me where and how."

"Oh if I were only stronger, David!"

"You are!" said the Harvester. "You are much better than you were
yesterday. You can talk, and that's all that's necessary. The rooms
are ready for furniture. The men will carry it where you want it. A
decorator is coming to hang the curtains. By night we will be settled;
you can lie in the swing while I read to you a story so wonderful that
the wildest fairy tale you ever heard never touched it."

"What will it be, David?"

"Eat all the red raspberries and cream, bread and butter, and drink all
the milk you can. There's blood, beefsteak, and bones in it. As I was
saying, you have come here a stranger to a strange land. The first thing
is for you to understand and love the woods. Before you can do that you
should master the history of one tree; just the same as you must learn
to know and love me before your childlike trust in all mankind returns
again. Understand? Well, the fates knew you were on the way, coming
trembling down the brink, Ruth, so they put it into the heart of a great
man to write largely of a wonderful tree, especially for your benefit.
After it had fallen he took it apart, split it in sections, and year
by year spread out history for all the world to read. It made a classic
story filled with unsurpassed wonders. It was a pine of a thousand
years, close the age of our mother tree, Ruth, and when we have learned
from Enos Mills how to wrest secrets from the hearts of centuries, we
will climb the hill and measure our oak, and then I will estimate, and
you will write, and we will make a record for our tree."

"Oh, I'd like that!"

"So would I," said the Harvester. "And a million other things I can
think of that we can learn together. It won't require long for me to
teach you all I know, and by that time your hand will be clasped in
mine, and our 'hearts will beat as one,' and you will give me a kiss
every night and morning, and a few during the day for interest, and we
will go on in life together and learn songs, miracles, and wonders until
the old oak calls us. Then we will ascend the hill gladly and lie down
and offer up our bodies, and our children will lay flowers over our
hearts, and gather the herbs and paint the pictures? Amen. I hear a van
on the bridge. Just you go to your room and lie down until I get things
unloaded and where they belong. Then you and the decorator can make us
home-like, and to-morrow we will begin to live. Won't th