 
 the robin beat the girl. The first 
 note of the robin! How fresh and 
 new it is! It sounds like the first 
 strawberries taste. After weeks of 
 shut windows, and furnace fires, and 
 house air, to hear the robin call out- 
 side is an experience from which 
 words run away. 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 The robin looks in on us for the 
 first time in the morning. That is 
 when I best hke to have him come. 
 He turns up all at once. I am not 
 thinking of him at all, when suddenly 
 I hear him call. If anyone may 
 be pardoned for interrupting him- 
 self at his prayers, I think it is 
 when robin calls. I like to think that 
 he has been traveling all night, and 
 early in the morning drops his grip 
 on my doorstep, and calls out, 
 "Here!" "Here!" "Spring!" 
 " Spring! " He who made the birds 
 did put such meaning into one note. 
 I understand how the "come forth " 
 at the tomb of Lazarus awakened 
 the sleeper. He who made the robin's 
 call could easily charge his own voice 
 with persuasive power. The first 
 
 [12] 
 
 tJK^t* IIJ I ^ 'i i ri ^ ^t- .rftfe/ 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 spring bird's note is a resurrecting 
 voice, and many stones are rolled 
 away from tiny sepulchers, and grass 
 and flower come out to new life. 
 
 [13] 
 
An Evenestg Silhouette 
 
 Three days after robin dropped his 
 grip and said he was at his journey's 
 end, a thunderstorm broke at inter- 
 vals all day along the hillside. Just 
 at sunset the clouds cleared enough 
 to tell me where west was. There is 
 a light that comes upon the rain- 
 drenched landscape at sunset which 
 is quite different than that of any 
 other hour of all days. It is different 
 because it changes every object, and 
 gives even the ugliest some claim to 
 attractiveness. The last light of day 
 is tinted. White light is a revealer — 
 tinted light is a concealer. If one 
 could stay in a tinted light always he 
 would be passably respectable. The 
 
 [14] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 best that he can do, however, is to 
 get through the white hght of mid- 
 day as he can, trusting that the sun- 
 set will be generous. 
 
 Before the thunderstorm some 
 days ago the hills were brown, but 
 a few hours wrought their transfor- 
 mation and at evening they were 
 lying drenched with green. The top- 
 most twigs of maple and sycamore 
 had turned color in the few hours, 
 apparent preparation for some real 
 work next day in bud development. 
 
 The wet sidewalk — the pools along 
 the way — the green hillside — the 
 bare trees with their prophetic tints 
 — were all enveloped in the after- 
 glow of the sunset, and had the 
 unreality which a scene has when 
 you view it with inverted head. It 
 
 [15] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 was an hour when I could not say 
 spring had come, for I was not sure 
 winter had gone, but I felt that one 
 was coming nearer every moment, 
 and the other departing. On the 
 highest bough of the tallest tree, 
 robin was silhouetted against the 
 evening sky. If ever robin throws 
 back his shoulders and his head and 
 stands erect, it is at evening when he 
 finds the tallest tree. During the day 
 he is often on the grass, or in a bush, 
 or on a fencepost, or half way up a 
 tree; but at evening nothing satisfies 
 him but a tree top. I think I know 
 why he takes the lofty perch. He is 
 curious about next day, and goes up 
 into the tree top to get a view of the 
 morrow. So as I walked out the other 
 evening robin told me by his song 
 
 [16] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 that next day would be first day of 
 real spring. He threw down to me a 
 few notes of song which were hints 
 of what he saw coming. He said the 
 trees would soon be in leaf, the air 
 warmer, the twilight longer, and 
 having given me that much of his 
 tree-top vision, he fell to talking to 
 himself less distinctly as the dark 
 drew near. He sang a little song as 
 though he were practicing a tree-top 
 lullaby for future use, and seemed 
 half ashamed. 
 
 The tint of the west faded, the air 
 grew damy) and cold, the clouds gath- 
 ered across the sky, and I wondered 
 if robin really saw what he told me. 
 
 [17] 
 
The Listening of the Robin 
 
 Now and again we hear words about 
 vision power. The desire for vision 
 is nothing new. Isaiah talked about 
 it, and said vision had become as the 
 words of a book that was sealed. I 
 think it was unfortunate that he 
 called it a sealed book. It brought in 
 the thought of study and musty 
 pages, and close application to line 
 and word and letter in order to gain 
 it. I wonder if that has not been our 
 trouble all along — we have thought 
 vision was a complex state of 
 thought, something to be gained by 
 hard labor — a travail of soul, then 
 vision. A strenuous life will develop 
 
 [18] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 a materialist, but it will not develop 
 vision in anyone. He who desireth 
 vision power must out of doors listen 
 and look. We have thought that 
 these words of the Hebrew seer were 
 easily comprehended. Xot one in 
 a hundred has understood them. 
 " Consider the lilies of the field how 
 they grow; they toil not, neither do 
 they spin; yet I say unto you that 
 even Solomon in all his glory was not 
 arrayed like one of these." 
 
 Vision — vision — what is it? It is 
 sensing things, that is all. It is the 
 simplest thing in all the world. That 
 is why, talking so much about find- 
 ing it, we never get it. That is why 
 we find it not in the canon of city 
 streets, but in the canon of the moun- 
 tains; not where switch engines 
 
 [19] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 screech and puff, but where shadows 
 play across the meadows. 
 
 Vision being simple sensing, the 
 bird out yonder in the sunlight has 
 it, and every note of song or conver- 
 sation is its effort to reveal the 
 spring. Birds do not always sing, 
 but sometimes talk, and the reason 
 their talk is musical is because they 
 speak of the same things of which 
 they sing. 
 
 I hope robin will forgive me for 
 doubting what he told me the other 
 night after the storm. He knew the 
 spring was here. He sensed it in the 
 tree top. I stood down in the mud, 
 that was my trouble. This morning, 
 which is the realest spring morning 
 yet, is vindication of the robin. Poor 
 mortal that I am — my view in the 
 
 [20] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 mud did not give me this morning. 
 It is robin's morning, because he went 
 into the tree top. 
 
 You might think that being able 
 to see so much up there robin would 
 be vain and never come back to earth 
 again. That would be the way with 
 me. Not so robin. I just saw him 
 out in the grass, standing quietly 
 listening to hear it grow (or was he 
 waiting for a worm). What joy it 
 gives him! Listening — listening all 
 the time — everywhere ! Robin is very 
 near to the heart of things these days. 
 Robin hath vision. 
 
 [21] 
 
The Other Harbinger 
 
 It was six days after robin came 
 that the girl with the violets at her 
 waist came across my path. She is 
 the other harbinger of spring. I pre- 
 sume it is the same stirring in the 
 heart that brings out the girl with 
 the violets, that brings robin toward 
 the north. It is a virgin sense. In 
 the spring a girl is just herself. She 
 and the season are one. Both are 
 sweet, pleasant to the eyes, and they 
 make the blood flow faster. A girl 
 in furs may be beautiful, but a girl 
 in some light stuff, with violets, is 
 more than beautiful, just as plum 
 trees in blossom outrank y^lum trees 
 covered with snow. 
 
 There are those, mostly men and 
 
 [22] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 women who do not know, who say, 
 " The girl's desire for hat and gown 
 in springtime is a sign of vanity 
 and frivolity." If that be so, praises 
 be to vanity and frivolity. But it 
 is not vanity, neither frivolity. Might 
 as well call the first spring flowers 
 that I saw the other day vain for put- 
 ting on their best and newest garb. 
 When the south wind began to blow 
 occasionally, or rather when the cold 
 winds did not blow, the flowers came 
 out. They could not help it. So with 
 that girl with her violets: when the 
 chill of winter began to leave she 
 appeared. 
 
 There are two occasions when vir- 
 tue comes out in our lives. One is 
 when the cold winds cease — the other 
 is when the warm winds blow. In the 
 
 [23] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 first it is the result of the life within 
 that, when the hostilities are taken 
 away, bursts into blossom. In the 
 second it is the result of the coax- 
 ing, the alluring of a pleasing en- 
 vironment. May we not think that 
 the virtue which is the blossom of the 
 life within is the choicer and the more 
 desirable? But then who cares to 
 limit our opportunities for being vir- 
 tuous? If we do not respond when 
 hostilities cease, let us not fail when 
 the south wind blows. 
 
 She who makes her appearance in 
 spring, new with ribbon and cloth 
 and flower, hath a mission. I hope 
 she realizes it. I have seen a street- 
 car full of the remnants of the winter 
 perceptibly brighten at the entrance 
 of the spring girl. The conductor 
 
 [24] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 came out of his stolid indifference, 
 and even reached out a hand to help 
 her up the step. It was the involun- 
 tary recognition of the new and 
 fresh. The man whose foot was un- 
 derneath another man's foot when 
 the conductor played " jerk " with 
 the current, swallowed his swear 
 when he caught sight of her. Again 
 along the crowded street, where men 
 and women hurried, jostling each 
 other, some weary with the day's toil, 
 others weary with hours of shop- 
 ping — the spring girl has suddenly 
 appeared, whence no one knew. 
 Like the robin, she dropped on the 
 tired crowd without a warning save 
 the odor of her violets. She seemed 
 to be from another sphere. Her 
 freshness and cleanliness were not a 
 
 [25] 
 
SWAVINC TREK TOPS 
 
 purl oi' that smoky, dusty street. 
 Along it she went as a thing foreign 
 to it — condescending to give it the 
 transforming infhjence of her pres- 
 ence for a moment. The banana 
 man forgot his cry to gaze after 
 her. 'Vhi' newsy said w;ith reverence, 
 "Gee I look at her"; and the dark 
 woman in the red jacket, with the 
 green birds, forgot to help fier big- 
 gest bird to the; top of the cage and 
 let him clamf)er uf> alone, whilst she 
 took a longer look after the vision of 
 the s[)ring. It must be hard to see 
 this much of s|)ring, to get just this 
 hint of what it is like, and then never 
 see more. But those wfio never get 
 beyond the city streets are tfumkful, 
 no don})t, for tfie little. The girl with 
 her violets liatfi a mission. 
 
 [26 1 
 
Pear-tree Wisdom 
 
 Here is a morning when the June 
 sunhght drops upon the trees, pene- 
 trates no further than a foot into 
 their deep shadiness, then resigns it- 
 self to flooding all the open spaces, 
 leaving the shadows to their own 
 dark ways. The season has come on 
 thus far, and I cannot think where 
 the weeks have gone since first I 
 heard the robin's note. He no longer 
 has that prophetic call, but his note 
 has taken on maturity, and sounds as 
 though ripe cherries had effected a 
 transformation in it. The apples and 
 pears and peaches have done with 
 their pink-and-white finery, and have 
 settled down to labor in their com- 
 
 [27] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 mon green. Their cheeks pufF out, 
 and they are dark in the face as they 
 blow with all their might into the 
 fruit that hangs on the end of their 
 stems. 
 
 There is no power that could blow 
 a pear out into real pear size and 
 shape but a pear tree. It is a won- 
 derful process, but how regular — 
 natural — quiet. When man blows 
 a glass bottle he makes smoke, noise, 
 dust, odor, and irregular hours of 
 labor. It is all artificial, and tears 
 down human strength. The pear 
 tree's work is natural, and builds up. 
 
 Much of what we boast to be civili- 
 zation is exactly the opposite. Those 
 labors in life that interfere with 
 natural, healthly development should 
 not be called civilization, or if so 
 
 [28] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 called, let civilization be defined as 
 unnatural — barbarism. 
 
 I am told that great industries are 
 necessary; that great wheels which 
 catch men now and then and kill 
 them quickly, or if they do not catch 
 them by accident at any rate kill 
 them by degrees, must revolve night 
 and day. Poor, deluded folk are thev 
 who tell me this. Must revolve! Who 
 says so? The needs of men. Bah! 
 Man was just as happy, vastly more 
 healthy, when he rowed across the 
 river in a hollowed log, or swam 
 across, than now when he crosses in a 
 palace car on a steel trestle. 
 
 But mind must be developed; all 
 the progress called civilization de- 
 notes developed mind. Does it? In 
 the aggregate far from it. One 
 
 [29] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 man's mind develops as he devises a 
 machine. An hundred men's minds 
 are enslaved by the toil and unnatural 
 conditions of life while the patented 
 thing is made into wood or steel. 
 
