“And what does the old pear-tree wish to tell us?” asked Jules.
“Look here, at the cut which I was careful to make very clean with the ax. Don’t you see some rings in the wood, rings which begin around the marrow and keep getting larger and larger until they reach the bark?”
“I see them,” Jules replied; “they are rings fitted one inside another.”
“It looks a little like the circles that come just after throwing a stone into the water,” remarked Claire.
“I see them too by looking closely,” chimed in Emile.
“I must tell you,” continued Uncle Paul, “that those circles are called annual layers. Why annual, if you please? Because one is formed every year; one only, understand, neither more nor less. The learned who spend their lives studying plants, and who are called botanists, tell us that no doubt is possible on that point. From the moment the little tree springs from the seed to the time when the old tree dies, every year there is formed a ring, a layer of wood. This understood, let us count the layers of our pear-tree.”
Uncle Paul took a pin to guide his counting; Emile, Jules, and Claire looked on attentively. One, two, three, four, five—They counted thus up to forty-five, from the marrow to the bark.
“The trunk has forty-five layers of wood,” announced Uncle Paul. “Who can tell me what that signifies? How old is the pear-tree?”
“That is not very hard,” answered Jules, “after what you have just told us. As it makes one ring every year, and we have counted forty-five, the pear-tree must be forty-five years old.”
“Eh! Eh! what did I tell you?” cried Uncle Paul, in triumph. “Has not the pear-tree talked? It has begun its history by telling us its age. Truly, the tree is forty-five years old.”