"Can you tell?
I thought perhaps they were all dead." "Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered.

"Look here!" He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and branches.

He took a thick knife out of his pocket and opened one of its blades.
"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said.

"An' there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year.

This here's a new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray.
Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.
"That one ?" she said.