 It is a far cry from the pear tree 
 to the factory. The one is natural 
 and healthy; the other is unnatural 
 and diseased. The one is life; the 
 other is death. The one tends upward 
 in influence; the other tends down- 
 ward. The one leads toward the 
 spiritual; the other leads toward the 
 material. 
 
 [SO] 
 
Twenty-fold 
 
 Like a great many birds, the robin 
 has something to say in the morning 
 and again at nightfall, but the mid- 
 day hours are quiet so far as his voice 
 is concerned. My curiosity as to his 
 doings while so quiet has just been 
 answered. I just now saw him within 
 the deep green of a locust tree, sit- 
 ting on a limb, as motionless as 
 though carved from the wood. Robin 
 is not an owl in his midday habits. 
 Though motionless as I see him, he is 
 not asleep. He will not remain on 
 that locust bough long, but while he 
 remains he will take his view calmly 
 and quietly. Some nervous birds go 
 
 [31] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 hopping about continually, flirting 
 tail or wings, unable to spend a quiet 
 moment. Robin is self -controlled, 
 and though unheard, he is making 
 observations. When he flies he knows 
 where he intends to go. Always is 
 this certainty attained as a result of 
 self-control. 
 
 Does human life lack the vigor of 
 certainty? May we not say that it 
 has come to this condition through 
 purposeless activity — the lack of the 
 midday observation hours — the hours 
 of control? I am convinced that man 
 needs above all things to observe and 
 to think. The tendency to-day is to 
 " do " things, in the sense of seeing 
 hurriedly, of getting over so much 
 territory before the time limit expires 
 on the ticket. This is done instead 
 
 [32] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 of getting all that any one scene has 
 to say before going to the next. 
 
 It is June now, and thousands of 
 summer folk are crossing each other's 
 paths, " touring " on limited tickets. 
 This touring is the cause of nervous 
 disorder. Nine out of ten of these 
 touring folk will return home, full to 
 the brim of bits of sight seeing that 
 will help them not at all, for they 
 will have seen nothing completely. 
 
 A few weeks ago I loitered for the 
 fifteenth or twentieth time on a 
 mountain top that always is beauti- 
 ful to me. I recollect no time when 
 on that mountain that I have not 
 seen a few tourists " taking it in." I 
 have always watched them with a 
 sense of pity that they were there 
 only to go away and not have seen 
 
 [33] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the mountain at all. They clamber 
 up the rocky steps, they stand five 
 minutes on the point, they read an 
 inscription or two about the battle- 
 field, then they consult their time- 
 pieces and rush to the car that takes 
 them to their train. Later in some 
 other part of the country they will 
 tell how they " saw " the mountain, 
 while in reality they have not seen it. 
 They do not see who thus " do " 
 things. 
 
 If it be twenty times that I have 
 tramped the mountain side and sum- 
 mit, it is twenty fold that I have 
 seen of sky, and shadow, and valley, 
 and distant blue ridge of hills. I sit 
 on sunset rock and look at the tree- 
 covered slope which falls rapidly 
 a thousand and a half of feet and 
 
 [34] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 then runs out in the level of the val- 
 ley for a mile or more, breaks into 
 rolling hills, and mounts the other 
 side as precipitously as it falls away 
 below me. In the mornings, looking 
 at this view, a sense of the delightful 
 freshness of the unspoiled, because 
 untouched, vale and mountain comes 
 upon me. Looking later, when the 
 sun's rays are direct, and the purple 
 haze has deepened in the canon, the 
 intense quiet of the hour dispels my 
 morning haste, and I am content to 
 lie tranquilly with half -closed eyes, 
 dreaming that what I see is a fore- 
 look at one of those beautiful, 
 heavenly valleys that God shall show 
 me, perhaps, in the aftertime. Look- 
 ing thus on a summer noonday at a 
 haze-flooded valley, the real and the 
 
 [S5] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 unreal are so intermingled that I can- 
 not tell their differences. I will not 
 be positive that that is real smoke 
 from a cabin chimney yonder on 
 Raccoon's side. Perhaps the note of 
 a cowbell, as its wearer, lying in the 
 shade below, brushes the flies from 
 her back, is only my fancying. 
 
 A cloud covers the sun. The 
 shadows thicken into one, and I find 
 that in an instant the real stands out 
 to meet me in its evening mood. 
 While I have been dreaming the 
 hours have passed, and the cooler 
 breeze of evening comes along the 
 mountain crest. I have seen but one 
 view. It has taken a half day. I 
 drop down the steep path to a spring 
 which blows its coolness from a moun- 
 tain crevice. I have been here before 
 
 [36-} 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 — others, too. Now as I come I am 
 aware of someone filling a bucket. 
 It is a girl. She has not seen me, 
 nor heard. The aisles of the forest 
 are carpeted for trespassers. With 
 filled bucket she turns down the path 
 that leads to the cabin whose noon- 
 day smoke I saw. I have little time 
 to "note" her, but one thing I do 
 see. She has a flower on her dress. 
 It probably is not a violet, but what 
 is it? I must come here again, then 
 perhaps I shall find out. I am glad 
 no hmited ticket made me attempt to 
 " do " the mountain which I have just 
 begun to see. Yes, I shall come here 
 again. 
 
 [37] 
 
Back to Eden 
 
 The bluif was high along the shore 
 of the lake. The afternoon sun was 
 direct upon it. The heat had driven 
 some folks within the cottages, others 
 lay under the trees, further back 
 from the bluff. The reflection on 
 the water was dazzling, and no one 
 seemed inclined to look at it. No 
 one except a lone fisherman who sat 
 in the stern of his anchored boat, call- 
 ing distance away from the shore, 
 and watched from beneath his um- 
 brella the sleeping bobber on his line. 
 Nature had left her housekeeping 
 for awhile and was resting. 
 
 About five o'clock she awoke; 
 
 [88] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 sat up and shook her garment a 
 little where she had been lying. A 
 breeeze rippled the water, and the 
 topmost leaves on the trees stirred 
 slightly. The sun had dropped until 
 the rays now slipped over the bank 
 and out through the upper branches 
 of the trees. The fisherman had 
 pulled up his anchor and was rowing 
 slowly ashore. The cottage doors 
 were opened to the evening, and one 
 by one the cottagers appeared from 
 their afternoon retirement. Children 
 began playing on a pier and among 
 some boats drawn up on the beach. 
 A launch, here and there, betrayed 
 its hiding place, backed out into the 
 water and started away, its heart 
 beating as though it were afraid of 
 a pursuer. Across the lake some 
 
 [39] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 cows that had been standing to their 
 backs in the water waded ashore and 
 spread out over the meadow, crop- 
 ping the grass as they went. The 
 yellow stubble field caught the even- 
 ing sun, and was regilded with its 
 mellow light. A rattling wagon went 
 over the rise in the road beyond the 
 field, and the dust in its wake drifted 
 slowly across the roadside. It was 
 an evening when peace was the spirit 
 of everything ; everything was in love 
 and league with everything else. A 
 note of discord would have struck 
 terror to all, for that note would 
 have been unexpected. 
 
 To view and breathe the beauty 
 and quiet of such a scene is to become 
 part of it, and wish never for a 
 separation. Thus I felt as I sat at 
 
 [40] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the water's side, where the ripples 
 softly brushed the sand, and waited 
 for the message of the hour. The 
 day before I had been in the racket 
 and rush of the city, where men and 
 women and children exist. Com- 
 monly, one writing of the city will 
 speak of its slums as though they 
 were its characteristics. This is not 
 the truth, however. You must go to 
 the best and busiest thoroughfares 
 and there you find the city. The slum 
 lacks soap. Take the soap away 
 from the better appearing quarter 
 and it will be a slum. The morals 
 of the slum are about equal to 
 the morals of the better appearing 
 section. To us sin and dirt look worse 
 than sin and clean raiment. To the 
 Greater One there is no difference. 
 
 [41] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 The city of to-day is the danger 
 spot in our civilization. It lures to 
 death the best and purest manhood 
 and womanhood of the land. The 
 strong true American sons and 
 daughters of the soil who have 
 been developed through four genera- 
 tions, drawn to the city, lose their 
 identity, their sense of responsibility, 
 and their moral sensitiveness in a 
 decade. If this land is to keep its 
 pristine vigor, the call of the city 
 must be hushed. The attraction of 
 the artificial and unnatural must be 
 offset by a call back to the beauty 
 and vigor and purity of the country. 
 The architectural appearance of the 
 average American city is matched 
 by the average morality. Both are 
 vulgar, crass, materialistic. The 
 
 [42] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 problem given by the city is not the 
 beautifying of streeets and the eleva- 
 tion of civic morals while the attrac- 
 tion is continued in a call for more 
 country product. The problem of 
 the city is to destroy its fascination 
 for the country man and woman. 
 
 It is refreshing to-day to find the 
 individual who, coming to the city 
 for a season, goes back to his moun- 
 tain, lake, or prairie home, glad to 
 escape to its refuge, and glad to stay 
 there. That man is the hope of the 
 future. He is the one who is not led 
 away from what is healthful and 
 natural to what is veneered with 
 those things, but beneath is artificial- 
 ity and disorder. That man finds the 
 Eden of to-day, and has strength 
 enough to reject the tempter, who 
 
 [48] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 points to the tree of knowledge and 
 says, " Its fruits shall open the eyes, 
 and thou shall know and see the city 
 beneath yonder smoky cloud on the 
 distant horizon." He rejects the fruit 
 of the tree that will reveal the city. 
 Other fruit there is, whose flavor is 
 times more delicate and whose satis- 
 faction more enduring. What cares 
 that man for the city — he prefers the 
 freshness, and beauty, and spiritual 
 life of his country Eden. Blessed is 
 that man because of his conmion 
 sense. 
 
 Some resident of the city — some 
 devotee at its shrine, takes exception 
 to this. But let such one know that 
 cities are not productive of men. The 
 city takes the country's offering be- 
 cause it must have it to endure. 
 
 [44 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 Separated from the continual supply 
 of fresh country product, fifty years 
 would suffice to make the city the 
 destroyer of itself. 
 
 I raise a voice against the attrac- 
 tion of the city. I praise the country. 
 Preferably five years of country, 
 than seven of life in a city that I 
 know. A life of quietness, thought- 
 fulness, and simplicity by lake or 
 mountain or on plain will make the 
 genuineness of thought and purity of 
 blood of which great life that walks 
 the earth and rises heavenward must 
 ever be composed. 
 
 So ran my meditation by the quiet 
 lake at sunset. The sky, westward, 
 red at the horizon, was shading into 
 orange toward the zenith. One cloud, 
 a floating bit of glory, went away to 
 
 [45] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 rest before it should be called to take 
 its place among the forerunners of 
 the dawn. One star burned through 
 the orange as the evening darkened. 
 One thought of thankfulness for the 
 message to a tired heart was mine. 
 
 [46] 
 
A Contented Trio 
 
 The tree that spread out over the 
 veranda roof sent one of its branches 
 close against my chamber window. 
 This branch brushed against the 
 screen till it awakened me. When 
 I raised the shade and looked out, 
 the morning light was full on the 
 east leaves of the tree, though the 
 west branches were untouched as 
 yet. The mountain across the val- 
 ley stood clear and distinct, so that 
 a white road, winding up the side, 
 could be traced even at my dis- 
 tance of four miles. The branch that 
 swayed against the window did more 
 than awaken me. It mapped the day 
 
 [47] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 by its persistent beckoning toward 
 the mountain. A slight shower of 
 the evening before added to the per- 
 suasion of the tree top, and, break- 
 fast over, I was away to cross the 
 valley and climb the mountain. 
 
 The delightful freshness of a 
 morning after a shower, when every 
 leaf upon the trees is washed and 
 shining in the morning sun, when 
 every bush sends up its distinctive 
 odor, when even the weeds along the 
 path have been cleansed of their dust 
 and seem to attempt to start the day 
 free from the reproach that goes with 
 weedhood — all this freshness is su- 
 preme delight. 
 
