“Like old maids?” suggested Rose. “Yes, Rose; after a certain age they cease to grow’cease to swell, they just live on as they were, or go back in their hearts, then they make no rings. The rings tell you for how many years they went on expanding, but say nothing about those when they were at a standstill. Then, look here: the rings are on one side much thicker than on the other, and that is because of a cold and stormy wind. They thicken their bark against the wind, just as I might put on a shawl.” “Oh,’by the way’touching a shawl”’ But Kate was too eager and interested in her subject to bear interruption. “I have the oddest and most wonderful thing to show you, Rose. You do not care about the rings, but this you will be truly pleased to see.” “What is that?” “Follow me.” Kate skipped among the prostrate oaks till she reached one large trunk. As she skipped, she sang merrily’ “’All in the wood there grew a fine tree.‘” “What song is that, Kate?” asked Rose. “It is one that the head woodcutter taught me. ’All in the wood there grew a fine tree, The finest tree that ever you might see, And the green leaves flourished around.‘ All on this tree there grew a fine bough, and all on this bough there grew a fine twig. Then it goes on to tell how on this twig there was a fine nest, and how in this nest there was a fine bird, the finest bird that ever you did see; and on this bird there grew a fine feather, and out of the feather was made a fine bed, and on this fine bed was laid a fine babe, and out of the babe there grew a fine man, and the man put an acorn into the earth, and out of the acorn there grew a fine tree, and the tree was of the acorn, and the acorn of the man, and the man was from the babe, and the babe was on the bed, and the bed was of the feather, and the feather of the bird, and the bird was in the nest, and the nest was on the twig, and the twig was on the bough, and the bough was on the tree, and the tree was in the wood. ’And the green leaves flourished around’around’around, And the green leaves flourished around.‘” “What nonsense, Kate!” “It is not nonsense. There is a great deal in it. The song goes on without an end, always the same; just as at the end of the psalm, ’As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.‘ See!’this is what I have to show you.” She pointed to some lettering that ran round the white peeled trunk, brown as coffee; somewhat large and strained the characters seemed, and Rose was not able to decipher them, but she said’ “However came letters to be there, under the bark?”