I am an ancient also-ran; I am an old and feeble man, I soon must hit the flume; but it’s a pleasant thing to know that there will be that tree to show, when I am in the tomb. Beneath its boughs the kids will play, and veterans all bent and gray will in its shade recline; and peradventure one will sigh, “I well recall the dippy guy, who planted here this pine. The swath he cut was very small, while he was on this mundane ball, but when life neared its end, this tree he planted with his spade, and here we’re resting in its shade, and bless him as a friend.”
And as the long, slow years go by, perchance that stately tree will die; there’s death for all, it seems, and men, to earn the needed plunk, will separate its mighty trunk, and fashion boards and beams.
And one who plans to build a shack, will to the lumber dealer track, and purchase beam and board; and carpenters will straightway go, and build as fine a bungalow as mister can afford. The walls and roof of my good tree, will shelter human grief and glee, for, maybe, untold years; will echo to both sob and song, the laughter of the bridal throng, the plash of old wives’ tears.
I like to speculate this way; but now my boy comes in to say, ere he departs for school, “That tree you planted by the fence now looks like twenty-seven cents—it’s dead as Cæsar’s mule.”
THE SHOPPERS
When people do their Christmas shopping, and blow in all their hard-earned ore, to keep the Christmas spirit popping, they don’t call at the lumber store.
You do not see the Christmas spieler, with purse ajar and eyes a-gleam, say to the cheerful lumber dealer, “Just wrap me up that ten-foot beam! I have an aunt, Priscilla Hocking, to whom I’d send a present small; that beam will surely fit her stocking like the paper on the wall.”
You do not hear the shopper saying, “I want a gift for Uncle Hank, so let me see you busy weighing about ten yards of basswood plank.”
No shoppers tighten their surcingles in lumber yards, at Christmas time, and buy their girls a lot of shingles, or sundry pecks of unslacked lime.
A man might think the lumber dealer was off the map, and in the shade, without a tendril or a feeler upon the blooming Christmas trade. But all the year they’re building houses, with stuff the lumber dealer sells, in which the Christmas crowd carouses, and good old Santa whoops and yells. Beneath yon roof there’s joyous laughter, that indicates good will to men; and every two-by-four and rafter came from the lumber dealer’s den. The walls on which you see the holly, were furnished by the lumber man, who is, like Claus, serene and jolly, and does his stunt the best he can. The door at which the guest is greeted with kindness which should hit him hard, and everything that’s nailed or cleated, comes from the modest lumber yard.