 To cross the valley was an hour's 
 journey. That walk was disagree- 
 able on a hot day with dust settling 
 
 [48] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 upon one, but in the morning after 
 a shower it was a journey that one 
 would care not to miss. It was 
 not long before the mountain's foot 
 was reached, and the trail led upward 
 through a woods so dense that be- 
 ginning and end of journey were 
 lost to view. Sometimes the ascent, 
 steep and abrupt, led around huge 
 fallen rocks which, cast off above by 
 the frost of winter, had fallen and 
 threatened peril to the village below. 
 Again the trail ran out into the open, 
 along a shoulder of the mountain, 
 and then I could see the long way 
 back to distant ridge and further 
 mountain, which led to thoughts of 
 what lay beyond them. Thus the 
 morning passed, as I was going up- 
 ward with the sun. When it had 
 
 [49] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 reached the zenith, I had reached the 
 mountain top. 
 
 My way led along the crest to the 
 southward, winding in and out 
 through dense woods which thwarted 
 the efforts of the sun to reach the 
 ferns beneath. Here and there were 
 clearings where a dog barked, and 
 I suspected a cabin or cottage. Ven- 
 turing through the gate in front of 
 one of these clearings, a path that 
 wound through the corn and by the 
 berry bushes led me, as I hoped, to 
 the cottage. It came into view, hid- 
 den partly by a half dozen great 
 oaks that stood about like senti- 
 nels. A dog came wiggling from 
 behind the cottage, one eye full of 
 suspicion, the other full of friendli- 
 ness. A cat lay on the deserted ver- 
 
 [50] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 anda, and a sofa pillow wilted against 
 the back of a rocking chair. Wher- 
 ever these three are seen — dog, cat, 
 and sofa pillow — know that your 
 welcome is assured. If only a dog 
 greets you, beware! he may be ugly. 
 If you see a cat only and it dashes 
 away at j^our approach, be sure 
 the inmates of the house are not 
 fond of company. If there is no 
 sofa pillow, no one sits out at even- 
 ing to watch the moon rise, and the 
 parlor is dark and uninviting. But 
 when the happy combination exists — 
 dog, cat, and sofa pillow — walk up 
 boldly and knock. 
 
 I did so this time. It was the heat 
 of the noon hour, and no one was 
 stirring. The second knock brought 
 a response, a door opened, and some- 
 
 [51] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 one came down the stairs and along 
 the cool hall. "What is it?" asked 
 a voice, and I knew I had no need to 
 fear being turned away without an 
 answer. Had the question been 
 " Who is it? " I would not have been 
 so sure of a welcome. 
 
 " Is this the road to the Falls? " 
 
 " Yes, straight on about two 
 miles." 
 
 " Would you mind if I rested on 
 your veranda awhile? " 
 
 " No. I'll bring a chair." 
 
 " There is one here." 
 
 " Is there? Oh, yes," as she pushed 
 the door open and looked. 
 
 "Would you like a drink?" 
 
 I did not object, and so she went 
 for a dipper of water, while I sat 
 there wondering where I had seen 
 
 [52] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 that face before. Eyes of brown, 
 and full red cheeks, and hair raised 
 over forehead in the mode of the day. 
 I knew from this that she had seen 
 other girls w^ho perhaps wore violets 
 in June. When she returned with 
 the water it came to me suddenly. 
 This is the girl I saw one day, stoop- 
 ing at the spring on the moun- 
 tain side, when I came unobserved 
 through the woods. When I spoke 
 about the coolness of the water, and 
 she said it was from a spring a short 
 distance away, then I knew for a 
 certainty that it was she whom I saw 
 the day when I lay above on the rock 
 and noticed the smoke coming from 
 a chimney hidden among the trees. 
 I remembered, too, that then she 
 wore a flower, and she was thereby 
 
 [53] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 admitted to the select company 
 whose symbol is the violet. 
 
 The road that ran ahead to the 
 Falls, my intended destination, lay 
 blistering in the noon-day heat, and 
 it was not as inviting as the cool of 
 the veranda. It was more pleasant 
 to sit there and watch the distant 
 shadows trailing across the valley and 
 up the forested slopes while I listened 
 to the voice of this mountain girl. 
 We talked about the quiet of the hill 
 home, about its uneventful life, 
 changed only as the seasons changed, 
 about its gift of an atmosphere for 
 meditation and for innocence. There 
 was some little hint now and then in 
 her conversation of a visit prolonged 
 with city friends, but ever there was 
 the note of contentment, and the in- 
 
 [54] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 sight which valued this mountain 
 cottage above all else. 
 
 There came a gray-haired old man 
 from the orchard, and when he saw 
 me he turned aside to the path be- 
 hind the house, but here the girl 
 stopped him, and I knew him as her 
 grandfather, and I took of the fruit 
 offered from his basket. From him 
 I guessed whence came her love of 
 the place, for he was one who had 
 the manner of nature's child, grow- 
 ing old as nature doth ripen fruit. 
 Those eyes had not looked long on 
 men rushing and jostling each other 
 for a footing. Those lines upon the 
 forehead and about the eyes were 
 not the lines which nervous worry 
 draws across the face it strains and 
 buffets. The respect with which he 
 
 [55] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 greeted his grand-daughter was not 
 that which came from a man who had 
 looked upon women as a pastime. 
 If my talk ran into the channel with 
 his, it was not through indifference 
 to her who sat near, but because his 
 conversation seeemed to be so like 
 her own that it was one wide current 
 of her mind and his. 
 
 I wondered if her mother, to whom 
 she had referred, was like her and 
 him. I thought of such a trio, living 
 the life of natural beauty and sim- 
 plicity, and the charm of it kept me 
 silent so long I quite forgot where 
 I was. It was only when the old man 
 went away with his basket, and the 
 cat I had forgotten sprang upon my 
 knee, that I came back to the fact 
 that I had rested long enough and 
 
 [56] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 had no reasonable excuse for remain- 
 ing longer. It pleased me to hear the 
 girl say, as I left, that I must stop 
 again whenever I came by their cot- 
 tage. 
 
 In the late afternoon while the sun 
 was still upon the mountain, but had 
 set for the valley to the eastward, I 
 went down through the gorge, where 
 the water tumbled frantically and 
 the path was overhung with vines, 
 and, walking fast, came at dusk to 
 the edge of the valley just as the 
 lights were beginning to flash out 
 one by one. Across to the home on 
 the other side was a journey in the 
 dark, but when I reached it I found 
 the branch upon the tree silvered with 
 the light of the rising moon. 
 
 [57] 
 
The Plotless Life 
 
 There is one advantage that I have 
 when I let the tree top suggest my 
 thought and rule my imagination. 
 Time and space are as nothing. I 
 may be following the windings of a 
 stream between its banks of cat-tails 
 and rushes to-day — to-morrow I may 
 be wandering across the prairie land 
 by farm and village — and day after 
 to-morrow I may be listening to the 
 whistling bouy and bell by the sea. 
 If one has tired, he may lay down 
 the book and open it again days later, 
 at another place, and go on without 
 missing any thread of a narrative, for 
 there is none. 
 
 Life has no plot, if it be right. 
 
 [ 58 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 Each day is complete in the Hfe 
 worth while. Wise is the man who 
 makes his day complete, for he sleeps 
 well each night, and it matters not 
 whether he wakes here or there. I 
 always associate a plot and a villain. 
 Honest folk bother not with plot. I 
 pray you, take up a day of life and 
 make it come within one sketch. Do 
 not write across the page at nightfall, 
 " To be continued." If you do, you 
 may unwittingly tell a lie. 
 
 A present-day mischief is the senti- 
 ment that to-day is preparation — to- 
 morrow will be life. To-day is my 
 life and yours. If we are moved to 
 take an enjoyment by an hour off to- 
 morrow, let us take the hour off to- 
 day. Let us go to the cemetery and 
 admire the autumn foliage or the 
 
 [59] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 spring green to-day, when we can 
 walk above ground. We shall not 
 get much enjoyment to-morrow, 
 when they let us down slowly into a 
 dark hole that shuts away the view of 
 gorgeous tree or greening bush. To- 
 day the door swings wide on hinges, 
 to-morrow the lid is screwed down. 
 
 I have no apology to offer for the 
 lack of plot in these chapters. I have 
 made each as complete as I could. 
 They are not models of style, nor 
 anything, that I know. I have tried, 
 and am trying, to say something to 
 offset the notion that the city is the 
 mecca of life. I would call heart and 
 mind back to the world God has 
 made. Let us cease to worship our 
 own handiwork, for it is just such 
 stuff as any man could make. Sup- 
 
 [60] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 pose there is more beef raised to-day, 
 and the steel output is larger. Does 
 beef taste any better? Does the man 
 who rolls the steel enjoy life any 
 more than he did two decades ago? 
 A negative answer is likely the proper 
 one. Therefore, let us cease to brag 
 about our material resources, for 
 they are not necessarily an aid to 
 spiritual progress. 
 
 A man may be a good man, and 
 yet if he is ever emphasizing the 
 material, he is responsible for certain 
 corrupting influences in life. I^et me 
 explain. I note that reform in city 
 affairs is slow, and that corruption is 
 swift footed. I note that good men 
 are unstable in combination, and that 
 bad men hold together. This ques- 
 tion has been in my mind — what uni- 
 
 [61] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 fies the men of corruption? Is graft 
 a stronger unifying force than the 
 simple motive of righteousness? It 
 seems so, and it is because we run to 
 the emphasis of the material and 
 neglect the spiritual. 
 
 Another example of this tendency 
 to materialize life I would put on 
 this page. Time was when music 
 was the expression of soul harmony. 
 It is true yet where real music is 
 found, but the fittest symbol of this 
 mechanical age is the pianola. It 
 grinds out the melodies, the har- 
 monies, in that cold, regular fashion 
 that would drive Beethoven, Liszt, 
 Wagner, Chopin, to suicide. Yet I 
 have seen a pianola in a Bishop's 
 home! A new crusade — the birth- 
 place of our Lord must be saved from 
 
 [62] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the pork packer and the manufac- 
 turer of soulless things! 
 
 This morning was a spring morn- 
 ing in autumn. A thunderstorm 
 occurred last night. As I looked 
 from the window two disconnected 
 lines ran in my mind : 
 
 " Morning's at seven. 
 The hillside's dew-pearled." 
 
 Both lines were true. I climbed 
 the hill, and the mist was hanging 
 over the river. All about me was the 
 fresh and healthful world of the day 
 spring. The mist lifted and drifted, 
 more and more of the earth was re- 
 vealed, the river and the distant hills. 
 My heart and fancy were increasing- 
 ingly touched. Such is ever true. 
 There is always more to nature — 
 ever widening prospects — a new and 
 
 larger call. 
 
 [63] 
 
Straight-line Effects 
 
 How satisfying are the simpler 
 pleasures! Would that men might 
 realize that pleasure is not neces- 
 sarily a compound of sensations. It 
 may be a single emotion derived from 
 the quiet, simple, unostentatious in 
 life. Through the influence of the 
 idea that all things must work to- 
 gether for good before happiness is 
 realized there is many a strained and 
 worried look where there is sufficient 
 cause for happiness. There is no 
 ground for self-approval when we 
 feel happy as a result of a fortunate 
 combination of circimistances. We 
 would be dolts, indeed, did we not 
 
 [64] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 respond when all things conspire to 
 bless us. No one may rightly praise 
 himself unless he is of that sensitive- 
 ness which receives pleasure from a 
 single emotion. 
 
 For instance, contrast the furnish- 
 ing of two rooms. One is the abode 
 of the individual who desires the or- 
 nate or garish thing about him. If he 
 is wealthy, he will have elaborate carv- 
 ings, highly colored hangings, a con- 
 fusion of elements in the furnish- 
 ings. If he be of little means, he will 
 have flashy prints, gimcracks, and 
 things with quantities of varnish. 
 The other room is the abode of him 
 who sees beauty in the plain, simple, 
 genuine article. The doors are not 
 paneled, but are plain slabs of oak, 
 which make one think of the forest. 
 
