I, too, have suffered from the canker-worms; but I have yet leaves
enough left for a beautiful shade, and the poor crawling things must
surely eat something." And the elm bowed gracefully to the linden, out
of sympathy for him.
But the linden has heard the voices of the young robins who live in the
nest among his highest boughs; and he must yet tell to the horse-
chestnut how sad it was the other day in the thunder-storm, when the
wind upset the nest, and one little bird was thrown out and killed;
while the father and mother flew about in the greatest distress, until
Charley came, climbed the tree, and fitted the nest safely back into its
place.
How much the trees have to say! And there is the pine, who was born and
brought up in the woods,--he is always whispering secrets of the great
forest, and of the river beside which he grew. The other trees can't
always understand him: he is the poet among them, and a poet is always
suspected of knowing a little more than any one else.
Sometime I may try to tell you something of what he says; but here ends
the talk of the trees that stood in the village street.
HOW THE INDIAN CORN GROWS
The children came in from the field with their hands full of the soft,
pale-green corn-silk. Annie had rolled hers into a bird's-nest; while
Willie had dressed his little sister's hair with the long, damp tresses,
until she seemed more like a mermaid, with pale blue eyes shining out
between the locks of her sea-green hair, than like our own Alice.
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