He sat down again, smiling. "What about?" he asked.
"About the pines," suggested Barbara—"the tallest pines on the hills."
There was a long pause, then, clearing his throat, the old man began.
Small Beginnings
"Even the tall and stately pines," he said, "were once the tiniest of seeds like everything else, for everything in the world, either good or evil, has a very small beginning.
"They grow slowly, and in Summer, when you look at the dark, bending boughs, you can see the year's growth in paler green at the tips. No one pays much attention to them, for they are very dark and quiet compared with the other trees. But the air is balmy around them, they scatter a thick, fragrant carpet underneath, and there is no music in the world, I think, like a sea-wind blowing through the pines.
"When the brown cones fall, the seeds drop out from between the smooth, satin-like scales, and so, in the years to come, a dreaming mother pine broods over a whole forest of smaller trees. A pine is lonely and desolate, if there are no smaller trees around it. A single one, towering against the sky, always means loneliness, but where you see a little clump of evergreens huddled together, braving the sleet and snow, it warms your heart.
"In Summer they give fragrant shade, and in Winter a shelter from the coldest blast. The birds sleep among the thick branches, finding seeds for food in the cones, and, on some trees, blue, waxen berries.
A Love Story
"Before the darkness came to me, I saw a love story in a forest of pines. One tree was very straight and tall, and close beside it was another, not quite so high. The taller tree leaned protectingly over the other, as if listening to the music the wind made on its way from the hills to the sea. As time went on, their branches became so thickly interlaced that you could scarcely tell one from the other.