Part 4 (1/2)

The giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, and was known to all the country round about as the ”Bean ellum.” The other trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, as if they were not worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, king of the meadow, monarch of the village.

It shot from the ground for a s.p.a.ce, straight, strong, and superb, and then bust into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, all growing symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting a grateful shadow under which all the inhabitants of the tiny village might have gathered.

It was not alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density of foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low grown of its branches and the extra-ordinary breadth of its shade. Pa.s.sers-by from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams by the wayside, crawl through the stump fence and walk across the fields, for a nearer view of its magnificence. One man, indeed, was known to drive by the tree every day during the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, each time he pa.s.sed; but he was a poet and his intellect was not greatly esteemed in the village.

The elm was almost as beautiful in one season as in another. In the spring it rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed ground, its tiny brown leaf buds bursting with pride at the thought of the loveliness coiled up inside. In summer it stood in the midst of a waving garden of b.u.t.tercups and whiteweed, a towering ma.s.s of verdant leaf.a.ge, a shelter from the sun and a refuge from the storm; a cool, splendid, hospitable dome, under which the weary farmer might fling himself, and gaze upward as into the heights and depths of an emerald heaven. As for the birds, they made it a fas.h.i.+onable summer resort, the most commodious and attractive in the whole country; with no limit to the accommodations for those of a gregarious turn of mind, liking the advantages of select society combined with country air. In the autumn it held its own; for when the other elms changed their green to duller tints, the nooning tree put on a gown of yellow, and stood out against the far background of sombre pine woods a brilliant ma.s.s of gold and brown. In winter, when there was no longer dun of upturned sod, nor waving daisy gardens, nor ruddy autumn gra.s.ses, it rose above the dazzling snow crust, lifting its bare, shapely branches in sober elegance and dignity, and seeming to say, ”Do not pity me; I have been, and, please G.o.d, I shall be!”

Whenever the weather was sufficiently mild, it was used as a ”nooning”

tree by all the men at work in the surrounding fields; but it was in haying time that it became the favorite lunching and ”bangeing” place for Squire Bean's hands and those of Miss Vilda c.u.mmins, who owned the adjoining farm. The men congregated under the spreading branches at twelve o' the clock, and spent the noon hour there, eating and ”swapping” stories, as they were doing to-day.

Each had a tin pail, and each consumed a quant.i.ty of ”flour food” that kept the housewives busy at the cook stove from morning till night. A glance at Pitt Packard's luncheon, for instance, might suffice as an ill.u.s.tration, for, as Jabe Sloc.u.m said, ”Pitt took after both his parents; one et a good deal, 'n' the other a good while.” His pail contained four doughnuts, a quarter section of pie, six b.u.t.termilk biscuits, six ginger cookies, a baked cup custard, and a quart of cold coffee. This quant.i.ty was a trifle unusual, but every man in the group was lined throughout with pie, cemented with b.u.t.termilk bread, and riveted with doughnuts.

Jabe Sloc.u.m and Brad Gibson lay extended slouchingly, their cowhide boots turned up to the sky; Dave Milliken, Steve Webster, and the others leaned back against the tree-trunk, smoking clay pipes, or hugging their knees and chewing blades of gra.s.s reflectively.

One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke into the air. After a while he lay down in the gra.s.s with his head buried in his hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked and laughed; for he had no stories, though he put in an absent-minded word or two when he was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee, Matt Henderson, dubbed ”Dixie” for short. He was a giant fellow,--a ”great gormin' critter,” Samantha Ann Milliken called him; but if he had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders, he would have been thought a man of splendid presence.

He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another section of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the ma.s.s of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, and the sad mouth,--a mouth that had never grown into laughing curves through telling Yankee jokes,--it was not these that gave him what the boys called a ”kind of a downcasted look.” The man from Tennessee had something more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart.

”I'm goin' to doze a spell,” drawled Jabe Sloc.u.m, pulling his straw hat over his eyes. ”I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my mind I can't git a wink o' sleep.”

This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of laughter.

”It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt Lyddy,” said David Milliken.

”You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord G.o.d o' creation jest took holt 'n'

worked together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!”

”You're right, Jabe.” (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting a _D_ in the bark. He was always cutting _D_'s these days.) ”This ellum can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state. My brother that lives in California says that the big redwoods, big as they air, don't throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, 'specially in the fall o'

the year, as our State o' Maine trees; 'a.s.siduous trees,' he called 'em.”

”_a.s.sidyus_ trees? Why don't you talk United States while you're about it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? _a.s.sidyus!_ What does it mean, anyhow?”

”Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' I never forgot it.”

”a.s.sidyus--a.s.sidyus--it don't sound as if it meant nothing', to me.”

”a.s.siduous means 'busy,'” said the man from Tennessee, who had suddenly waked from a brown study, and dropped off into another as soon as he had given the definition.

”Busy, does it? Wall, I guess we ain't no better off now 'n we ever was.

One tree's 'bout 's busy as another, as fur 's I can see.”

”Wall, there is kind of a meanin' in it to me, but it'sturrible far fetched,” remarked Jabe Sloc.u.m, rather sleepily. ”You see, our ellums and maples 'n' all them trees spends part o' the year in buddin' 'n'

gittin' out their leaves 'n' hangin' em all over the branches; 'n' then, no sooner air they full grown than they hev to begin colorin' of 'em red or yeller or brown, 'n' then shakin' 'em off; 'n' this is all extry, you might say, to their every-day ch.o.r.es o' growin' 'n' cirkerlatin' sap, 'n' spreadin' 'n' thickenin' 'n' shovin' out limbs, 'n' one thing 'n'

'nother; 'n' it stan's to reason that the first 'n' hemlocks 'n' them California redwoods, that keeps their clo'es on right through the year, can't be so busy as them that keeps a-dressin' 'n' ondressin' all the time.”

”I guess you're 'bout right,” allowed Steve, ”but I shouldn't never 'a'

thought of it in the world. What yer takin' out o' that bottle, Jabe? I thought you was a temperance man.”

”I guess he 's like the feller over to Shandagee schoolhouse, that said he was in favor o' the law, but agin its enforcement!” laughed Pitt Packard.