Evening star., 1926-06-20
~ WO women were motoring out
Cabin John way When they
came to roadside that skirted
L jungle of greenery that Is

rounding growth:
"Tf you don't mind | will get out a
minute to talk to my tree; haven't
been to see 1t for a. week"
When she had patted the tree. lean
ed her cheek against it. and picked up
a scrap of paper that the wind had
blown on it's circle of well-kept grass,
she got back into the car. and, without
starting the machine, told her guest
en- odd shred of story--like this:
I'm way back days when our son
was lust old enough to talk we were
driving by here. when the child as he
often did, begged to get out to play
with what he called the pity itty
bushes. Suddenly he noticed this tree,
which was then Just a tiny sapling,
and his father told him that one day
1t would be a big tree and have round
green balls hanging from its boughs.
The idea attracted the child and every
time we drove by he would have to
get out to see how tall II had grown.
That lasted for year. j reckon, and
then my husband was ordered to an
ether post, and the boy did not see the
sycamore for several years. When we
returned, his first demand was to see
the beloved tree, and his delight at It's
growth was something dear to see. |
was not very we'll about then. and his
father would take him riding-and
after that there was another detail,
and we did not see the tree for years.
1t was while he was on duty in the
West that a sudden illness bereft me
of the best husband woman ever
had. | was with him. and just before
the end he looked beyond me and
whispered, with smiling eyes:
why, the sycamore Is beautiful
so big and strong and green
Ever since then-over 90 years l
have lived here. and though ! cannot
let on generally that my dear ones
last word influenced me-sentmeut
has no sensevalue, you know-still |
selected my home so that l can keep
In. touch with the tree. /, some way,
feel that my husband will never for
get it. Son spent his boyhood in
schools and colleges, and after that we
Travelled abroad for a couple of years,
and were no sooner home again than
he was off to France. | had told him
of his baby affection for the tree and
of his fathers last reference to it, and
was anxious for him to see it, but,
for some reason, he expressed no inter
est, and when. at last. / drove him
here to ask what he thought OF the
tree in its grown-up splendor he ad-
mitted that he hated to tell me, but
that all recollection of 1t had gone out
of his mind. He had no remembrance
whatever of having seen it before.
We'll, you know how children for
get things, so that was all right, ex-
cept that l was sorry because of what
his father had said So: Time ran
along until son had to be taken TO the
hospital for war wound that had not
healed. There were many months of
hopeless suffering, but when the end
came he whispered to me, looking
ahead with smiling eyes:
Nuns, darling. there's our syca-
more-so big and strong and green. "
That was all there was 10 the little
story, unless-uniess It might possibly
be that the sycamore that served as a
ladder for Tax Collector Zaccheus, so
that his short body might behold the
Christ preaching to His followers. may
have conferred on it's posterity a
spiritual something not possessed by
its brother trees Of earth; though, for
that matter, all trees may be i'm
mortal, for did not a great soldier of
the South say with his dying breath:
= Let US cross over the river and rest
under the shade of the trees?"
y x
IF you have had to peek at life
through a knothole In the back
fence of obscurity, you will naturally
banker for at least one good, satisfy.
ing look from the worlds front door
which makes you understand why one
Washington woman butted into her
bank account and travelled and
travelled until she caught a far.off
flash of steel that was first a knife
blade, and then a drawn saber, and
then the Pacific Ocean, billowing into
the sky. When she got back home
she reeled it off to another woman
about like this:
The geography doesn't tell all 1t
knows about a prairie. You have to
get personally acquainted with its
boundless level of waving green turn.
ing to q gold that means wheat ready
for the harvest-its red schoolhouses
and it's graveyards. You notice prog.
ress and tombstones keep step to
gether--untii the never-ending level
rasps your nerves; You want bumps
and a tree.
when | got to the cattle country
I found out for myself why herders &C
insane. 1t is the immensity-the lone
liness-the silence! After that ]
came to a barren world of whitey.gray
sand and sagebush, with a few daffy
blue blossoms trying to bloom near
the track-and failing It reminded
me of some human deserts 1 have
known. Then We got to crawling up
climbity- -climbity, like Jack on the
Beanstalk, until We came to real
castles in the air, with towers and
minarets-one of them with stair.
way that broke off into Jagged moth.
tv,r ;v INA ell
castles and skyscrapers and dungeons
more architecturally imposing than
the Capitol. and. in their hideous life
lessness more inspiring than the Ii
brary itself-which shows the differ
ence between natures work and
mans.
But the greatest wonder l saw
going or coming, was a. tubercular
minister on his way to heaven via
Arizona, and who, maybe, would reach
eternity first. You could tell, because
his wife had eyes only for the invisible
rider who was trying to outspeed the
train and take him from her. And as
the three of us stood at the observa
ton rail, looking like human ashcans
from the smoke of two giant locomo
tives that puffed and painted, up and
up, 1t seemed to me, all at once. that
the mountains that were forever try
ing 20 overleap each other to the sky.
gates were only so much earth stuff
after all; a. few of them the green OF
Christmas trees, but the big majority
like ash heaps dumped there by
Hades It takes a fiesh-and-blood
man, who has laid down his life for
his kind, to give you a real close up
of that supreme power we know as
Almighty God
X X X X
A KITTEN killed a canary and was
banished from its home. It was
white kitten, with a black saddle
and black ring around one eye, and
nothing was seen of it, until:
One morning. about dawn, a woman
who has an apartment in the house
looked out of her back window and
saw q big cat sneak over the alley
a-1 I,,nyn {pfn tho rd IN a11Y1