I thought of how it had towered up, how the sun had kissed its
branches, how the birds had sung and built their nests against
her green heart, hovered in her great, outstretched arms. The
birds of a century, the birds of a thousand years. How the
storms had beat upon her; the first autumn rains of a thousand
years, the first snow-flakes that had wavered down in a slantin'
line and touched the tips of her outstretched fingers, and then
had drifted about her till her heart wuz almost frozen and she
would clap her cold hands together to warm 'em, and wail out a
dretful moanin' sound of desolation, and pain.

But the first warm rain drops of Spring would come, the sunshine
warmed her, she swung out her grand arms in triumph agin, and
joined the majestic psalm of victory and rejoicing with all her
grand sisterhood of psalmists. The stars looked down on her, the
sun lit her lofty forward, the suns and stars of a thousand
years. Strange animals, that mebby we don't know anything about
now, roamed about her feet, birds of a different plumage and song
sung to her (mebby).

Strange faces of men and women looked up to her. What faces had
looked up to her in sorrow and in joy? I'd gin a good deal to
know. I'd have loved to see them strange faces touched with
strange pains and hopes. Tribulations and joys of a thousand
years ago. What sort of tribulations wuz they, and what sort of
joys? Sunthin' human, sunthin' that we hold in common, no doubt.
The same pain that pained Eve as she walked down out of Eden, the
same joy that Adam enjoyed while they and the garden wuz
prosperus, wuz in their faces most probable whether their