 [65] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 The casements are ungrooved. The 
 table is heavy and solid, and the chair 
 is uncarved, unvarnished. Such a 
 room as instanced first is an exhibi- 
 tion of confusion. The second room 
 is the revelation of order. Elaborate- 
 ness is unnecessary for beauty, and 
 also for pleasure. Singleness of 
 effect is real beauty, so real pleasure. 
 The straight line has just as much in 
 its favor as the curve. There is no 
 reason why it should be less beauti- 
 ful. Is a right angle any more severe 
 than a circle? Some think so, be- 
 cause their ancestors have been look- 
 ing so long at circles. If a circle is 
 the line of beauty, the drunken man 
 cuts a finer figure along the street 
 than he who goes the shortest way 
 between two points. 
 
 [66] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 There is no intricate design in the 
 object which yields real pleasure. 
 There is just as much pleasure in an 
 apple as in a glass of cider, in a grape 
 as in a drop of wine. The one is ready 
 at hand, the other man designed. 
 There is as much pleasure possible 
 in the two hours before 10 p. m. as 
 in the two after 10 p. m. There is 
 as much enjoyment in sitting on the 
 grass under a tree with a far, fair 
 prospect of sky and hill, as there is 
 in sitting on a plush divan, in a stuffy 
 reception hall while looking at imita- 
 tion of sky and field. Moreover, 
 when you leave your friend in the 
 first instance you grasp his hand full 
 and cordially, and if you never see 
 him again remember the w^armth of 
 that clasp; while in the second in- 
 
 [67] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 stance, when you leave your friend 
 you touch your two fingers to his and 
 remember only the silliness of the 
 thing. 
 
 The idea that pleasure is com- 
 pounded out of a variety of ingredi- 
 ent emotions has set people on a 
 chase for it. I have yet to hear of 
 such a chaser ever overtaking his ob- 
 ject. It requires sensitiveness to feel 
 pleasure. The blase, the world-cal- 
 loused, feel it not. 
 
 This morning the bare trees stand 
 stripped of leaves, the grass is brown, 
 frost lies over everything. A cloudy 
 sky caps down the landscape with 
 gloom. There is no bird note, nor 
 sign of life. Not many weeks ago 
 the air at morning was vibrant with 
 melody, but, as this chill has settled 
 
 [68] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 down, the birds with their songs have 
 escaped the hfeless prison. Birds fly 
 away before the chill comes in the air. 
 Seek them where the sunshine filters 
 through the leaves. Has joy gone 
 out of your heart? Perhaps it flew 
 away before the chill comes in the air. 
 world spirit entered your life. Let 
 the sunlight of simplicity radiate your 
 realm, then shall the notes of glad- 
 ness resound again. 
 
 [69] 
 
A Wintry Vale 
 
 I WAS walking to-day through a 
 vale where the bones of last sum- 
 mer's beauty were scattered on either 
 hillside. It was a cheerless prospect. 
 Fallen tree trunk, and brush, and 
 dead grass without a hint of color 
 were scattered all about, while up 
 through this stood the gaunt, bare 
 trees, silent, mournful. It was like a 
 walk through a field of graves. A 
 stillness like the tomb was in the vale. 
 The wind sighing across the valley 
 would have been a relief — but even 
 wind was dead. 
 
 Had this prospect of death been 
 extensive, there would have been for 
 
 [70] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 me a certain interest awakened by the 
 view of far-stretching woodland and 
 hillside, but the vale was limited. In 
 sight was its border, and I knew all 
 that lay beyond. 
 
 Some lives are like this wintry vale. 
 We should not consider a cold, stern 
 life as deserving censure. There 
 may have been a winter in that life. 
 The only thing that justly deserves 
 censure is the limited prospect, which 
 is so often in evidence. There is 
 no extent of view. It is shut in — 
 you see all at a glance. This only, the 
 limitation, may properly be disap- 
 proved. 
 
 That vale, which is so barren and 
 desolate to-day, may become clothed 
 with the beauty of verdure in a few 
 months. Then I shall not notice even 
 
 [71] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 its small extent. Thus even the cold, 
 gloomy, narrow life may be changed. 
 It may become warmed by friendship, 
 and the flower of its own nature may 
 spring out in response. So its limi- 
 tations shall be half unnoticed. 
 
 There lies the hope for many. If 
 they cannot be broad, limitless in sur- 
 prises, they can be intense and satisfy- 
 ing for the stranger. 
 
 [72] 
 
The Retreat of Life 
 
 The trees are very beautiful this 
 morning, as they stand sheeted with 
 ice in the sunlight. This is winter's 
 final victory. Months ago the first 
 frost touched the verdure and with- 
 ered it. The leaves clung a few 
 weeks longer to the branches, then, 
 hopelessly, let go their grasp and 
 fluttered to the earth, there to be 
 chased by the winds. The trees stood 
 bare awhile. Sometimes, in the win- 
 ter gale, they seemed to be protesting 
 loudly at their rough treatment; 
 anon, they stood still and waited. I 
 wonder if they were quiet so that 
 they might be fettered thus. Any- 
 how, this morning they are impris- 
 oned by the grim ice king, as though, 
 
 [7.S] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 while they were sleeping, an enemy 
 had come and walled them in. 
 
 The trees wear this cold beauty 
 quietly, patiently, without a murmur. 
 Though so quiet, I know there is life 
 at their hearts, waiting its time to 
 issue from this icy prison. 
 
 This is the lesson for all life in tree 
 or man. Though it be surprised in 
 the night, bound fast by the enemy, 
 let it retreat to the warm chambers of 
 the heart and wait. The sun is far 
 away just now, oblique its rays, but 
 it is swinging nearer day by day, and 
 under its warm influence without, 
 and the heart-life within, the tree 
 shall clothe itself with the greenery 
 of the perfect spring. So, too, man 
 shall grow glad again, though now 
 he waits fettered by cold sorrow. 
 
 [74] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 In these gray winter mornings 
 there is still one tie that holds me to 
 the spring. It is a little brown bird 
 whose song rings out clear, full, and 
 sweet. I wonder why he has chosen 
 to remain here when he might have 
 flown away to a warmer land. He 
 seems to be the only one of his kind, 
 for I hear only his song. To-day, 
 sitting on the icy limb, he whistles 
 as though it were a June morning. 
 I am glad that there is one bird left 
 after summer has departed — one 
 bird whose song is my matins and 
 vespers. If I feel not kindly toward 
 the cold morn, this bird assumes my 
 obligations, and raises a song to 
 heaven. Sing on, thou only bird, and 
 thou shalt have my heart with thee! 
 
 [75] 
 
The Going of the Past 
 
 He journeyed yesterday into the 
 Other Land. He was the last of his 
 generation. As he lay in the large 
 room of the old house, the simple 
 service read over him seemed in keep- 
 ing with the quiet simplicity of his 
 presence, when he had been about the 
 house in the strength of his ripe old 
 age. He had been a man of the old 
 school, white-haired, fair-faced, with 
 a certain tone about him, often af- 
 fected by some, but never uncon- 
 sciously. His manner of holding his 
 cheroot between his fingers, as he sat 
 by the fireplace reading, now and 
 then deliberately drawing in the 
 smoke, marked him as different from 
 
 [76] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the present-day man who nervously 
 chews the end of his cigar. 
 
 Such departures bring vividly be- 
 fore us the going of the past. It is 
 not " dozing in the present, and 
 dreading the future," to dream of the 
 past. It is not to underestimate the 
 present to value the past. There was 
 an elegance, a reserve, a refinement 
 about the life of fifty years ago which 
 is not in evidence to-day, except as it 
 is seen in some lingering representa- 
 tive of the old school, such as this 
 one w^ho left yesterday. Perhaps 
 fifty or seventy-five years hence this 
 new material age of to-day will have 
 become softened and refined, and 
 then will have true beauty, but now it 
 stands crass, irreverent, iconoclastic. 
 
 [77] 
 
Plenty of Time 
 
 There are parts of our country 
 where I love to linger. There is 
 sentiment in the very air one breathes. 
 I seem there to settle back into the 
 heart of things, to feel that unalloyed 
 happiness and contentment which re- 
 sult from an intermingling of the 
 poetry and prose of life. In such 
 places poverty is even shorn of its dis- 
 tress. There is the tradition of bet- 
 ter days and evidences of ancestral 
 pride. 
 
 That which makes the poverty of 
 the commercial centers so terrible to- 
 day is the coarseness, vulgarity, and 
 utter lack of any touch of refinement. 
 The spirit of " get there and have " 
 
 [78] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 works, in the successful, the spectacle 
 of a veneered, showy society, dwell- 
 ing in imitation palaces; in the un- 
 successful, squalid poverty and dirt. 
 
 So, I take to the life that is re- 
 moved from the little hurries and the 
 great. In the atmosphere of plenty 
 of time I walk the quaint streets of 
 towns whose church bells were cast, 
 perhaps, in foundries across the sea, 
 yet ring just as clear in the Sab- 
 bath quiet as when they first spoke 
 from the century-old steeples; or, I 
 go along the shaded road which leads 
 by the opulent plantation, over whose 
 great-house the live oak stretches; 
 or, I wind up the mountain trail to 
 the ranch buildings which overlook 
 the far-stretching acres. 
 
 And I am content to live slowly, 
 
 [79] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 for there is plenty of time in this 
 great universe of God; and that 
 which will be fit to abide forever must 
 not know hurry. That live oak, 
 standing over the great-house, has 
 seen so many generations of weeds 
 come up and die. That redwood on 
 the mountain side was there when 
 Columbus waded ashore on San 
 Salvador. 
 
 [80] 
 
A Southerner to the Last 
 
 They said, when the General died, 
 that he was the last of the great 
 men of the Confederacy; the last he- 
 roic figure of the Lost Cause. He 
 was born and educated, he labored, 
 fought, and died in the same section 
 of his heart's land. He represented 
 the highest type of native. Southern 
 manhood. He was a man of convic- 
 tions, intrepid, chivalrous. He fought 
 for the Confederacy for the same 
 reason that other men fought for the 
 Union. He believed that he was right. 
 From his viewpoint he was right. 
 For the same reason men to-day on 
 both sides are right. If either crit- 
 
 [81] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 icises the other, it is a mistake. The 
 principles for which Confederate and 
 Union man fought still live, and 
 should live, but the war has closed 
 and should so remain. 
 
 The General, at the close of the 
 war, accepted defeat as a man, and 
 for over thirty years taught, by act 
 and word, that war was over and 
 that reconciliation was to be the final 
 noble victory. 
 
 It is not strange that there was a 
 South and a North, or that there is a 
 South and a North, or that there will 
 continue to be a South and a North. 
 Two homes stand side by side. In the 
 face of a common peril the members 
 go out together, but in the midst of 
 peace they enjoy their own home 
 circle. That circle is theirs — sacred. 
 
 [82] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 Let South and North exist as they 
 do to-day, side by side, yet distinct. I 
 see no peril in such relation. It is 
 natural. Let those who clamor for 
 the impossible, turn rather to the de- 
 velopment of the home spirit, which 
 will make South and North, while 
 distinct in temperament and ideals, 
 yet friendly, neighborly. 
 
 This General was a Southerner to 
 the last. He loved his land and peo- 
 ple. That is the reason his death was 
 a blow, felt by mountaineer and val- 
 ley man, and man in the Southern 
 city. There comes to some the recol- 
 lection of the days, fifty years ago, 
 when he was a young man, and the 
 South was over the threshold of a 
 future bright with promise. To those 
 of his age still remaining, there are 
 
 [83] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 long thoughts of the simplicity, the 
 cultured ease, the wide hospitality, of 
 days before the devastation, and 
 many fail to see in the future any re- 
 development of that old life, and 
 mourn, not only for the man gone, 
 but for the days gone also. There 
 are others, children of the General 
 and his day, inheriting the tempera- 
 ment and principles and native grain, 
 who look more hopefully into the 
 future, and are striving to make it 
 like the best of the past. The chiv- 
 alry of its men, the gentle pride of 
 its women, will be again the features 
 of a life built on the old foundations 
 out of the ruins and remnants which 
 have survived. Herein lieth hope and 
 joy — not that there be no South and 
 no North, but that there be both South 
 
 [84] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 and North, preserving the family 
 Ukeness. 
 
