How sharply I groaned as I began to topple;
how hard I crashed. I lay helpless, severed from my
roots. When the men hacked off my branches, it
seemed to be all over. But then they lowered me
down the hill to a tiny beach. They scraped off
my bark and floated me out to a ship they called
the Dolphin. It wasn’t long before I stood upright
again, fastened as firmly to the Dolphin as if I had
grown there. They nailed pieces of lumber onto
me—yardarms, they called them—and fitted
them with sails.
There were two other masts, before and behind
me, but I, the tallest, could see over everything.
The water sighed and swished around the hull,
then boomed against the cliff. When the sails were
full, we headed out to sea. I could feel every creak
and groan of the ship beneath me as it rocked
with the waves. I soon got used to the salty
taste of the spray that bounced back on me
from the prow. I came to know the feel and
the voices of the men who scampered around
in my rigging.
What unforgettable days! I gloried in my
travels across the oceans of the world. We flew
before the wind; we skimmed the dancing waters;
we raced the tides and the clouds as I could not
have done before. Exploring every horizon, we
found new lands and astonishing people. Laughing
children splashed and waved at us from warm, blue
lagoons. We were welcomed by throbbing drums
on wind-swept, mountainous islands. At times,
chanting warriors with spears chased us from hid-
den coves. In far northern oceans, we dodged
huge ice floes and barely escaped being frozen into
the Arctic cap. We never knew what unexpected
adventure awaited us.RIGGING MEANS
THE ROPES THAT
SUPPORT AND
CONTROL THE SAILS.
CLEARLY
NOT THIS
ROPE.
35