Читать книгу A Maid of the Kentucky Hills - Edwin Carlile Litsey - Страница 12

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A prodigious miracle has happened.

It is not yet mid-April, but the Spirit of Life has stirred in every bole and bough; every twig and tendril. The awakening has been so gradual, so stealthy, so silent, that not until this afternoon did I notice that the far reaching brown world over which I daily looked, had changed.

I had been doing some rough carpentering—building a bench on either side of my doorway outside, using a broad plank I had found in the kitchen for the purpose. It is true I had chairs, and chairs are more comfortable, but it has struck me that the Lodge would look better with these benches in front; would have a more finished appearance. So I knocked them up quickly. Now on the further rim of my plateau grows a single pine; a tall, many-limbed, graceful tree. Somehow the thought was born that a bench under this pine would not be placed amiss, so I walked toward it to investigate the idea at close range. Its lowest branches shot out more than two feet over my head, and as I passed under them I obtained a fresh and unobstructed view of a tremendous reach of landscape. Instantly my mind received the impression that something had happened. The entire perspective was subtly transformed.

Before me was nothing but trees—a vast valley full; slopes clothed with them and peaks capped with them. And each tree was touched with mystery; the familiar, never to be understood transmutation of sap to bud and leaf. The effect from where I stood was not beautiful only; it awoke a positive awe in my heart. The immense area comprehended by my gaze was undergoing resurrection. Painless, soundless, without effort, the ancient forest was coming back to life; to green, vigorous, waving and dancing life. The process was as yet scarcely begun, but already it was a veracious promise of perfect fulfillment. A tenuous, lacey veil of pale, elusive green seemed stretched over all growth within the scope of my vision. A misty, unreal something it appeared; a gossamer covering which would vanish before the first breath of wind, or touch of sun. But well I knew the truth! It was the sun, and the wind, and the rain which had compassed the wonder. Beneath their united power the sluggish sap had first stirred in the hidden roots, and when the insistent summons became more and more powerful, had mysteriously arisen through successive cells of fiber, up and up, into every branch, into every limb, into the smallest and most insignificant twig, where Nature's final marvelous alchemy was performed, and moisture turned to bud, and bud turned to leaf. A leaf perfectly shaped and veined, each to its own tree.

Dusk came upon me as I gazed, enraptured. Softly the light stole away, and the shadows came. Now the horizon range was a wall of gloom, and then, like billows which made no sound, velvety waves of darkness overflowed all before me, blotting it out. But I know that to-morrow the lacey veil would have a deeper shade, and that soon, with millions upon millions of leaves astir, the Harpist of the Wood, when he touched his responsive strings, would draw yet a grander measure.

No bench went under the pine tree that night, but the next day I builded it well. It is a fine spot to sit and dream—a pastime I love.