Though comparatively
young, they were about 100 feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops were
rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to climb trees in
making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the
top of this one, and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration
of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate
torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round,
tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves,
while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed.
In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to
thirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen
others of the same species still more severely tried--bent almost to the
ground indeed, in heavy snows--without breaking a fiber. I was therefore
safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excited
forest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremely
beautiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales
as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples
and broad swelling undulations across the valleys from ridge to ridge,
as the shining foliage was stirred by corresponding waves of air.
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