If that oak could have talked, what a wild, wild story it might have
told, not only of lost arrows and hatchets, but also of their owners,
about whom the world has little knowledge. It might have told also of the
hundreds of years it had stood there and showered down its acorns upon
the earth, enough in one season to have planted a forest of its own kind;
how often its acorns had been gathered by the Indian youth, and devoured
by the wild beasts of the forest; how many times its leaves had been
changed by the autumn frosts from a green to a beautiful golden hue; how
the cold wind swept them off and they flew down in huddled races to the
ground, carpeted and cushioned the earth, protected the roots and
enriched the soil. How, after it had been shorn of its leaves, its life
current had been sent back through the pores of its body to its roots and
congealed by the cold freezing frosts of winter; how the wind sighed and
moaned through its branches while it cracked and snapped with the frost.
But there was to be an end to its existence. The remorseless ax was laid
at its roots and there is nothing left of it, unless it be a few old oak
rails.
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