 If the General was the last great 
 figure of the Confederacy, there has 
 arrived the time for new figures of 
 the South, like him, only younger, 
 who draw their vitality out of that 
 past day hy breathing the atmos- 
 phere of the present. ' And since an- 
 cestry, climate, conditions, make in- 
 dividuals whose viewpoints are nat- 
 urally different, let no one from 
 another ancestry and condition set 
 the type and demand conformity 
 thereto. Sad the time when one may 
 not say: " There is a Southerner." 
 
 [85] 
 
Voices of the Gorge 
 
 Not least among the pleasures of 
 traveling is that to be had when you 
 leave the train at the last station and 
 pass on afoot, ahorse, or by vehicle. 
 You have then quite gotten away 
 from the familiar, and your journey 
 takes on the strange and unexpected. 
 Wherever the road from the station 
 may lead, it is certain there will be 
 scenes and experiences, new, and 
 unpremeditated, and these are the 
 stages of a journey most valued by 
 the true rambler. There is a sense of 
 freedom, the joy of living every 
 moment separately and to the full, 
 that takes one away from his past and 
 holds one from unwise looks into the 
 
 [86] 
 
SWAYING TREK TOPS 
 
 future. This conies only when the last 
 whistle of the departing train is heard. 
 
 The station building on the Santa 
 Fe was made of boards, nailed ])er- 
 pendicularly, and there was no plat- 
 form but a bed of cinders. The few 
 houses about the station were wide 
 apart and surrounded by sage bush. 
 The sandy roads ran across each other 
 for a half mile square, dragging the 
 houses with them, then all the houses 
 were dropped and a single road went 
 on up the sloping valley to the foot- 
 hills, five miles distant. While the 
 road could " shake " the houses and 
 leave them tumbled behind, it could 
 not leave us, and its very independ- 
 ence, as it went mountainward, was 
 its attractiveness. 
 
 The air was heavy with the odor of 
 
 [87] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the bush, the road dusty, and the sun 
 glaringly bright. Shade was want- 
 ing, as always the last thing to make 
 completeness is not found. 
 
 The five miles were lessening with 
 every stride. Four — three — two — 
 and then the shadow of the moun- 
 tains, stretching down the valley, re- 
 ceived us into its protection, and all 
 we carried of our discomfort was our 
 thirst. But all things work together 
 for good to the wayfarer upon the 
 earth. To quench the thirst of the 
 hot trail there flowed out of the canon 
 the snow waters of the peaks. Where 
 it flowed from the gorge, rushing 
 with much noise and foam, we tarried 
 on the bank and pitched our camp. 
 While one made ready the camp, the 
 other shot the rabbit and the quail 
 for the Sunday-morrow pot. Then 
 
 [88] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 while the hunter dressed his meat, the 
 camper vanished up the darkening 
 gorge. 
 
 The hour between sunset and dark, 
 in the land of the mountains, is the 
 hour the camper loves. He feels that 
 he could wander ever in the darken- 
 ing gorges, and never once feel that 
 they were gloomy. All voices of the 
 wild are distinct at that hour. They 
 may be intermingled, yet with little 
 difficulty each voice may be distin- 
 guished, telling its secrets as a child 
 does when it falls off to sleep. 
 
 The camper, as he picked his foot- 
 ing among the boulders where the 
 stream rushed dow^n, heard the voice 
 that told of snowy heights miles 
 away, where the morning sun first 
 shattered the icy crags with his lance 
 and liberated the tiny stream that 
 
 [89] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 started away so quickly it could 
 not be imprisoned again. He heard 
 that voice tell of the stream's 
 acquaintance with others like itself, 
 intent on escape — how they joined 
 forces and felt the power of their 
 union, as men who rightly estimate 
 the value of companionship. Then 
 the voice told of the cavern, through 
 which the stream felt its way in the 
 darkness, to meet at last the burst of 
 noonday sunlight. So alternating — 
 darkness and light — it ever rushed 
 down and out, and on the morrow it 
 would greet the dawn from the valley. 
 There was another voice. It was 
 a whisper among the pines, which 
 crowded away from the foot of the 
 gorge and mounted to the summit of 
 the ridge, stepping on each other in 
 
 [90] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 their haste. It was the voice of the 
 evening breeze, that ever speaks of 
 peace. " Be not so frantic to escape, 
 pine tree," it said. " Tarry in this 
 evening hour and think twice ere 
 thou desert the stream." Sage advice 
 for other than pine tree — for men 
 who hear the voice of the waters and 
 flee away to the heights, where, if 
 they lose their footing, they fall to 
 more than injury. 
 
 The gorge had grown dark. The 
 Sierras — snow covered — were flushed 
 with rose. A halloo down the canon 
 reminded the camper that the hunter 
 had finished his task and had grown 
 lonely. He retraced his steps and 
 came upon that individual, doing his 
 best to furnish smoke, while the fire 
 did its part in heat and light. 
 
 [91] 
 
Spring Waters 
 
 It is greening time again. The 
 cycle of the seasons has passed. One 
 year ago a thunderstorm announced 
 the advent of spring, and now the 
 same thing has happened again. The 
 rain of yesterday washed all the rust 
 from the hills, and the color that glad- 
 dens the heart is to be seen every- 
 where. 
 
 How many little streams there are, 
 flowing down to form the Larger 
 Water! Each is unknown to the 
 others, till now and then two or three 
 grow friendly, and flow on together 
 chattering gaily in the sunlight. 
 Streams do not refuse company; still 
 they are very content to go on by 
 themselves, each cleaning up its por- 
 
 [92] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 tion of the hill. Each goes intently 
 on its way — surmounting, surround- 
 ing, undermining difficulties, rejoic- 
 ing in its strength, rising higher and 
 braver with every obstacle that falls 
 in its course. Here and there little 
 streams are running their separate 
 life courses, to mingle finally in the 
 great sea, and, losing their identity, 
 become one great water. 
 
 Take this as a Parable of Life. 
 Each person in his course carrying 
 away the rust of unsightliness, and 
 leaving the canon of life fair, and 
 green, and growing. He is un- 
 known, in large measure, to his neigh- 
 bors, save as a common task gives a 
 common life. He gains in strength 
 with every trial, until at last his life 
 and others are mingled in the Life of 
 God. 
 
 [ Oti ] 
 
The Divine Adjustment 
 
 A FOOTPATH led aside from the high- 
 way, and I followed it. It wound 
 through the thicket, and I emerged 
 on a shoulder of the hill which gave a 
 fair and high prospect of the river. 
 I had not supposed that so much 
 could be seen by so slight a change of 
 location. A dozen rods had formed 
 the circle of my view from the high- 
 way. Two minutes' walk gave me 
 an extensive landscape. 
 
 To the traveler along the road of 
 his ambition there are many little 
 altitudes that call aside. 'Tis but a 
 step to them, and yet the outlook is 
 enlarged a hundred fold. There is 
 always this Divine adjustment of 
 
 [94] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 highway, side path, and altitude. 
 Wherever one is found there are the 
 others. But many miss the fortunate 
 arrangement, and do not note the 
 side paths which would enliven their 
 journey. And when the}^^ do see 
 them, how few take time to ad- 
 vantage themselves thereby! 
 
 [y5] 
 
The Hillside Sleepers 
 
 Two miles away beyond the river, 
 near to the top of the hillside, a few 
 gravestones stand, plainly visible in 
 the sunlight. They are gathered in 
 an irregular line, white against the 
 green slope. They are guarding 
 the sleepers till the morning of the 
 resurrection. At the distance where 
 I stand I cannot count whether there 
 are eight, or ten, or twelve. Some 
 sleepers there are overlooked from a 
 two-mile view. They belong to a 
 little family of graves of which the 
 white slabs tell the location and over 
 which the cedars sing a requiem. 
 Could those sleepers awake, and, 
 
 [96] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 rising, go their paths, retracing the 
 steps that brought them there, how 
 far they would wander, how widely 
 they would separate! From hamlet, 
 valley, and city they have been gath- 
 ered to their rest. Ambitions, loves, 
 and earthly business led them, when 
 alive, everywhere about their individ- 
 ual pursuits. Their interests were 
 large. Their names were known, 
 perhaps famed, possibly revered. 
 Some stir they made among men. 
 But now they have been gathered to 
 that spot, and all that tells they ever 
 were, and where the green sod lies 
 undulated above them, is that group 
 of white stones on the brow of the 
 hill. To the observer they are not 
 only rounded with a sleep, but un- 
 known save by a stone. 
 
 [97] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 A human life is of supreme im- 
 portance to the body which contains 
 it, to the friends who love it, but how 
 little the world cares for it, and when 
 it once is gone how surely oblivion 
 enfolds it! 
 
 [98] 
 
The Garden of Quietness 
 
 Out on the edge of the valley the 
 redbuds are massed in beautiful pro- 
 fusion. They stand level with the 
 summit of the hill. A few days ago 
 there was the slightest hint of color 
 in the space where I knew, from last 
 year, that I might expect their 
 appearance. Day after day they 
 have grown brighter, until this morn- 
 ing they stand a gorgeous dash of 
 color in the midst of a pale green 
 landscape. 
 
 It is wonderful how the great 
 milliner trims these spring hills! 
 What rare taste — all colors blend. 
 The pronounced are softened by con- 
 trast. All are harmonized by being 
 
 L Of C [ 99 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 intermingled. The redbuds grow 
 bright as the green of grass and leaf 
 deepens about them. There are no 
 sudden shocks for the eye, as one 
 walks out these days. Everything is 
 where it should be, as much of it as 
 should be, at the time when it should 
 be. 
 
 Who knows the source of that joy 
 spirit which comes to one walking in 
 the outdoor world in spring? An- 
 alyze the feeling. A heart light, a 
 mind quick, a body filled with the 
 sense of bouyancy. One hour in the 
 spring sunshine, as it is warming into 
 summer, does more for a tired body, 
 a gloomy mind, a sad heart, than 
 barrels of patent tonic. Why? Be- 
 cause the season is that of harmony. 
 Colors are blending to perfection. 
 
 [100] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 Discords are unknown. The birds 
 tune carefully to a common key. 
 Harmony is Queen of Spring. 
 
 Stay the unfolding of the new life 
 on earth at this hour. It is all we 
 could wish. Let it grow another 
 week. It is fuller, but not more 
 harmonious. So the spring joy is 
 keen and full, because there is not a 
 harsh note or color anywhere. 
 
 This joy abiding will be possible 
 when harmony is all about and within 
 us continually. Live where the 
 harmony is found. Why herd in 
 self-made prisons, when the free air 
 of earth blows softly through the 
 green cathedrals, and the joyous sun- 
 shine drops gently upon the leafy 
 roofs? If men to-day would value 
 less the companionship of each other 
 
 [101] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 in the prison corridors, and make 
 themselves fit to be good friends with 
 themselves, out in God's world of 
 fresh, harmonious, natural beauty, 
 there would be much more to their 
 lives and to their influence. 
 
 " Seek peace and pursue it," says 
 the Book. Therein is found the 
 secret of joyful life. Seek peace 
 would you find it. Go where it 
 habitates. Peace is resident in the 
 Garden of Quietness. Men make a 
 clamorous place, and think that they 
 shall entice peace to dwell therein. 
 Peace is found in her garden among 
 her trees and flowers. Men must go 
 there to find her. As soon shall trees 
 grow roots in air as peace dwell in 
 the dens of noise. 
 
 [ 102 ] 
 
Where Lilacs Bloom 
 
 The old house is surrounded by 
 lilac bushes. They are blooming now 
 and the air is heavy with their fra- 
 grance. It fills the garden and floats 
 out even to the road, and the passerby 
 turns as he scents the odor, and lo ! his 
 memory has turned back a page in 
 his life, and he sees the yard of the 
 home of his youth, full of lilac bushes 
 and violets. He is sitting on the 
 shady side of the house, for the May 
 sunshine is bright, and then the per- 
 fume is sweetest on the side of 
 the house where the bushes are. The 
 old home place is at its best when the 
 thick foliage of May enwraps it, 
 making a bower of beauty. He can 
 
 [ 103 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 sit on the veranda and not be seen 
 from the path outside the fence, for 
 the hedge is dense with leaves. 
 
