THE OLD, OLD STORY

“All through the grove there reigns a stillness, broken now and then by the far-echoing whistle of an approaching train, or the more frequent sound of the wood-chopper’s ax. There is the never-ceasing sighing of the passing breezes through the tapering tree tops, and an undertone of rushing water in the stream near at hand. Here and there a bird is seen flitting about the branches, and now and then a squirrel dashes across from one great trunk to another. They skurry over the open ground at top speed, and then, when safe on their way up the massive trunks, they stop to flirt awhile with those who are watching them.”

“A group of merry children play hide and seek about the half hollow trunks of the 'Three Sisters'; gray-haired men and women from the East wander about and crane their necks in the effort to catch a glimpse of the sky-soaring tops of the great trees.” 

“In the distance is seated a loving couple. He with his arms about her slender waist; she tracing erratic lines on the smooth sand with his cane. It's the old, old story, told in the centuries gone beneath these very trees – even these giants of their kind – by many an Indian lover to many a maiden of his tribe.”

Author's Personal Collection

“The generations come and go, but these great trees remain. They stood there long before man peopled this western coast; they will remain there long after we who speculate upon their growth have passed away.”    

Source: “Santa Cruz Big Trees – Peculiarities of Their Growth,” San Francisco Chronicle, June, 9, 1889.