[Illustration: _Walt Mason_] TREES Most every tree is made of wood; the best ones are remote from cities; and in their cheerful neighborhood the birds keep singing ragtime ditties. Beneath their limbs the children play and swing within their leafy border, upon the long, bright summer day, when picnic parties are in order. And now and then the poets come, to eulogize the forest spirit, and you can hear their thought works hum, like auto wheels, or pretty near it. And it may chance, upon a day, that farmers from adjacent ranches, will bring a rope along this way, and hang an agent from the branches. Now comes the woodman with his ax, and he selects some forest beauty; then through its noble trunk he whacks--it is to him a thing of duty. He has to feed his eighteen kids, he has to clothe his wife and auntie; he has to buy them pies and lids, and put new paint upon his shanty. And thus the forest giant falls, there’s none to shield it or deliver; now other men in overalls, will float it down some rushing river. And then through loud and busy mills the good old tree in fragments dashes, and makes its bow as doors and sills, as scantling, joists and window sashes. It’s strange to labor at a desk and think that it, all carved and oaken, one time was standing, picturesque, amid a solitude unbroken; once in the forest dark and dim, these pigeonholes and doodads rested; this drawer was once a swaying limb, on which the robin sang and nested. I sit upon my swivel chair, and meditate upon its hist’ry; these rungs and legs once waved in air, in all the strange primeval myst’ry. This stool on which I milk my cow, this club with which I swat the heifers, though they are quite prosaic now, once rustled in the morning zephyrs; once they had leaves, and in the dawn they sang the world-old song of wonder; and in the dusk when day was gone, they saw the smiling lovers under. This maple slat with which I soak my Willie when he gets too funny, and on his daddy plays a joke, came from some woodland sweet and sunny. And thus in every lumber yard there’s food for pleasant meditation; a plank inspires the modern bard, and tunes him up to beat creation. SPRING COMING Winter winds were round us snorting, for a weary while; now that Spring’s this way cavorting, we should wear a smile. Tempests, storms and kindred friskers lashed us with a whip, froze our noses and our whiskers, gave us all the grip. Nights were cold and days were freezing, cheerless was the sky; we were coughing, whooping, sneezing, till we wished to die. Now the winter’s quit its prancing, it’s an also ran; and the gentle Spring, advancing, should encourage man. When the north winds, blood congealers, ripped along the earth, ’tisn’t strange if lumber dealers strangers were to mirth. For there was no rush or clamor in the building trade; and the rusty saw and hammer on the shelf were laid.