 That day so long ago, the boy sat 
 thinking of the home, but not admir- 
 ing it. He loved it, yet it seemed to 
 him that it was pitifully small and 
 old. For twenty years he had known 
 it. Every spring, as long as he could 
 remember, he had seen the lilacs 
 bloom. With his home folks he had 
 watched the seasons come and go. 
 But, somehow, there was a growing 
 discontent. He felt as though the 
 leafy walls were prison bars. Out- 
 side — away there were wider yards 
 and sweeter flowers and finer houses. 
 He must see them. As the winter 
 had been passing, he had been speak- 
 ing these thoughts to his folks. Now, 
 
 [104] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 just a hint — now, a suggestion. But 
 they understood as well as though he 
 had explained all. Their boy was 
 getting out of boyhood, and the call 
 of the world was in his ears. 
 
 Down in the kitchen, in the even- 
 ing after he had gone to his room, his 
 parents talked it over. " Our boy is 
 restless. He wants to leave home. 
 We cannot hold him here and we may 
 
 as well consent, but " and they 
 
 never finished the sentence, though 
 they often talked thus far, and 
 always ended thus. Yet each under- 
 stood the other, and the sentence 
 needed no ending. 
 
 To-day, as the passerby caught the 
 odor of the lilacs, he remembered all 
 that past life. He remembered his 
 departure one afternoon. He left his 
 
 [ 105 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 mother weeping at the gate, his 
 father drove in the wagon to the 
 station. They said little, for both 
 were near to tears. The boy was then 
 almost minded to give up his going; 
 but he went. 
 
 The years passed and he came in 
 vacation days back to the old place. 
 It seemed smaller, but it grew dearer. 
 He had learned that nothing outside 
 the hedge was better than that within. 
 But the stream of home experience 
 was broken, and could never flow on 
 as before. 
 
 To-day, with these memories, there 
 came the great realization, the les- 
 son, as it comes to everyone, after 
 experience. The little yard where 
 our folks live — where the lilacs bloom 
 in spring — where the simple, whole- 
 
 [ 106 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 some home life runs on so quietly, 
 there, as nowhere else upon the earth, 
 does the joy of life conceal itself, but 
 there, as nowhere else, can it be surely 
 discovered and possessed. 
 
 [107] 
 
When the Forest Closes In 
 
 June has shut up all the avenues 
 of far away prospect. The eye can- 
 not pierce the foliage of one tree, 
 to say nothing of the hundreds that 
 have crowded together as a green 
 barrier. There are times, windy 
 days in early spring or still days 
 in late autumn, when the heart 
 craves the long vision; and one climbs 
 the hill and gazes across the dimly 
 greening landscape over which the 
 shadows of the March clouds fly in 
 startled fear; or one walks through 
 the woods stripped of their leaves, 
 and between the bare branches looks 
 down the slope into the purple haze 
 
 [108] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 that hangs over the land. One loves 
 " out yonder " in those seasons. But 
 in June one is enclosed on all sides 
 by the dense foliage, and finds his 
 enjoyment in shadow, and leaf, and 
 flower odor. 
 
 The honeysuckle climbing over the 
 trellis has odor enough to fill the 
 yard, but does not run over into 
 the wide spaces of the outer world. 
 If one ever grows content it is in this 
 leafy month. Given only a place 
 walled in by forest, some sunlight, a 
 few birds and flowers, and there even 
 a dyspeptic or nerve-shattered per- 
 son will find solace. I must modify 
 that by saying, if he wants solace. 
 In this season one comes to a recogni- 
 tion of the difl'erent wants of people, 
 and it is made evident that they 
 
 [109] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 get what they want. If you desire 
 to get a true understanding of an in- 
 dividual's spiritual constitution, learn 
 how he takes his June holiday. 
 
 Does he know nothing better than 
 some enclosure, with a thousand ways 
 of spending his money for a sensa- 
 tion? Does he think that the corri- 
 dors of a prison, otherwise known as 
 a city, furnish pleasure to the 
 prisoner therein? Or does he seek 
 the place where men are forgotten, 
 and nature is his hostess, bringing 
 out to him the service of a banquet 
 and a minstrelsy? The character of 
 his spirit will be determined by these 
 different June holidays. 
 
 You may always judge the worth 
 of a holiday by its close. Does it 
 taper down to a point, and as dark- 
 
 [110] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 ness comes you go home because 
 there is nothing else to do? The day 
 when nature acts as hostess has no 
 such end. If the tree tops sway, 
 increasing all the day in the vigor of 
 their movements, as night draws on 
 they subside into slower motions, and 
 at last stand quiet against the even- 
 ing sky. And then is when tree tops 
 are eloquent. They whisper to each 
 other as the cool breath of the night 
 comes wandering along the lanes of 
 the sky. Finally, by a common im- 
 pulse, they cease to whisper, and 
 listen to the robin and the thrush 
 speak in whistle and liquid trill of 
 what nature does for bird souls. The 
 darkness rises like a tide up the hill, 
 until the trees stand knee deep, then 
 waist deep, then stretch out their 
 
 [111] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 arms as though disinclined to wet 
 their hands in the shadows. The tide 
 stays ere it reaches the tree tops, and 
 all the night the trees hold their heads 
 above it. Toward the morning they 
 shake themselves awake, to greet the 
 sun without a shadow on their faces, 
 as good friends ever greet each other. 
 
 [112] 
 
A Blue-grass Idyl 
 
 It was in the Blue Grass country, 
 in the early summer, where one time 
 I saw the girl with the violets. And 
 there, I think, she had reached the 
 highest type of physical beauty. A 
 long ancestry, of which she was the 
 flower, stretched back into the early 
 decades of our country's settlement. 
 A child of a section she might have 
 been called. No land was as beautiful 
 to her as the wide rolling meadow 
 lands where she lived. No place so 
 dear as that country home with its 
 great trees, its house of lofty rooms 
 and open halls. In that house she 
 had been born, in it she had grown to 
 
 [113] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 womanhood, about it clustered for 
 her the dearest memories. 
 
 It was the sunset hour. A golden 
 haze hung over the fields. The girl 
 walked down the long avenue that 
 led from the house to the country- 
 highway. Century-old trees arched 
 above the lane. On either side sloped 
 wide lawns bordered with hedges. 
 Beyond the hedges stretched field on 
 field of blue grass pasture land, 
 where horses and cattle grazed. 
 From the rear, in the region of the 
 stables, came the voices of negroes at 
 their evening tasks. 
 
 The quiet of the hour and the pas- 
 toral beauty were felt by the girl as 
 she leaned over the gate at the road 
 side. A light buggy, drawn by a 
 slender-limbed, arch-necked horse, 
 
 [114] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 came into view from the town two 
 miles away. The driver glanced to- 
 ward the gate, touched his hat, and 
 sped by along the pike. The dust 
 drifted over into the opposite field, 
 and it was quiet again. On some low 
 hills to the east the last rays of the 
 sun lingered, and the girl's thoughts 
 lingered with the sun upon the 
 beauty of the scene which spoke to 
 her so famiharly of a past that be- 
 longed to her. 
 
 The present, in all its richness of 
 life, was not the growth of a year. 
 A gaudy moving van had, in her 
 memory, never passed up that long 
 avenue to the house. Its furnishings 
 had grown slowly, piece by piece, and 
 for ten years she could not recall hav- 
 ing seen an ornament or piece of f ur- 
 
 [115] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 niture enter that home. Yet how well, 
 in its elegant simplicity, it was fur- 
 nished. Strangers in the town yon- 
 der occasionally walked out, begging 
 admittance to look at the paintings 
 and furnishings. For the twenty- 
 three years of her life there had been 
 no change, and also no decay, and her 
 mother's experience before her had 
 been the same. She could not bear 
 the thought of going out from that 
 home. Evening could never be as 
 fair as this one, in any other spot on 
 earth. Could there come one whose 
 words would woo her away from the 
 house of her ancestors? To her the 
 future did not lie wrapped up in 
 a new experience whereunto love 
 opened the door. That might be hers 
 some day, yet no frenzy of anxiety, 
 
 [116] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 such as possessed those in the nearby 
 town, stirred her to desert that home. 
 The roots of her hfe sank deep into 
 the soil, as her father's had done, and 
 she blossomed in her beauty a fore- 
 token of the fruit of to-morrow. 
 
 [117] 
 
The Summit of the Year 
 
 Mid-summer is the summit in an 
 out-of-door experience. You can look 
 down one slope back to spring — 
 along the other down to autumn. It 
 is hard to say which slope is most 
 attractive. 
 
 It has been a wonderfully rich 
 experience as one has traveled up- 
 ward from the first hint of spring to 
 the fulfillment of summer. The first 
 tender promise of new life broke the 
 hard surface of the earth into the 
 smile of fair landscapes. The sun 
 came earlier and stayed longer at his 
 warming task. All about there was 
 the race of flower, and leaf, and grass 
 
 [118] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 blade, until the earth was billowed 
 with foliage. At this moment of the 
 summit season one can walk through 
 aisles, dim and shadowy, and feel 
 shut out from sky above and neigh- 
 bors on all sides. As all this has 
 been transpiring upon the earth, in 
 one's heart and mind there has gone 
 on a like transformation, by the 
 arousing of the dormant faculties, 
 the warming of the heart, the racing 
 of the better motives, until one's ex- 
 perience billows up, full and fra- 
 grant, making many a path of seclu- 
 sion, where one may walk at will and 
 enjoy an evening quiet. All this has 
 been. It is a certainty. 
 
 On the other slope the swift days 
 run down to the gate of autumn, 
 which stands ajar awaiting them. 
 
 [119] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 Through the yellow grain fields their 
 light feet hurry, over the brown, 
 dried meadow land, and across the 
 brook that is but a rivulet in the sum- 
 mer drought, staying not, but intent 
 on the orchards and radiant woods 
 beyond the gate. During these hur- 
 rying days many things grow into 
 maturity, and the day of seed on tree, 
 weed, and flower rules everywhere. 
 
 One puts out a hand now and then 
 to keep from rushing down the slope 
 too fast. There are many minutes 
 which one wishes might be hours. 
 There is that country walk along a 
 highway bordered by fields of corn 
 and harvested grain. Here are 
 meadows, and sheep lie along the 
 fences. There in the corner of the 
 pasture the cattle stand close to keep 
 
 [ 120 |1 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the flies from their sides. And the 
 country road Hes straight away, 
 washed clean of dust by last night's 
 rain. 
 
 Or again, it is Sabbath morning, 
 and the country by the lake lies rest- 
 ing from the toil of the weekday. 
 The water is as calm as the face of 
 patience. No wind is stirring, no 
 ripples even lap against the sand. 
 The path runs down to the beach, 
 then climbs the hill and wanders 
 across the pasture to the highway, 
 over the bridge by the willows, and 
 then across the boggy place to find 
 the shore again. The sun hangs half 
 way up the eastern sky. The only 
 shadows are those cast by the trees 
 upon the margin of the lake. No 
 clouds anywhere, but blue sky over 
 
 [121] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 all. Startling is the splash of the 
 fish a dozen rods from shore. I climb 
 the steps over the meadow fence, and 
 sit on the topmost, listening to the 
 crickets in the grass, and the cry of 
 the long-legged bird that wades in 
 the shallows by the reef. It is an 
 hour of indolent enjoyment, an hour 
 of Sabbath worship in the temple not 
 made with hands, temporal upon the 
 earth. 
 
 Thus the season, either on the slope 
 that rises up to mid-summer, or down 
 from it, has these moments choice as 
 treasure of rare worth and short life. 
 While we are thinking thus, we may 
 as well notice how closely this slop- 
 ing of the seasons figures the hu- 
 man life. There is a summit of 
 maturity, when man may look back 
 
 [122] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 down the grade of his years to the 
 springtime, with its awakening, and 
 also forward down the slope, where 
 his feet must go to the winter and its 
 sleep. In the past experience there 
 are moments that he would live over. 
 As he goes down to the expected, 
 yet unknown end, there are moments 
 when he would tarry in the ecstasy 
 of indolent enjoyment. He who 
 stands at the summit of his journey, 
 in the maturity of his years, may feel 
 it as pleasant to track back to the 
 cradle as to break forward to the 
 grave. 
 
