It was a very simple little story , that of the slender brown reed which grew by the forest pool and always was sad and sighing because it could not utter music like the brook and the birds and the winds . All the bright , beautiful things around it mocked it and laughed at it for its folly . Who would ever look for music in it , a plain , brown , unbeautiful thing ? But one day a youth came through the wood ; he was as beautiful as the spring ; he cut the brown reed and fashioned it according to his liking ; and then he put it to his lips and breathed on it ; and , oh , the music that floated through the forest ! It was so entrancing that everything -- brooks and birds and winds -- grew silent to listen to it . Never had anything so lovely been heard ; it was the music that had for so long been shut up in the soul of the sighing reed and was set free at last through its pain and suffering . I had heard the Story Girl tell many a more dramatic tale ; but that one stands out for me in memory above them all , partly , perhaps , because of the spot in which she told it , partly because it was the last one I was to hear her tell for many years -- the last one she was ever to tell me on the golden road . When Uncle Blair had finished his sketch the shafts of sunshine were turning crimson and growing more and more remote ; the early autumn twilight was falling over the woods . We left our dell , saying good-bye to it for ever , as the Story Girl had suggested , and we went slowly homeward through the fir woods , where a haunting , indescribable odour stole out to meet us . `` There is magic in the scent of dying fir , '' Uncle Blair was saying aloud to himself , as if forgetting he was not quite alone . `` It gets into our blood like some rare , subtly-compounded wine , and thrills us with unutterable sweetnesses , as of recollections from some other fairer life , lived in some happier star . Compared to it , all other scents seem heavy and earth-born , luring to the valleys instead of the heights . But the tang of the fir summons onward and upward to some ` far-off , divine event ' -- some spiritual peak of attainment whence we shall see with unfaltering , unclouded vision the spires of some aerial City Beautiful , or the fulfilment of some fair , fadeless land of promise . '' He was silent for a moment , then added in a lower tone , `` Felicity , you loved the scent of dying fir . If you were here tonight with me -- Felicity -- Felicity ! '' Something in his voice made me suddenly sad . I was comforted when I felt the Story Girl slip her hand into mine . So we walked out of the woods into the autumn dusk . We were in a little valley . Half-way up the opposite slope a brush fire was burning clearly and steadily in a maple grove .
There was something indescribably alluring in that XXXXX , glowing so redly against the dark background of forest and twilit hill .
Blair day fire fulfilment left odour scents sweetnesses twilight years