his part, he was ready to sell out for anything he could get. The
bluebirds and bobolinks, it is true, took more cheerful views of
matters; but then, as old Mrs. Ground-mole observed, they were a
flighty set,--half their time careering and dissipating in the
Southern States,--and could not be expected to have that patriotic
attachment to their native soil that those had who had grubbed in it
from their earliest days.

"This race of man," said the old chestnut-tree, "is never ceasing in
its restless warfare on Nature. In our forest solitudes hitherto how
peacefully, how quietly, how regularly has everything gone on! Not a
flower has missed its appointed time of blossoming, or failed to
perfect its fruit. No matter how hard has been the winter, how loud
the winds have roared, and how high the snow-banks have been piled,
all has come right again in spring. Not the least root has lost
itself under the snows, so as not to be ready with its fresh leaves
and blossoms when the sun returns to melt the frosty chains of
winter. We have storms sometimes that threaten to shake everything
to pieces,--the thunder roars, the lightning flashes, and the winds
howl and beat; but, when all is past, everything comes out better and
brighter than before,--not a bird is killed, not the frailest flower
destroyed. But man comes, and in one day he will make a desolation
that centuries cannot repair. Ignorant boor that he is, and all
incapable of appreciating the glorious works of Nature, it seems to
be his glory to be able to destroy in a few hours what it was the
work of ages to produce. The noble oak, that has been cut away to
build this contemptible human dwelling, had a life older and wiser
than that of any man in this country. That tree has seen generations
of men come and go. It was a fresh young tree when Shakespeare was
born; it was hardly a middle-aged tree when he died; it was growing