"How stately they are--how like old Vikings!" he said. His imagination
was the oldest mental characteristic of this over-guarded, repressed
boyhood.

Leila turned, surprised. This was beyond her appreciative capacity. "Once
I heard Uncle Jim say something like that. He's queer about trees. He
talks to them sometimes just like that. There's the biggest pine over
there--I'll show it to you. Why! he will stop and pat it and say, 'How
are you?'--Isn't it funny?"

"No, it isn't funny at all. It's--it's beautiful!"

"You must be like him, John."

"I--like him! Do you think so?" He was pleased. The Indian horseman of
the plains who could talk to the big tree began to be felt by the boy as
somehow nearer.

"Let's play Indian," said Leila. "I'll show you." She was merry, intent
on mischief.

"Oh! whatever you like." He was uninterested.

Leila said, "You stand behind this tree, I will stand behind that one."
She took for herself the larger shelter. "Then you, each of us, get ready
this way a pile of snowballs. I say, Make ready! Fire! and we snowball
one another like everything. The first Indian that's hit, he falls down
dead. Then the other rushes at him and scalps him."

"But," said John, "how can he?"