"I don't make anything particularly of it," replied Helen, dubiously. "Just a tiny grove of aspens -- some very small, some larger, but none very big. But it's pretty with its green and yellow leaves fluttering and quivering.""It doesn't make you think of a fight?"
"Fight? No, it certainly does not," replied Helen.
"Well, it's as good an example of fight, of strife, of selfishness, as you will find in the forest," he said. "Now come over, you an' Bo, an' let me show you what I mean.""Come on, Nell," cried Bo, with enthusiasm. "He'll open our eyes some more."Nothing loath, Helen went with them to the little clump of aspens.
"About a hundred altogether," said Dale. "They're pretty well shaded by the spruces, but they get the sunlight from east an' south. These little trees all came from the same seedlings. They're all the same age. Four of them stand, say, ten feet or more high an' they're as large around as my wrist. Here's one that's largest. See how full-foliaged he is -- how he stands over most of the others, but not so much over these four next to him. They all stand close together, very close, you see. Most of them are no larger than my thumb. Look how few branches they have, an' none low down.
Look at how few leaves. Do you see how all the branches stand out toward the east an' south -- how the leaves, of course, face the same way? See how one branch of one tree bends aside one from another tree. That's a fight for the sunlight. Here are one -- two -- three dead trees. Look, Ican snap them off . An' now look down under them. Here are little trees five feet high -- four feet high -- down to these only a foot high. Look how pale, delicate, fragile, unhealthy! They get so little sunshine. They were born with the other trees, but did not get an equal start. Position gives the advantage, perhaps."Dale led the girls around the little grove, illustrating his words by action. He seemed deeply in earnest.
"You understand it's a fight for water an' sun. But mostly sun, because, if the leaves can absorb the sun, the tree an' roots will grow to grasp the needed moisture. Shade is death -- slow death to the life of trees. These little aspens are fightin' for place in the sunlight. It is a merciless battle. They push an' bend one another's branches aside an' choke them. Only perhaps half of these aspens will survive, to make one of the larger clumps, such as that one of full-grown trees over there. One season will give advantage to this saplin' an' next year to that one. A few seasons' advantage to one assures its dominance over the others. But it is never sure of holdin' that dominance. An 'if wind or storm or a strong-growin' rival does not overthrow it, then sooner or later old age will. For there is absolute and continual fight. What is true of these aspens is true of all the trees in the forest an' of all plant life in the forest.
What is most wonderful to me is the tenacity of life."And next day Dale showed them an even more striking example of this mystery of nature.
He guided them on horseback up one of the thick, verdant-wooded slopes, calling their attention at various times to the different growths, until they emerged on the summit of the ridge where the timber grew scant and dwarfed.
At the edge of timber-line he showed a gnarled and knotted spruce-tree, twisted out of all semblance to a beautiful spruce, bent and storm-blasted, with almost bare branches, all reaching one' way. The tree was a specter. It stood alone. It had little green upon it. There seemed something tragic about its contortions. But it was alive and strong.
It had no rivals to take sun or moisture. Its enemies were the snow and wind and cold of the heights.
Helen felt, as the realization came to her, the knowledge Dale wished to impart, that it was as sad as wonderful, and as mysterious as it was inspiring. At that moment there were both the sting and sweetness of life -- the pain and the joy -- in Helen's heart. These strange facts were going to teach her -- to transform her. And even if they hurt, she welcomed them.
