The Mystery in the Pines
By Angie Bromeland
Deep in the confines of the tallest pines in the mountain, a light shined divinely. Only the mountain goats and black bears visited here. That is, until one day a lumberjack named Jerry was tramping through the mountain forest and got beaned by a pinecone. The truth is, he probably wouldn’t have looked up if not for the pinecone.
Deep in the confines of the tallest pines in the mountain, a light shined divinely. Only the mountain goats and black bears visited here. That is, until one day a lumberjack named Jerry was tramping through the mountain forest and got beaned by a pinecone. The truth is, he probably wouldn’t have looked up if not for the pinecone.
Jerry rubbed his head—the pinecone had fallen from such a
distance on the tall pine that it really did hurt a bit—and looked up. He saw
the light shining down. “Well, what on earth…” he said quietly to no one at
all. Jerry couldn’t tell what the light was coming from. But it definitely
wasn’t the sun. Jerry used his keen eyes to see if he could find an electric
cord twining up a tree, but of course there was no electricity here in
the remote wilderness, so it couldn’t be a light bulb.
Jerry wondered if some sort of creature was responsible for
the light. He decided to set up camp so he could see for himself in the light
of the following day. He couldn’t sleep for the wonderment he felt. It was just
as well. Instead, he read by the light of his flashlight. He only had two books
along, but he hoped to glean some information about the mysterious light
from one of them. Unfortunately, the books neither explained nor defined
anything helpful to Jerry.
Just before daybreak, Jerry drifted off to sleep. When he
woke, he looked up to the tall pines. Thousands of threads hung all about. Attached
to the threads were worms. He noticed they were faintly glowing. Soon, it would
be too bright outside to notice them.
Jerry scratched his beard. “Well, I’ll be,” he whispered. “Glow
worms.”
He had never seen anything like it before, and he never would
again.
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