 [128] 
 
The Explaining God 
 
 To come to God entirely through 
 nature is impossible. Nor can it be 
 done by the steam engine or pianola. 
 There are extremes where God is 
 never found. Extremes are of man's 
 invention. The happy mean is 
 Divine. Neither the natural nor the 
 artificial has more of God in it than 
 the man who sees the one or uses the 
 other. The godless man can read no 
 divine message on the page of nature. 
 Neither can the godless man make, 
 by a machine, anything suggestive 
 of, or instinct with, spiritual power. 
 
 The man who goes to nature with- 
 out God to explain what he may see, 
 on fair shining days, receives a physi- 
 cal impression. He may misjudge 
 and miscall it a spiritual blessing. If 
 
 [ 124 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 while afield the sky should become 
 leaden, rain drip from the branches 
 of the trees, chill take hold of his 
 body, he might misjudge and miscall 
 the experience one of spiritual afflic- 
 tion, when it, too, is only physical. He 
 who goes to nature knowing nothing 
 of God, gets nothing but physical 
 stimulation, either pleasing or de- 
 pressing, as the day may be. 
 
 The engineer who sits within the 
 cab, the machinist who runs the lathe, 
 will see nothing but two " streaks of 
 rust," or a pile of steel shavings, if 
 he have no sense of God. 
 
 It matters not where a man goes, 
 he can worship, but he must first 
 know the Lord of Worship. God is 
 immanent in nature and industry, but 
 nature and industry are not God. 
 
Soil Thoughts 
 
 Among the hills, the girl with her 
 violets and I follow the winding road, 
 in the heart of a quiet land. The 
 day is one which, if you were to come 
 upon suddenly, you would be uncer- 
 tain whether it were early spring or 
 late autumn. You know not what 
 the stillness in the air promises. It 
 may be that the trees are to bud 
 to-morrow, or the snowflakes drift 
 across the landscape. 
 
 Warm and golden were the sun's 
 rays as we went on our way, but so 
 far afield did we go that the sun set 
 behind a cloud and evening fell about 
 us. No bird whistled cheerily from 
 the tree top, but a leaf fluttered 
 down to join its fellows, wind-heaped 
 
 [126] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPwS 
 
 beside the road, and then we knew it 
 was not spring, but next day would 
 be December. 
 
 In the days just before December 
 there are hours when the quiet of the 
 country becomes most friendly in its 
 voice to those who go with listening 
 ear along its roads. The trees and 
 shrubs are bare, and nothing inter- 
 feres \^dth long views. The secrets 
 that every dense woodland and 
 thicket guarded jealously in June are 
 now seen to have been the river wind- 
 ing through the one, and the nests 
 that birds have forsaken in the other. 
 Across the land at intervals run the 
 dividing roads, along which stand the 
 farmhouses, their maples and elms 
 stripped of foliage, serving poorly 
 as a screen from intrusive eyes. 
 
 [127] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 One wonders what determined the 
 site of the average farmhouse. Per- 
 haps a grove of trees explains the 
 location of one or two. Perhaps a 
 hill from which a view can be secured 
 tells the reason for the situation of 
 two or three more, but of all the rest 
 nothing apparent indicates their 
 builder's reason for putting them 
 where they are. 
 
 The girl with the violets says she 
 cannot understand why that brick 
 house should have been placed on the 
 south side of the road, in a treeless 
 field, while just across the road is a 
 grove of trees which would have 
 made such a cool retreat in summer 
 and given unlimited opportunity for 
 landscape gardening effects. Then 
 I remark that I cannot see why those 
 
 [128] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 folks built that "upright and lean- 
 to" on the side of the hill away from 
 the river, and facing into another 
 hill, when they might have put a cot- 
 tage near the top of the other slope, 
 that would have furnished a prospect, 
 winter and summer, across the valley, 
 where the shallow river makes music 
 in its rapids. 
 
 Live folks do such queer things 
 for themselves and with themselves, 
 while often they do better with the 
 dead. Yonder is the cemetery, beau- 
 tiful even in the bareness of Novem- 
 ber, with its trees and hedge and 
 long vista down the valley which its 
 dead cannot get up to see. 
 
 But with all the mistakes and queer 
 things that folks who live in the 
 country do when they select the loca- 
 
 [129] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 tion for their houses, still they are 
 highly favored, and, with the multi- 
 tude of their blessings, this can be 
 overlooked. For out here, on these 
 quiet November days, all can think if 
 they wish. It is a joy to let the rush 
 go by — the train, the trolley car, the 
 automobile — and jog on slowly over 
 the farm lands, out to the cornfields, 
 into the orchard and back again with 
 the wagon filled with the long yellow 
 or the round red. At every trip the 
 crib grows fuller, and the cellar bin 
 is heaped higher. 
 
 Thus, in the autumn days, to be 
 leisurely and purposefully gathering 
 and storing away the real corn and 
 fruit, makes more unreal and sense- 
 less the mad rush on that so-called 
 market where men who would hardly 
 know an ear of corn from an apple 
 
 [ISO] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 buy and sell that which has never 
 been grown and never will be. Some 
 there are on the market who have 
 known the country, and such a com- 
 mentary they present on human 
 weakness. That any man who has 
 once been near to the soil — the source 
 of strength — should leave it for the 
 market — the abode of weakness — is 
 more than can be understood in a 
 moment. It is one of those contrasts 
 which life brings to our attention, 
 whereby we learn that man is prone 
 to idiocy from the beginning. On the 
 market, frantic to buy or sell, rich 
 to-day and a pauper to-morrow so far 
 as dollars are concerned, pauper all 
 the while so far as productivity and 
 service are concerned; on the farm 
 lands, leisurely working with nature, 
 whose pay is slow, but ever increas- 
 
 [ 131 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 ing — such are the alternatives for 
 every man. 
 
 I stayed one time for two weeks 
 and a day or two where they danced 
 till twelve o'clock at night, where the 
 bells rang at five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing for early mass, where they rushed 
 all day, till dancing time again, to 
 pack pork and make steel things — 
 that I concluded was as near the place 
 of eternal torment as I had ever been, 
 or ever wished to be, and I resolved 
 never to get that near again. But 
 these November days, still and beau- 
 tiful, are surely hours in the vestibule 
 to Heaven. Maybe they are Heaven. 
 We can easily believe that, for they 
 work out good for our spirits, and 
 One has said : " The Kingdom of 
 Heaven is within you." 
 
 [132] 
 
The Smug Life 
 
 How the smug propriety of a city 
 street palls upon me. Back of the 
 propriety was the greed of real estate 
 owners, and along with it, on the part 
 of those who had the houses built, 
 was the lack of artistic sense. All 
 the houses are within a dozen feet 
 of the sidewalk, and so close together 
 that air and light are impossibilities. 
 Here we live, thinking we have a 
 beautiful place. We put on our best 
 clothes and go down the cement side- 
 walk a few squares and back again. 
 Day after to-morrow we will do the 
 same stunt, and then say to ourselves, 
 " How nice it is to live in town." 
 We have not room to move, nor 
 
 [ 133 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 distance to see, nor light to renovate 
 our houses. Consequently we take a 
 car when we have five squares to go, 
 because our muscles are too weak to 
 walk — we think. We cannot appre- 
 ciate space, and if we chanced upon a 
 place where houses were one hundred 
 feet apart, or should find a village 
 with the houses set in orchards, we 
 would immediately talk about be- 
 ing lonesome, and say the lack of con- 
 veniences was something " terrible." 
 So we frantically rush at the first 
 chance to pay twenty-five dollars per 
 month for six rooms and ten feet of 
 space. I am wondering how long we 
 shall so enjoy the " benefits " of 
 civilization. 
 
 Come, let us go to the country — 
 and stay! 
 
 [ 1S4 ] 
 
Mountain Moonlight 
 
 The charm of moonlight among 
 the mountains in mid-summer! What 
 words will describe it? 
 
 The day was long and hot, and 
 the mountain sides were scorched and 
 yellowed by the sun. The trees hung 
 listless, drooping, wilted. The birds 
 all afternoon were quiet. The only 
 sound that broke the hot silence was 
 the long whistle of the locomotive 
 as it drew the train down the valley 
 and behind the other range. 
 
 The sun went down, red-hot and 
 bhstering to the last. Then a cow, 
 somewhere on the ridge side, con- 
 cluding it was time to go home, got 
 up and shook her bell. It seemed 
 
 [135] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 to be the signal for a general awak- 
 ening. A rabbit hopped out, and sat 
 looking toward the red west. Some 
 birds struck up a vesper song. The 
 branches of the topmost trees upon 
 the ridge began to wave slightly in 
 the soft breath of the evening. The 
 western sky deepened from rose and 
 saffron to maroon, then to duller 
 tints, which finally were lost in the 
 darkness. 
 
 After an hour of brooding dark, 
 the east began to brighten and then 
 the moon slipped over the pine-edged 
 horizon and floated above the indis- 
 tinct disorder of the hills. • 
 
 Along the wide road on the ridge 
 crest I pass in the glory of the 
 moonlit night. The shadows are deep 
 where the oaks stand thick beside the 
 
 [136] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 road, but they only seem to make the 
 unshadowed places lighter. The road 
 winds to the east side of the ridge, 
 where I can look over the tree tops to 
 the distant mountains, that are lying 
 like sentinels guarding the gate- 
 way whence the dawn shall come. 
 Then the highway slips along the 
 western ledge, below which all is 
 dark and full of mystery as yet. 
 After the heat of the day, the deli- 
 cious coolness of the night air is a 
 tonic draught, and I think I could 
 thus walk on forever and never 
 weary. The woods give out the odor 
 of dew-refreshed plant and flower. 
 The air is heavy with the scent of 
 the pines, which stand solemn and 
 ghostly at the foot of the ridge. 
 There is no sound except the chirp 
 
 [137] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 of the night insects, which, while it 
 brushes away the silence, yet inter- 
 feres not with hearing distant sounds 
 should they come. But there are no 
 distant sounds. All is one big world 
 of silent moonlighted ridge, valley, 
 and mountain. 
 
 As the evening wears on to mid- 
 night a vapor collects in the valley 
 along the river, whose winding course 
 is thus detected, where it swings out 
 of the north, and making the turn of 
 Moccasin Bend, at last rushes from 
 sight westward through the narrows. 
 The vapor increases until it enfolds 
 all lesser elevations than the one from 
 which I watch. The city lights dis- 
 appear. The incline car on the 
 opposite mountain drops down a 
 third its way and then is gone. The 
 
 [138] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 moon makes beautiful this valley 
 foam as it billows and mantles all 
 in concealment. 
 
 The progress of the vapory tide is 
 stayed at last. There are no longer 
 any mountains. They have become 
 islands in the sea of silver white. 
 Just at the edge of the island on 
 which I stand, from the trees which 
 border the beach, a mocking bird trills 
 into the night. 
 
 [189] 
 
The Isolation of Dawn 
 
 Rise early, and go out to keep com- 
 pany with the morning. Morning 
 lasts in summer till eight or nine 
 o'clock. So you may choose your 
 hour, but the earlier you choose to go 
 the pleasanter will be your experi- 
 ence. 
 
 It was before sunrise and the 
 woods were still gray with shadows. 
 The Lake was streaked with broad 
 bands of calm water, between which 
 rippled a million joyous wavelets. 
 As I dipped softly out upon the red- 
 tinged water the liquid call of a bird 
 on the sandy beach and the cawing of 
 crows in the woodland alone broke 
 the silence of the dawn. Along the 
 
 [ 140 ] 
 
 0__^|^^X^ktf^Iu 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 north a band of turquoise sky 
 reached from the sunrise point to the 
 western woods. Out against it stood 
 a windwheel, undecided which way 
 to point the breeze. The zenith was 
 massed with dark cloud which broke 
 into red-edged fragments toward the 
 eastern sky line. 
 
 Though three thousand sleeping 
 folk lay in cottages upon the shores, 
 I w^as as much alone in the silence of 
 the dawning day as though in mid- 
 ocean. The isolations of silence, 
 how seldom do we seek and value 
 them! Just before the activity of 
 the day we may detach ourselves 
 from the claims of folks and things, 
 and learn to know the self which 
 hides within our formal manner and 
 conforming habit. 'Tis then that 
 
 [141] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the garb of the conventional slips 
 away, and natural and free our spirits 
 mount to greet the dawn. A few 
 hours hence we may be perplexed, 
 and tired, and angry, but now the 
 rush of our life is stayed. 
 
