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You do not need any sleeping powders in the Black Forest, for the soft magic of its resiny air will lull you to repose. When they awakened in the morning they squirmed with complicated gymnastic yawns, and lay gazing in lazy half slumber into the branches above them. Suddenly Archer jumped to his feet. "Wherre arre ourr coats?" he cried. Tom sat up, rubbed his eyes and gazed about.
Here I slackened pace, for I drank the spicy, resiny wind, and beneath the arms of this noble tree I felt that I was safely home. Never did pine trees seem so dear. How sweet was their breath and their song, and how grandly they winnowed the sky! I tingled my fingers among their tassels, and rustled my feet among their brown needles and burrs, and was exhilarated and joyful beyond all I can write.
She passed from knee to knee, in a room reeking with the odours of fermented drinks and resiny wine-skins; then, her cheeks sticky with beer and pricked by rough beards, she escaped, clutching the oboli in her little hand, and ran to buy honey-cakes from an old woman who crouched behind her baskets under the Gate of the Moon.
During the calm, dry season of Indian summer, the fire creeps quietly along the ground, feeding on the dry needles and burs; then, arriving at the foot of a tree, the resiny bark is ignited, and the heated air ascends in a powerful current, increasing in velocity, and dragging the flames swiftly upward; then the leaves catch fire, and an immense column of flame, beautifully spired on the edges, and tinted a rose-purple hue, rushes aloft thirty or forty feet above the top of the tree, forming a grand spectacle, especially on a dark night.
But few indeed, strong and free with eyes undimmed with care, have gone far enough and lived long enough with the trees to gain anything like a loving conception of their grandeur and significance as manifested in the harmonies of their distribution and varying aspects throughout the seasons, as they stand arrayed in their winter garb rejoicing in storms, putting forth their fresh leaves in the spring while steaming with resiny fragrance, receiving the thunder-showers of summer, or reposing heavy-laden with ripe cones in the rich sungold of autumn.
I then went ahead looking for an open way through the bushes to where larger wood could be had, made a good lasting fire of resiny silver-fir roots, and a leafy bed beside it. I now told him I would run down the mountain, hasten back with help from the boat, and carry him down in comfort. But he would not hear of my leaving him. "No, no," he said, "I can walk down. Don't leave me."
"I wish I had a map," said Tom. "We ought to be thankful we've got the compass. If this is the Black Forest, you can bet I'm going to get a sooveneer. Gee, isn't it dark! It smells good though, believe me." They passed on now over land comparatively level, the soft, fragrant needles yielding under their feet, the tall cone-like trees diffusing their resiny, pungent odor.
The resiny pines are types of health and steadfastness; the robins feeding on the sod belong to the same species you have known since childhood; and surely these daisies, larkspurs, and goldenrods are the very friend-flowers of the old home garden.
Looking ahead of them, in a southerly direction, they could see dim, solemn aisles of sombre fir trees and the ground was like a brown velvet carpet, yielding gently under their feet. The air was laden with a pungent odor, accentuated by the recent storm, and the damp, resiny fragrance was like a bracing tonic to the fugitives, bidding them welcome to these silent, unfrequented depths.
That is the last; now there is only the grasshopper left. And there's nothing to say of a grasshopper, you never see it; it doesn't count, only he's there gritting his resiny teeth, as you might say. I sit and think of all these things; of how summer has its joys for a wanderer, so there's no sort of need to wait till autumn comes.
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