 I raised the oars and motionless 
 awaited the first ray of the sun. The 
 last vestige of care dropped with the 
 trickle of the water from the blades. 
 Calmed and satisfied, I let the morn- 
 ing breeze bear me where it would. 
 I had already entered the harbor of 
 peace. Could I have kept that joy, 
 the secret sought for ages would have 
 been mine. 
 
 As the sun flashed red against the 
 cottage windows on the western 
 shore, I turned back to the pier by the 
 eastern bluff. Rowing slowly shore- 
 
 [ 142] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 ward, a bit of drifting weed clung 
 to my oar, and then the soggy end 
 of a rocket which had gone skyward 
 the night before floated past; so was 
 I reminded of life upon the land. 
 
 [l43l 
 
Russet Premonitions 
 
 When the sun had sunk below the 
 hill crest I came to the road on the 
 eastern side. It was arched with 
 trees and sloped upward before me, 
 not enough to weary, but enough to 
 please in its suggestion of a wider 
 view, with every step ahead. The 
 Miami flowed placidly, almost laz- 
 ily, along the level valley. Its water 
 was seen occasionally through the 
 sycamore trees that were gathered 
 on the flat between the hill and the 
 river. 
 
 The autumn sun had been hot, as 
 I had followed the river road. Now, 
 as I climbed the hillside, the shadows 
 were cool. Above me at the crest 
 
 [144] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 the golden light lingered among the 
 trees, the last rays clinging to the 
 leafy tops. Each tree trunk was 
 silhouetted against the yellow west. 
 Even the brush fringing the crest 
 kept no secrets as the last rays of the 
 sun glanced athwart the hilltop. 
 
 Early September has only sugges- 
 tions of autumn to offer to the 
 tramper through the woods and 
 along the roads. A hot noon and a 
 cool evening is one suggestion. But 
 the russet glow in hillcrest woods at 
 sunset is to me the surest token of 
 the declining year. If a few leaves 
 filter slowly through the light, it is a 
 perfect hour. Yet the leaves falling 
 may be lacking, and the hour suggest 
 autumn. The real suggestions are 
 the coolness of the air immediately 
 
 [ 145 ] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 upon the disappearance of the sun, 
 and the light that glorifies the hilltop. 
 The premonitions of the autumn 
 of life are likewise the early chill and 
 the yellow light that falls along the 
 crest road before one takes the first 
 step down into the valley of the sun- 
 set. Then comes the revelation of 
 the man, to those who have not yet 
 left the sunrise side of the hill. He 
 stands silhouetted against the west. 
 
 [146] 
 
Witching Pathways 
 
 The pleasures of reminiscence ! Who 
 is able to measure them? Who is 
 able to explain the allurement of 
 the past? Who can resist the witch- 
 ing music of the streams that mur- 
 mur through the fields where youth 
 went free and happy? Who falls 
 not a-dreaming when the light clouds 
 which floated over the blue of summer 
 skies long ago once more float in the 
 memory? 
 
 Some trivial thing — the rose petal 
 falling, the bird note at evening, the 
 smell of the morning air, the mottled 
 shadows on the forest floor — will 
 bring old scenes to me, and blissfully 
 
 [147] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 forgetful of the present, I go bouy- 
 antly along the pathways of the past. 
 
 Is it characteristic of human na- 
 ture to see the romance of the past, 
 and not the present? Do we see the 
 glamour of an hour gone only from 
 a distant view? Do we hear the call- 
 ing voices the other side of the hill, 
 or behind us, or around the turning 
 of the road? Were these things to 
 be seen and heard when we were 
 there, only we were too near to see 
 and hear? 
 
 Be that as it may, this autumn 
 morning, when the chill without has 
 made necessary the closing of my 
 window and a fire within, there comes 
 to me the call of other days. 
 
 There were those winter days in 
 another clime, not colder than this 
 
 [148] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 one of early autumn here, when the 
 blue sky and everlasting sunshine 
 were over me as I walked the streets, 
 and along the paths where the sum- 
 mer's leaves lay thick upon the hill- 
 side. Then, when the chill came 
 after sunset, I went home to my 
 chair before the glowing grate. 
 After the night would come another 
 sunny morning, when the white frost 
 was on the leaves of the holly tree 
 before the door, on the brick wall to 
 the gate, on the magnolias shining 
 green even through the white veil. 
 Those were blessed days — tonic days 
 — when sweet potato pone, corn 
 bread, and hominy-grits did their 
 work with the sunshine to make a life 
 worth living. 
 
 To-day I go further into retro- 
 
 [149] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 spect, and I can see the poppies wav- 
 ing in the trade winds of the Santa 
 Clara, acres of them on either side 
 of the road that runs the length of 
 the valley. Anon, my hat and the 
 wind go away together, but only to 
 lodge among the flowers and thus 
 bring me nearer to them. At even- 
 ing the coast range lies reddened in 
 the sunset fire, and the sound of a 
 bell, somewhere above, floats down as 
 sweet as a vesper from angel-land. 
 
 Another retrospect! At the cor- 
 ner of the two streets was the grocery, 
 with its stand of brooms and keg of 
 olives on the veranda. There, in the 
 late afternoon, we used to meet, buy 
 a few olives and crackers to munch 
 over our books that night, and 
 " joke " the storekeeper because they 
 
 [150] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 said he intended to become a bene- 
 dict soon. There were no sidewalks 
 in that httle town which snuggled 
 at the rim of the valley against the 
 mountain's foot. The sage bush was 
 everywhere, interrupted only in its 
 possession of the place by a few 
 houses, and yards, and orange groves, 
 upon which you would come unex- 
 pectedly, and, having passed, would 
 wish to pass again. Everybody about 
 the settlement seemed to have just 
 stopped off for a night, and kept on 
 stopping. They cleaned up a square 
 in the bush, and lived the simple life. 
 The College buildings and grounds 
 were similar in their appointment and 
 appearance. Along the paths and 
 short cuts we went to chapel in the 
 morning, and to some recitations, 
 
 [151] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 then to dinner, then to the Bungalow 
 to leave our books. We would study 
 them at night, we said; just then 
 there was too much sunshine and 
 beauty. It lay on the mountains 
 yonder, it ran down the valley to Po- 
 mona, and up the other side, and, 
 wondering where it went, we fol- 
 lowed. The call of the out-of-doors 
 was strong upon us in those days, and 
 nothing more than failure in recita- 
 tion would result if we went tramp- 
 ing here and there. We so did, and 
 from this distance I think those les- 
 sons were well missed, and we prof- 
 ited by being truants. 
 
 [132] 
 
Out-door Compensations 
 
 Dead leaves and sunshine together 
 aiFect one's fancy strangely. JNIelan- 
 choly and joyousness are united. 
 The rustle of the dead leaves under 
 foot, as I follow the bank of the river, 
 causes me to think of a departed sum- 
 mer. But the sunshine, glinting on 
 the water, flooding the hollow of the 
 hills, pouring through the bare trees 
 above me — this holds me fast in the 
 light and joyous present. 
 
 Afield on an Autumn- Winter 
 Day, ^dth feet upon the leaves, and 
 head bathed by the sunlight, is 
 a privilege few, perhaps, reahze 
 enough to seize, and those who do 
 
 [15S] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 can poorly describe the pleasure 
 therefrom; and so can only partially 
 stimulate the disinterested ones who 
 prefer to remain along the pavements 
 or in the gloomy houses of the aver- 
 age city or town. 
 
 As with other tastes, the love for 
 the open is a cultivated one. After 
 its development, one wonders how 
 he could have been satisfied by the 
 " shut-in life." He pled fatigue, 
 lack of time, and other excuses, but 
 when he has grown to love the open, 
 he finds that he is rested by going 
 out, and saves time by being able to 
 do better and more work when he re- 
 turns. In the early winter the dead 
 leaves hold one to the past enough for 
 rootage, and the sunshine fills the 
 soul with gladness, and inspires one's 
 
 [154] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 thoughts for growth in the present 
 and future. 
 
 It is a quiet afternoon, and, look- 
 ing across the sun-bathed valley, it 
 hardly seems credible that a long 
 time must elapse before the trees and 
 shrubs shall be clothed with verdure, 
 and the grass grow green above the 
 brown earth. I am ready now^ for 
 spring. Why wait six long months? 
 
 As though to make my desire less 
 intense, a vine, clinging to a leafless 
 tree, still keeps its green against the 
 blighting frost. Thus everywhere 
 we turn we find compensations. 
 These green leaves will cling here to 
 temper the winter for me, to make 
 less keen the sorrow for a departed 
 summer, and less intense the longing 
 for a coming spring. 
 
 [155] 
 
Close Home 
 
 A NEW path was discovered to-day. 
 I had gone many times along the 
 right bank of the river, but to-day I 
 followed the left bank, and a new 
 path ran on before me, full of un- 
 suspected turnings, and much more 
 picturesque than the old one. 
 
 The joy of going where you have 
 never been before is the joy of a dis- 
 coverer. One need not travel to dis- 
 tant countries to have this joy. It 
 may be had, perhaps, in the fields, 
 adjacent to one's suburban home. 
 Something is there awaiting someone 
 to find it. 
 
 It is surprising what little space is 
 necessary to put one in a new world. 
 
 [156] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 I drop down the path on the steep 
 side of a ravine, through the tangle 
 of undergrowth, and come upon a 
 stream a yard wide, which gurgles 
 over the gray stone of its bed. I feel 
 that I am isolated in a strange coun- 
 try. (I have lived for months six 
 squares away.) These little experi- 
 ences teach one that the present and 
 the near-at-hand is full of the undis- 
 covered. 
 
 [l.'^Tl 
 
Wrestling Sycamores 
 
 The sycamores have bared their 
 arms for the wrestle with the winter 
 wind. There is nothing cowardly 
 about them. They throw off their 
 jackets at the first hint of a winter 
 battle. From my window I can see 
 them down by the water, bending 
 and straining every fiber as they 
 catch the wind and hurl it back, 
 breathless, and moaning with its pain. 
 I have heard it said that the trees 
 sigh in the wind. Not a bit of it. 
 The wind that struggles with the tree 
 tops sighs. When it is thrown back, 
 moaning, the sycamores gather them- 
 selves and await the new attack. 
 All the night through, while I am 
 
 [158] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 sleeping up here on the hill top, the 
 sycamores down by the river are 
 battling for their lives. When I 
 awaken in the night I hear the wind 
 crying for quarter, but the trees are 
 silent in their grim defiance. In the 
 morning the wind has given up 
 the struggle and slunk back into its 
 caves of the north, but the sycamores 
 stand erect — perhaps an inch taller 
 for the struggle — with the sunshine 
 glorifying their white tops. 
 
 All save one. To-day I found one 
 sycamore had fallen — its great length 
 breaking with the fall into many shat- 
 tered pieces. When I examined it 
 I discovered that it had died before 
 it fell. Last summer lightning 
 struck its heart. Even then its death 
 was deliberate, and it died as a king 
 
 [159] 
 
SWAYING TREE TOPS 
 
 dies. When the storm came last 
 night the tree had gone — only its 
 untenanted shell remained. The vic- 
 tory of the wind was empty of honor. 
 
 Even now the dead shell, lying 
 prone upon the earth, will serve a 
 purpose. Violets will bloom sooner 
 on the sunny side of the trunk next 
 spring, and the defeat of the north 
 wind will continue. 
 
 The girl who wears the violets will 
 pick them there, and, sitting on the 
 fallen trunk, will mass them with 
 their leaves for her emblem of the 
 season; while the robin will call 
 cheerily from the fence rail, " Spring 
 — spring — spring is here." 
 
 [160] 
 
OEC 30 190' 
 
)!ll 
 
 .i' 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 llllllliiillilllllillllllllli 
 
 018 394 301 7 
 
 niiiiH 
 
 ii!i[iiniin!!n|iii 
 
 ii'hiiniiiiii;. 
 Ulilii